"We need to be more efficient with what we have," said Saul Ortigazo, executing agent for the 412th Test Wing/Engineering Test Instrumentation Group. "BYU's project is one we have high hopes for. It eliminates the problem so we get a nice, robust stream of data. It's pretty exciting."

Rice's solution was to transmit a different signal from each antenna and give the two signals a special mathematical relationship that is decoded on the other end. It all works on one frequency because the system can recover all the data even if the link to one antenna is severed.

The technology was tested at Edwards during the flight of a small test plane in February 2004. Data from the test was stored on a DVD and mailed to Rice, who analyzed it and found it worked.

The next step is for Rice and graduate assistants Tom Nelson and Adam Anderson to build a prototype that will provide results in real time instead of only for post-flight analysis.

"It's a high-tech radio box that's going to look like a satellite receiver," Rice said.

The Flight Test Center at Edwards puts more than 1,500 test flights in the air each year, Capt. Kelly George said. Many of those flights are military aircraft like the F-22 Raptor, but others are tests contracted by aerospace companies.

If BYU's system reduces the number of flights, it could save the military and the other companies millions of dollars.

"It's something that would be used at all the nation's flight test ranges," Ortigazo said.

That would be a high-profile success for the BYU telemetry program — one of five university programs in the United States — which was created with donations from the International Foundation for Telemetering.

Delays in delivering a Joint Strike Fighter jet to Edwards — tests initially were to begin this year, George said — make it more likely Rice can finish the prototype and BYU can license it to a company that would manufacture and market it in time to help test pilots put the JFS through its paces.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com