Duane Moore

Chief Financial Officer

Duane Moore is an accomplished aerospace and mechanical engineer with over 15 years of expertise in flight testing, avionics integration, and aerospace research. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University and an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from UCLA, specializing in Fluid Dynamics and Hypersonic Flows.

Duane began his career as a USAF Flight Test Engineer at Edwards AFB, where he played a key role in the development and deployment of the F-16 Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto GCAS), earning recognition as part of the 2018 Robert J. Collier Trophy team. He later served as Lead Flight Test Engineer at the Bombardier Flight Test Center, overseeing avionics and certification testing for the Global 7500 business jet.

Currently, Duane contributes to advanced aerospace initiatives at the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) and Level 5 Autonomy, focusing on model-based flight control design, computational fluid dynamics, and autonomous systems development. His work continues to advance safety, innovation, and performance across both military and commercial aviation sectors.

  • Founder and CFO – Level 5 Autonomy Labs LLC (2024-Present)

    Leading cutting-edge initiatives in autonomous systems and aviation technology, focusing on flight test techniques and test data analysis, trajectory prediction, and other flight dynamics aspects.

    Computational Aerodynamics Engineer - National Institute for Aviation Research (2019-Present)

    Leading a team of more than 10 engineers that provide CFD and flight dynamics modeling and simulation support to a variety of commercial and military customers. The team has used CFD results to build aerodynamic databases for flight simulations, evaluate aircraft loads, analyze external modifications to aircraft, and conduct store safe separation analyses.

    Lead Flight Test Engineer – Bombardier Flight Test Center (2014-2019)

    Served as the lead flight test engineer for avionics testing on the Challenger 350, Challenger 650, and Global 7500 aircraft. Flight crew test experience including first flight of Global 7500 FTV3 and over 650 hours flight time conducting tests within the United States, Canada, and Europe.

    Project Flight Test Engineer – Air Force Flight Test Center (2006-2014)

    Served as the project technical lead for the integration and flight test of the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto GCAS) fielded on the USAF Block 40/50 F-16 fleet.

  • Computational Aerodynamics: Responsible for conducting complex CFD simulations on high performance computing systems on the scale of 100-200 Million CPU-Hours annually.

    Flight Modeling and Simulation: Expertise modeling complex aircraft flight control systems within 6DOF engineering simulations, including multi-body store separation simulations.

    Flight Test Engineering: Recognized leader in flight test techniques, flight test safety, test planning, test conduct, and technical reporting. Experience conducting flight tests in both civilian and military environments, either from telemetry rooms or aboard the test aircraft.

  • Collier Trophy recipient as part of the F-16 and F-35 Auto GCAS team (2019)

    Bombardier Flight Test Center Employee of the Year (2018)

    Air Force Flight Test Center Golden Quill award for the best technical report of the year (2013)

    USAF Global Power Fighter Combined Test Force Engineer of the Year (2012)

    Private Pilot Certificate (2006)

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