Fiscal Year 1998 budgetary reductions eliminated AFIT’s Power Systems Design Course along with the majority of The Civil Engineer and Services School technical curriculum. Subsequently, Operation ENDURING FREEDOM lessons-learned identified that deploying engineers lacked the technical design skills to construct expeditionary and semi-permanent infrastructure. Specific to the electrical field, graduating electrical engineers have extensive electronics and software education but little preparation for the power systems which predominate their base and deployed jobs.

Thus, in FY06, the Civil Engineer and Services School re-energized the Power System Design Course (ENG 571) in response to on-going reconstruction missions and home-station efforts to recapitalize electrical infrastructure. The course bridges the gap between an electrical engineer undergraduate degree and the specialized power system design skill set. The developers used an innovative combination of distance learning and residence material to field a comprehensive graduate level course. The eight-week, self-paced web-based portion of the course included such topics as: Constant-Current Airfield Lighting Design, Short-Circuit Protection, Motor Protection, Lightning Protection, Contingency Power Systems, and Power Flow Analysis.

After successfully completing the distance-learning portion of the course, students attended a one-week seminar in residence at AFIT. The capstone seminar was not the typical continuing education course. Students reverse-engineered Wright Patterson AFB power systems, conducted site visits, and discussed designs with engineers, policy makers, and technicians to better understand how to get from the design table to the construction site. Students toured base substations, the airfield lighting vault, auxiliary generators, and facility electrical systems.

The first offering ended on 20 Oct 2006 and resulted in the exemplary course ratings of 4.86 on a 5.0 scale. One student stated, “This course doubled my confidence and technical competence.” Several ENG 571 graduates have begun the real test after passing the final exam here at AFIT: serving as deployed engineers leading the way!

For more information regarding ENG 571, please contact Capt. Jonathan Gray at jonathan.gray@afit.edu.