Flight test and hardware-in-the-loop programs have historically relied on manual, fragmented workflows to review telemetry data. Engineers move between disconnected tools, reconstruct context after each run, and triage anomalies by hand. This talk examines how teams across commercial space and defence have begun replacing those workflows with automated data infrastructure, and what that shift has meant for review timelines and test cadence.

Drawing on specific program examples, Austin will walk through how automated ingestion, rules-based anomaly detection, and persistent test history have compressed flight analysis from days to hours. The talk covers the technical and organizational factors that drive that compression, the trade-offs teams encountered during the transition, and the broader implications for how hardware programs can be structured when data review is no longer the bottleneck.