Dayton Innovation: This business builds on the Wright Bros. tradition to improve aviation – Dayton Daily News

The coronavirus pandemic is no match for the Dayton regions innovative spirit. The Dayton Daily News is profiling small businesses in our region as they navigate through these challenging times. To nominate a small business, email Rebecca.Mullins@coxinc.com.

Business Name: Ahmic Aerospace

Location: 400 Sugar Camp Circle, Dayton

Owners name: Dr. Ryan Meritt

Years in operation: 2014 to present

Describe what your business does: Ahmic Aerospace is a research and development company specializing in high-performance instrumentation and measurement techniques. We develop tools that can be used to characterize and understand complex flow physics. Our research portfolio targets many high-speed test environments, including hypersonic aircraft, scramjet engines, space vehicles and thermal protection systems.

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What inspired you to start this business? I set out to transform the way aerospace test data is collected under challenging flight environments. Since the Wright brothers first took flight, the world has been fascinated with aviation and how it works. Nearly 120 years later, we are still learning and improving this science and technology.

Within the aerospace industry, many of the standard instruments currently available are inadequate to meet the test and evaluation requirements for the next generation of aircraft.

It is this capability gap that inspired me to start Ahmic Aerospace.

How has your business embraced innovation? Above all else, we consider ourselves professional problem solvers. Ahmic Aerospace believes that the conventional norm cannot be challenged without first asking the question, Why?

At Ahmic Aerospace, we question the industry standard. We look at what has worked in the past and use this as a platform for evaluation. We ask questions, we try new methods, and test with our own approach. We document and evaluate every step from the design, calibration, the testing method and environment, and the final presentation. It is our non- industry standard approach to research and development that allows us to pursue these progressive ideas. As innovative engineers and scientists, our goal is to embrace change, create new ideas and transform technologies.

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Whats your biggest challenge right now? Our biggest challenge is to test and evaluate new instrumentation under relevant and operational conditions. This is typically accomplished in wind tunnel facilities. However, the available government wind tunnels are expensive and have busy test schedules. To help address this limited accessibility, Ahmic Aerospace recently constructed its own supersonic wind tunnel. As our technology portfolio grows, so too does our testing needs. Thus, Ahmic Aerospace is already planning different upgrades, including a new hypersonic wind tunnel.

Whats your biggest opportunity right now? The instrumentation that Ahmic Aerospace develops has great potential to outside markets interested in measuring fluid mechanics, including automobile, maritime, pharmaceutical and green technologies. Ahmic Aerospace is always looking for new applications in which our technology can be applied and help other industries grow and improve.

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What do you want readers to know about your business today? Ahmic Aerospace is striving to live up to the heritage and legacy of aviation in the Dayton community. We are a fast growing company founded on new ideas and new solutions with the innovation and capabilities to expand into many business fields and industries.

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Dayton Innovation