Any Aerospace Engineers here?

[Cal166]

Very interest stuff that I have read in this post. I have always had an interest in the field but never pursue it. Maybe in my next life.

Good luck Inferfno and keep it up, you'll get there.

 

[dammitgibs]

Bignate: Awesome thanks for the article, my next question is would this require new intermediate and main module gear boxes or will current ones be able to handle it?

Also not sure I understand how they would go about eliminating the APU, does the engine have it's own pneumatic accumulator? And more importantly what would replace it for ground power?

 

[Inferno0032]

Another Aerospace Engineer here. I work for Orbital Sciences in their launch systems group. Actually there are very few aerospace engineers that I work with. It seems the vast majority are electrical engineers, a few mechanical, and only a hand full of real aeros. Orbital is a "small" company as compared to the likes of Boeing or Lockheed. But that also means smaller teams and that you generally have to be pretty smart to stick around.

IMO the smaller aerospace companies can have a higher pressure environment but it also gives you the ability to more easily get noticed if you are performing well.

Your SN makes no sense in this topic :S 🙂

I guess I never thought of that aspect of smaller companies, but that makes alot of sense. I suppose then each person bears a little more responsibility, whereas some of the larger companies spread the workload out?

The ME and AEM programs also only differ by a handful of classes, most of which seem to deal with compressible fluids, and a few aircraft-specific classes. Other than that ME is basically the same with a few small wrinkles.

The aging workforce in Aero obviously looks positive as far as job security, but how does that play out as far as pay goes? Or will they be relatively unrelated?

 

[AeroEngy]

The ME and AEM programs also only differ by a handful of classes, most of which seem to deal with compressible fluids, and a few aircraft-specific classes. Other than that ME is basically the same with a few small wrinkles.

The ME and AE programs were I went to school also had about 75% overlap. That is why I just stayed an extra year and got degrees in both Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. It was two degrees for not that much additional effort.

 

[KillerCharlie]

If you work for a large company, one huge advantage is that you can move around. Don't like what you're doing? Just try something else within the same company. I know people that have moved from aero to loads to structures, all without even changing what building they work in.

 

[The Stig]

I work at a UTC aerospace subsidiary, not an eng. but my dad is at the same company. Grandfather worked for Grumman and had a cool part in developing the original lunar lander. It's a steady growth industry, so it's not going anywhere. But everyone is laying off right now so hopefully that will turn around before you would be looking. For me, even though I'm not an engineer, it's cool work to be around, interesting products etc. Plus we made the space suit up until the newest bid so.. thats gotta count for something.

Hoping we get a walk around tour of the 787 like we did the A380 (i work on the A380 project)

 

[Inferno0032]

I work at a UTC aerospace subsidiary, not an eng. but my dad is at the same company. Grandfather worked for Grumman and had a cool part in developing the original lunar lander. It's a steady growth industry, so it's not going anywhere. But everyone is laying off right now so hopefully that will turn around before you would be looking. For me, even though I'm not an engineer, it's cool work to be around, interesting products etc. Plus we made the space suit up until the newest bid so.. thats gotta count for something.

Hoping we get a walk around tour of the 787 like we did the A380 (i work on the A380 project)

Got a walk-through of one of the A380 testing planes, one with all of the water ballasts for weight testing. Very impressive plane, and the fly-by-wire demo of it was really awesome.

 

[drinkmorejava]

I wish I saw this thread earlier.

I graduate next semester AE/ME from RPI, and I'll be doing propulsion testing at Edwards AFB.

You can say that AE and ME have a lot of overlap, but so do Civil, Environmental, and EE too. The issue is that everyone will be taking the same gen eds + the same core engineering, so you only really get to differentiate the last 3-4 semesters anyway. As far as RPI goes, MEs don't get any experience in aerodynamics or flight control and only a small amount in boundary layer theory. Basically, they know nothing about fluid flow beyond, "we put energy in a fluid to gain mechanical energy somewhere else." If you're not interested in that, you definitely don't take aero because it's going to be 40 credits of stuff that could very easily put you to sleep. Likewise, if you take mech and want to get into aero, there's nothing saying you won't be able to, but your peers will know much more about how that plane is supposed to work.

 

[The Stig]

Got a walk-through of one of the A380 testing planes, one with all of the water ballasts for weight testing. Very impressive plane, and the fly-by-wire demo of it was really awesome.

Agreed! If you're not familiar with the process through which they put that behemoth together look it up a little bit it's mind boggling. Components are built in 4 different countries and brought together for Final Assembly at the Toulouse France plant, which is who I work with the most.

They fly fuselage sections around in this thing, ain't she a beauty!

You can check out some of our part in the A380 here http://www.hamilton-standard.com/vg...gnVCM1000004601000aRCRD&fromSearch=fromSearch

Cooling packs, Air Generation Systems, Cabin Pressure Control, Auxiliary Power and Turbine power systems is where most of our money is. I'll tell you, new projects of this size are tough, but I'm still glad I didn't get assigned to the 787...

 

[KillerCharlie]

I wish I saw this thread earlier.

As far as RPI goes, MEs don't get any experience in aerodynamics or flight control and only a small amount in boundary layer theory. Basically, they know nothing about fluid flow beyond, "we put energy in a fluid to gain mechanical energy somewhere else."

I would say at Boeing, at least 90% of those that work in aerodynamics are aerospace engineers and not mechanical. Probably more.

 

[KillerCharlie]

I'm more partial to this... plus it's 50% bigger than the Beluga!

 

[Bignate603]

Bignate: Awesome thanks for the article, my next question is would this require new intermediate and main module gear boxes or will current ones be able to handle it?

Also not sure I understand how they would go about eliminating the APU, does the engine have it's own pneumatic accumulator? And more importantly what would replace it for ground power?

It's being designed to bolt up to the current gearbox but we're skeptical that the old one will handle the increased power. This is a demonstrator program so if/when the army selects the engine that they like there would be a new design iteration where we'd refine everything even more. I would think during that iteration they'd do a program to get a new gearbox.

That article is actually the first time we heard that anyone was actually considering using the engine to eliminate the APU. It was probably just some sales and marketing guy shooting his mouth off without talking to engineering 🙄. We could do it, but we haven't really looked at everything we'd need to do to it to make it happen.

 

[Bignate603]

I work at a UTC aerospace subsidiary, not an eng. but my dad is at the same company. Grandfather worked for Grumman and had a cool part in developing the original lunar lander. It's a steady growth industry, so it's not going anywhere. But everyone is laying off right now so hopefully that will turn around before you would be looking. For me, even though I'm not an engineer, it's cool work to be around, interesting products etc. Plus we made the space suit up until the newest bid so.. thats gotta count for something.

We haven't laid anyone off yet. We're on a hiring freeze and spent most of last year on a 10% pay reduction. They did fire a handful of people that had bad performance reviews for 2 years running but technically that was an old policy that we've been ignoring for the last few years because we had way too much work and not enough people. They gave a bit of encouragement to guys that were considering retiring but if they wanted to stay they didn't try and stop them.

My company laid off pretty heavily in the last large recession and when the economy recovered they lost business because they didn't have the people to tackle some of the opportunities that came their way. I think they're trying to avoid that this time.

 

[Bignate603]

I'm more partial to this... plus it's 50% bigger than the Beluga!

For the dream lifter how do they get the fuselage that it's carrying out? Is the front end hinged? I know that one of the reasons that the Beluga has it's massive forehead is because they didn't want to hinge a section that contained the cockpit. Apparently for that plane moving the cockpit required a lengthy recalibration of instrumentation after each time that they wanted to avoid. I'd be interested to see how Boeing got around that issue.

 

[John P]

I'm an AE grad working at Boeing as a Liaison Engineer on the 767 line. Liaison is a great field to get into, especially to start off your career. Or you can make it your career, I've been doing it for 21 years now. You get to crawl around the airplane and troubleshoot/disposition repairs for structures and/or system problems as they arise on the production line.

Make sure after your sophomore and/or junior year you put in for a summer internship at Boeing if you are interested. It's a good way to check out the industry and see what you might be interested in as well as getting your foot in the door.


The tail is hinged on the dreamlifter, see here:
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/4/9/6/1405694.jpg

 

[Fenixgoon]

don't forget to check out government aero jobs. you may find some pretty cool stuff there. my bro is an aero in govt and he's doing quite well.

 

[Bignate603]

The tail is hinged on the dreamlifter, see here:
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/4/9/6/1405694.jpg

Interesting, thanks for the picture.

 

[Ozoned]

I feel lucky to have such a passion for something, and be able to do things with it as a job, and just wondering what kinds of things fellow ATOT Aero guys might be working on.

Make it your ONLY passion. Don't get some chick knocked up that will later get a fat ass and bitch at you all of the time and then you'll spend the next 30 years selling mobile homes and wondering why the fvck your daughter turned out to be a crackwhore all because you had to quit college.

 

[garndawg]

Count me as another ASE. So far, 16+ years in experiemental flight test. Mostly military. Some transport category, mostly fighters. Spent a year or so of a past life in a wind tunnel blowing on NASCAR types.

Be advised that an ASE degree is just a foot-in-the-door. Once you start your job and begin to specialize, you'll learn MUCH more. Think of your first 1-5 years as an apprenticeship. The most valuable ASE people in my field are Structural Dynamics (Flutter/vibroacoustics).

Insert Standard Flight Test Joke: Q: What are Flight Limitations for?
A: They're for if you intend to use the aircraft again. If it looks like you're NOT going to use the aircraft again anyway, there are NO limitations...

 

[Lizardman]

From what I understand the 701C and 701D are just evolutions of the original T700. What I'm working on is a completely new design, the development program is called AATE (advanced affordable turbine engine) and there's two competing engines right now. GE is behind one and the other is a partnership between Pratt & Whitney and Honeywell Engines (I work at Honeywell).

The whole point is a a bump up on power to 3000 hp, reduce fuel burn, and decrease cost of ownership. The extra power would give the blackhawk and apache extra power in hot high altitude situations that they're seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here's a good article about the AATE program

I work for the DOD and do some analysis on helicopter every now and then. Its a shame the T-800 engine never made it to large scale production.

Bignate do you know anything about this engine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LHTEC_T800
edit: Large scale production, for US military.

 

[Freshgeardude]

WOW! I didn't realize so many people on this forum were aerospace engineers. I am currently a junior in high school and already have my future in college set for aerospace engineering. I want to focus more on spacecrafts specifically and hopefully one day become an astronaut. Many of my friends don't think it will happen, but I wont stop until I am.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

My roommate through most of college was AE, but he switched to the more stupid one with flight (he could have taken AE with flight but wasn't) and became a warrent officer in the army when he was done.

 

[gwai lo]

Yet another one of us here..I'm a senior AAE at Purdue, graduating in May with no job yet. 🙁

Be advised that an ASE degree is just a foot-in-the-door. Once you start your job and begin to specialize, you'll learn MUCH more. Think of your first 1-5 years as an apprenticeship. The most valuable ASE people in my field are Structural Dynamics (Flutter/vibroacoustics).

That's what I've discovered in the past semester with upper divs and a few grad level classes...we take two classes in every major field for our core requiements and we still know just about nothing useful.

 

[krylon]

Don't work for Saab

 

[eLiu]

Hai.
I graduated aero/astro + math in 08 from MIT. I'm working toward my phd in aero/astro there now. I'm doing the thing that's sort of a natural combination of aero & math--CFD. I'm not sure where I'm going to go with that though. I don't have strong objections to academia, govt labs, or industry, lol.

Also, wow I had no idea there were so many aero folks on these forums.