Careers in Aerospace Engineering: Aeronautics - Astronautics

CAREERS IN

AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

AERONAUTICS ASTRONAUTICS

Institute Research Number 162 ISBN 1-58511-162-7 DOT Number 002.061-014 O*Net SOC Code 17-2011.00

CAREERS IN

AEROSPACE ENGINEERING AERONAUTICS – ASTRONAUTICS CHOOSING A CAREER IS EASILY ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS YOU WILL

do in the next few years. Much of what you have done in high school and most of what you will do in college will likely influence what you do as an adult. Up until now, you have mostly chosen to do things that you enjoy. Make a few good decisions in the coming years and there will be no reason to stop enjoying yourself. And that’s an important point. Some people make their lives happen, while others merely let life happen to them. Be one of the first kind of people and your chances of leading a happy life are much higher than if you wait around to see what life sends your way. No matter how many unplanned curve balls come your way, nobody controls your destiny as much as you do.

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You probably have big dreams. You want to go places, literally and figuratively. You look to the future and see it as something that can only get better. You probably have a knack for math and science, too. That’s good, because as an aerospace engineer you’ll need all the number-crunching expertise you can get. Aerospace engineering occupies a privileged place among engineering disciplines. Electrical engineering may light up cities, but it’s only a small step on the way to the moon. Structural engineering may build bridges of surprising beauty and strength, but those bridges don’t lead to the heavens. Aerospace engineering is the stuff of dreams and wonder, from the realm of science fiction fantasies to the grind of international commerce. Aerospace technology is the cornerstone of American military power and one of the mainstays of the US economy. Innovations in aerospace engineering drive change in associated industries, from the obvious, like airlines, to the not-so-obvious, like metallurgy. Aerospace engineering creates the most advanced technologies most people ever encounter in person. And you can be an essential part of it. As important as it is, the health of the aerospace industry can change dramatically in very short order. In general, the nine largest US aerospace companies do about 35 percent of their business with the Department of Defense, and most of the rest with domestic and foreign airlines. The end of the Cold War substantially reduced orders for military aircraft in the early 1990s, while the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 hurt sales of civil aircraft. The same attacks had a positive effect on sales of military aircraft, but at a very heavy price. A single act of Congress or a terrorist can have instant repercussions in the aerospace business. But the future looks bright. The aerospace industry needs constant innovation in order to meet the demands of its customers, so there will always be opportunities available for dedicated professionals determined to take technology to the next level. When you have finished reading this report, contact a few of the organizations listed on the final pages. They’d be happy to tell you how to become one of them.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW THERE ARE PLENTY OF THINGS YOU CAN BE DOING RIGHT NOW TO PREPARE

yourself for a career in aerospace engineering. Study hard, especially math and science. Learn all you can about flying. Spend time around aircraft. Many people pursue careers in the aerospace industry because they are driven by a starry-eyed fascination with aviation, space travel or the military. That kind of enthusiasm is basically a good thing, but only when it’s backed up by solid skills in math and science. Like it or not, math and science, especially physics, are the fundamental building blocks of aerospace engineering. This is a very, very demanding discipline, and you can never know too much about it. Many people understand how aerospace technology is used, from pilots to journalists to avid sci-fi fans. Actually designing and building aerospace marvels is another matter altogether. Really buckle down in math and science if you want to get ahead as an aerospace engineer. Learn all you can about flying. If you’re at least 18 years old and have $5,000 to $7,000 to invest, you can earn a private pilot’s license. If not, there are still plenty of ways to learn about flying. Read magazines like Private Pilot and Air Forces Monthly. The pilots, mechanics and air force officials featured in such magazines are the customers who tell aerospace engineers what they need the next generation of aircraft to do. The easiest way to learn about any industry is to read its trade and professional journals, and the aerospace business is no different. Spend time around aircraft. Go to the airport. This has become harder to do since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and airport security guards don’t like people without tickets just hanging around. But you can spend time at or near commercial airports. Set up a chair outside the perimeter fence of the airport and watch the planes take off and land. Many people do it, and you may make some new friends, very likely others who are fascinated by flight. Security is fairly loose at small general aviation airports, and many have no security personnel at all. Strike up a conversation with a pilot. Most private pilots are proud of their planes and would be happy to brag about them to you.

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HISTORY OF THIS PROFESSION HUMAN BEINGS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED BY FLIGHT. THE IDEA OF SOARING

into the heavens is one of the most enduring themes of mythology, literature, religion and, of course, science. Greek mythology makes a hero out of Icarus, who flew on wings made of feathers held together with wax. Icarus became a tragic hero, however, when he flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax and caused Icarus to fall to his death. The implicit warning to not overstep humanity’s bounds fell on deaf ears when it came to flying. Leonardo daVinci designed flying machines in the 1500s that were almost workable; had he seriously pursued building them he might have figured out how to fly a long time before the famous Wright brothers did. Various inventors came up with workable gliders over the centuries, but these contraptions had no controls or power of their own. Dependent upon the whims of the wind and extremely dangerous, none caught on. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that the Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, first started to have success with gliders with controls to regulate pitch, yaw and roll, the forward, backward and side-to-side movement of a machine flying through the air. The brothers’ 1902 glider was the first aircraft to have a complete set of onboard controls. A gangly contraption of wire, wood and cloth, the glider directed air currents over its wings through what is now known as wing-warping. The pilot pulled at cables that twisted wing and tail surfaces to direct airflow and cause a change in direction. Wing-warping was possible only because of the spindly nature of the glider. Aircraft to come later used separate flaps to direct airflow because their wings were made out of sturdier materials that could not be warped without breaking. Only now are aerospace engineers returning to the idea of wing-warping, made possible today by space-age materials only recently invented. The glider came up short in one very important regard, however. It wasn’t powered. For humans to have truly conquered the skies, an aircraft had to fly under its own power. The Wrights, who were bicycle mechanics by trade, solved this problem by spending more than a year designing and building a lightweight gasoline engine to put into the Flyer 1, their first powered aircraft. The brothers made four short flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. The longest flight lasted only 59 seconds and covered just 852 feet, but proved that powered, controlled flight was possible. Ironically, many modern military pilots who have flown Flyer 1 in computer simulations 5

have crashed almost immediately. To say that the Flyer 1 was a primitive machine would be putting it mildly. At the core of the flying machine was, and still is, the airfoil. The airfoil is the shape of a wing when viewed from its side. Flat on the bottom and rounded on top, with a thick leading edge tapering away to a thin trailing edge, the airfoil, when forced through the air, creates uneven pressure around the wing. Pressure is greater under the wing and lesser above it, resulting in the lift that allows heavier-than-air machines to fly. Wingless rockets and missiles also fly, but only by using the brute force provided by very powerful engines. Wings are a much more efficient and economical means of creating lift. The Wright brothers’ success, as haphazard as it was, led to an explosion of imitators. By 1911, aircraft designs were mature enough to be used for military purposes. Early military aircraft were used primarily for reconnaissance, or looking down on enemy positions. At first, there were no antiaircraft weapons; the only way to shoot down an airplane was to send another airplane after it. Pilots even shot at each other with handguns! The coming of World War I hurried the development of sturdier, faster planes with built-in machine guns. The planes of the era yielded the first hero pilots, such as the German Red Baron Manfred von Ricthofen, and Eddie Richenbacker, the American pilot who shot him down. The US federal government created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1925 to help guide the growing aerospace industry. The agency would later change its name to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. Government spending on aerospace hardware, mostly for military use, began to play a large role in the development of aerospace technology. Government spending is still a major factor in this industry – in the 1960s American aerospace companies did almost 70 percent of their business with the Department of Defense. In the early 21st century that figure is about 35 percent, but is likely to creep back upward. Aerospace engineering was propelled forward largely by a combination of military necessity, daring stunts, and niche demands like crop dusting and delivering mail. Aircraft were well beyond the means of all but the most wealthy, and government was by far the largest customer for aircraft. Up until World War II commercial air travel as we know it hardly existed and was reserved for the very rich.

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It was military necessity that led to the next leap in aerospace technology. By the late 1930s most airplanes weren’t the spindly affairs of a generation before. But they were, for the most part, still made of canvas stretched over wooden frames. German and Japanese aerospace engineers built steel-skinned planes with powerful engines that forced their American and British counterparts to do even better. By the end of World War II, all sides had designed and built fighter planes that could fly circles around earlier models, and gigantic bombers that had been science fiction only a few years before. Engineers on both sides of the war had been tinkering with jet engines since the 1940s, but it wasn’t until the following decade that the technology began to realize its true potential. From a military perspective, jet-powered aircraft were faster than their propellor-driven forebears, but the jet’s real advantage lay in its reliability. Using a turbine with far fewer moving parts than conventional prop-driven engines, jets could put in more miles with less maintenance and dramatically reduced the cost of commercial flight. By the late 1950s, air travel ceased to be solely for the very rich and came within the grasp of middle-class Americans, at least for very special occasions. Jet development also led to the earliest space exploration. Jets and rockets are essentially the same thing, with the exception that jets use oxygen from the surrounding air to support internal combustion and rockets carry their own oxygen, either in liquid form or as part of a solid fuel. That’s why jet aircraft have enormous air intakes and rockets are perfectly streamlined. These new technologies were jump-started by German engineers during World War II and taken over by the US government after the war. The space age officially dawned on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth. The United States responded by launching Explorer I on January 31, 1958. This back-and-forth competition became known as the space race and was an important part of the Cold War tensions between the two countries for reasons of military practicality and national pride. The US remains the only country to ever put a human on the moon, and also the only country to maintain an ongoing program to put humans in space, mostly through the space shuttle. Many countries contribute money and expertise to several international space programs, but only the US, Russia, France, China and India regularly conduct launches.

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Developments in aerospace engineering were dominated by military and government programs through the 1970s, with most technological leaps being propelled by the need to compete with the Soviets. Demand for commercial air travel continued to grow at a steady pace, but was still mainly the province of business travelers and families on special vacations. Flying was not necessarily out of the reach of most Americans, but it was still expensive and reserved for special occasions; most people dressed up to fly. In the 1980s American airlines were largely deregulated. Price controls that had been enforced by the federal government for decades were dropped and the cost of flying dropped along with them. Air travel boomed, and flying became truly affordable for most people. The lack of regulation brought costs down, but also made the airline industry more susceptible to swings in the overall economy. When times are bad, businesses cut back on travel and families tend to vacation within driving distance of home. This has made airlines roller coasters on Wall Street, but underscores how important flying has become to so many aspects of the global economy. Airlines are here to stay. And so are aerospace engineers. Military research and development programs allowed to stagnate after the Cold War have been revived by the dual threats of terrorism and aging airframes that have become expensive to maintain and, sometimes, dangerous to fly. Most American fighter planes are more than 20 years old, or not much younger than the people who fly them. The demands of the global economy require that engineers devise ways to move more people more miles for fewer dollars. You are entering the aerospace industry at an auspicious time. Make the most of it.

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WHERE YOU WILL WORK AEROSPACE ENGINEERING IS A CAREER THAT CAN TAKE YOU ANYWHERE. THE

nature of the business is about moving people and things all around the world, after all. You will have plenty of choices. Much will depend upon how you want to approach your career. Thousands of small engineering firms in the US and allied countries like Britain and Canada design and manufacture the parts that are used by big aircraft manufacturers like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. If you choose to work for one of these small firms, your job could land you just about anywhere. Huge aircraft manufacturing corporations do business all around the world. Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, is headquartered in Chicago, employs 160,000 people and maintains design and manufacturing facilities around the world. Lockheed Martin is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland and employs 125,000 people all around the world. Northrop Grumman employs 120,000 people around the world and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia and Los Angeles. BAE Systems is headquartered in London, England and employs 100,000 people around the world, with a large presence in the US. A career with one of these aerospace companies can be like a career in the military. You can expect to start your career wherever your employer needs you to be. After a few years you may be transferred to another division. You could be transferred, voluntarily or involuntarily, every three to five years for your entire career. You could also find yourself doing extended duty of months or years in some of the faraway places where your employer does business. If a South American country buys a fleet of fighter planes that you helped design, you could find yourself living in that country to help the air force incorporate the new planes into its arsenal. You could also find yourself in a similar position with the US military, which maintains bases all around the world. If you ever see people in civilian clothes with official-looking badges in the vicinity of aircraft hangars at a military base, you can be sure that they work for the company that manufactured the aircraft, or at least some part of them. Choose a career path with one of the giant aerospace companies and you could find yourself anywhere in the world. 9

THE WORK YOU WILL DO THE TITLE AEROSPACE ENGINEER IS REALLY A CATCHALL PHRASE THAT

encompasses many specialties. You probably won’t need to think about pursuing a specialty for a few years. Your first job, or even first few jobs, will likely be in support of specialists who will need you to do general work to free up their time to tackle more complex projects. As time goes by, you will probably become interested in a specialty that you want to pursue. With a little luck, your employer will recognize this interest and back it up with plenty of opportunity. As you consider job descriptions in this field, keep in mind that the nature of aerospace engineering demands that jobs evolve over time. Everybody in the business, from the youngest engineers fresh out of college to the most senior specialists, must be willing to learn constantly to stay on top of the unique demands created by the industry and the markets it serves.

Aerospace Engineers In broad strokes, aerospace engineers are the minds behind conventional aircraft. They may specialize in fixed-wing airplanes or rotary-wing helicopters. They work on military aircraft and civilian aircraft. They may work for enormous, multinational aerospace firms that serve customers around the world, or they may work for small companies that produce general aviation aircraft or experimental aircraft. Aerospace engineers design and build things that fly through the atmosphere. Aerospace engineers can adopt any one of numerous specialties, but they all work in environments characterized by scientific curiosity. New aerospace components and entire aircraft have to be tested, and not all tests are successful. But making mistakes is an important part of the scientific process, as any honest engineer will tell you. Expensive mistakes often generate hostility from management and can result in less-than-flattering headlines for the company. Still, mistakes result in lessons that smooth successes don’t. If you want to be an engineer of any kind, don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Just try not to get anybody killed. Aerospace engineers are typically very well educated and are prone to continuing their education throughout their lives. Ongoing education is a necessity, but it shouldn’t be a burden. If you don’t look forward to going back to school from time to time, you shouldn’t be an engineer. Aerospace engineers also tend to work for very large 10

companies with very formal personnel policies. Early in your career you will be a small cog in a very large machine. But there will be plenty of opportunities to shine. Remember, as an aerospace engineer you will be on the cutting edge of human achievement. That’s a pretty good place to be.

Astronautical Engineers Astronautical engineers specialize in designing and building spacecraft, rockets and missiles. Government is really the only customer for military and space products, and most associated research is done under top-secret conditions. Astronautical engineers tackle many of the same issues as their aeronautical counterparts, but devise solutions that operate within a different set of parameters. Conventional aircraft, for example, generate lift through a combination of wings and thrust. Rockets generate lift through thrust only. Some missiles, such as the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile, generate lift mostly through thrust but also incorporate small wings for maneuvering and to generate a small amount of lift. Rockets and missiles don’t have to carry people, but manned spacecraft do, creating a whole new set of design challenges. Military contracts constitute the largest portion of astronautical engineering projects. Rockets are routinely used to launch military satellites into orbit and are used as boosters on several varieties of military aircraft. Missiles have been employed to unprecedented lengths in recent conflicts. American and allied actions in Afghanistan and Iraq used thousands of Tomahawk missiles to great effect, creating demand for contractors to build more and giving designers new information about how well their designs really work. Ultimately, missiles are intended to kill people and destroy enemy facilities. The more accurate missiles become, the less likely they are to kill the wrong people and destroy the wrong things. That’s a very worthwhile goal.

Manufacturing Aerospace Engineers Aerospace engineers who turn their skills toward manufacturing make other engineers’ designs economically and practically feasible. Designing aircraft or aircraft components to the customer’s specification is only the first step of the process. Along the way, specialists make sure that the idealized design can be manufactured efficiently and at reasonable cost. Engineers can take months or years to build a prototype component, but the same component will have to be manufactured in

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minutes or hours when the time comes to go into production or it will be prohibitively expensive. Manufacturing aerospace engineers have to stay on top of manufacturing techniques and tooling, and the availability of necessary techniques and tooling within the company or from subcontractors who may be hired to do the necessary work. Manufacturing engineering is a specialized area of expertise, and is especially important in making very complex items like aerospace products.

Materials Aerospace Engineers Aerospace engineers who specialize in materials also support the work of general aerospace engineers. Many of the advances in aerospace technology haven’t been the result of finding new ways to do things, but the result of finding new materials to do old things. The SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane is able to fly as fast as it does not because of any big leap in jet engine technology, but because its fuselage is made of a top-secret alloy that allows it to stretch when it heats up in high-speed flight. The biggest reason the F/A-18 fighter plane is lighter than the F-14 fighter plane is that the F/A-18 is made out of more-advanced materials that are lighter; a major consideration for aircraft that take off and land from aircraft carriers bobbing on the waves. Materials aerospace engineers work closely with metallurgists and other materials specialists to make sure that the right materials are used for every job. Materials development takes place in laboratories around the world, so it takes a highly energetic and aware specialist to stay on top of new developments and to know which new materials may be useful for aerospace projects.

Design Aerospace Engineers Aerospace engineers who specialize in design draw upon the skills of their colleagues to create overall designs of aircraft, spacecraft and their components. Designers work closely with customers to flesh out the goals of each project and make sure that everything the customer wants is included in the design. Specialists take over the bits and pieces of the design that they know the most about and then work back-and-forth with the lead designer to make sure that all the components come together as they should and work in harmony. Designers face some unique challenges. Military aircraft, which are extremely complex, are designed by people with PhDs, built by people with master’s degrees, flown by people with bachelor’s degrees and 12

maintained by people with high school diplomas. All of the people in that chain need to understand their role perfectly. The designer needs to keep in mind that a component that looks simple to an aerospace engineer needs to look simple to an 18-year-old working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, too. Much of the designer’s work is aided today by computer systems that allow new aircraft and components to be tested in simulators rather than in real life. The process saves time and money, and, most importantly, lives. Being a test pilot is still a dangerous profession, but nowhere near as dangerous as it once was. By the time test pilots get an actual plane into the air they’ve already flown it thousands of times on a simulator. Designers use this information to study factors like structural stress, which determines how much punishment an aircraft can take before it breaks. A very important thing to know when thousands of feet off the ground.

Marketing and Sales Aerospace Engineers Selling aerospace products is not like selling vacuum cleaners. Selling aircraft to a roomful of military officers or airline executives requires a very advanced knowledge of the subject. It should come as no surprise, then, that some aerospace engineers spend much of their careers promoting and selling their products. Ultimately, the money comes from the customers, just like it does in any other business. Aerospace engineers working in sales and promotions travel constantly, attending air shows and conventions and visiting military facilities around the world. They have to be experts in their fields, not simply salespeople, because their products are so specialized and their customers so knowledgeable and demanding. A military officer with decades of experience in aviation won’t settle for a slick answer. Engineers working in the field also serve as important liaisons between aerospace engineers and the customers they serve. Sales and marketing engineers go back to their factories after attending air shows, conventions and meetings with potential customers, and tell their colleagues what their competitors are up to and what their customers want. This is a very important function. Telling engineers what their competitors are doing not only helps the company, but helps to advance aerospace technology. Some aerospace engineers devote entire careers to sales and marketing. If you have the opportunity to do a hitch in the field, think seriously about it.

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AEROSPACE ENGINEERS TELL YOU ABOUT THEIR CAREERS I Am an Aerospace Engineer at NASA “I have a dream job. I help to design and build the most advanced machines in the world. Not just the most advanced flying machines, but the most advanced machines of any kind. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is at the very forefront of space-based technology. Only about two dozen countries contribute to space programs, mostly through cooperative ventures like the European Space Agency. Only five – the US, Russia, China, France and India – maintain their own launch facilities. And only two, the US and Russia, regularly put humans into space. The end of the Cold War reduced Russia’s space program to a shadow of its former self, leaving NASA way out in front. It’s where we intend to stay. I’m one of the lucky ones. I started here as an intern when I was a graduate student. I stayed in touch with my former colleagues while I finished my master’s degree and was able to land a full-time job here after I graduated. I have since earned a PhD in aerospace engineering, and NASA paid for it. I’ll probably retire here. NASA gets hundreds of resumés from aerospace engineers every week because this agency is the very top of the heap. The large private aerospace companies, like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, might pay better, but NASA can spend billions of dollars on basic research that the profit-oriented companies just can’t justify. Those companies help us considerably because they design and build many of our spacecraft components, and they make a lot of money doing it. But the cost of actually putting a rover on Mars, say, has to be borne by NASA because there’s no money in it. We use tax dollars provided by the American people to do the things we do. There is some opposition to NASA, both in Congress and among taxpayers. There’s no way to deny the fact that we spend a lot of public money. Sometimes we spend a lot of money on things that go wrong, like satellites that fail or launch vehicles that 14

explode on the launch pad. But we learn from our mistakes and keep moving forward. Research we’ve conducted to go into space has resulted in innumerable spinoffs to commercial industry. We have devised technologies that nobody else would pursue because there was no immediate profit potential in them. Expanding the boundaries of human understanding is a very noble cause, I believe. Turning away from space exploration to save a few bucks would be very shortsighted, in my opinion. I love my job because I’m at the leading edge of human technological achievement. Every day I do things that most people think are science fiction, and it’s a privilege for which I am very thankful. You need to have a lot of flair for math and science to do this job. Beyond that, I’d recommend it to anybody who dreams big dreams and is willing to work very hard to achieve them.”

I Am an Aerospace Engineer for a Major Aerospace Company “I am one of the unseen forces behind the global economy. I help to design and build the giant commercial jets that move people and their business around the world all day, every day. The modern jetliner is as much a part of the world’s infrastructure as roads and bridges. My planes are what bring the world closer together. I majored in aerospace engineering as an undergraduate. I paid my way through school by joining the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps at my university. After graduating I served in the Air Force for five years, which was required in return for a partial scholarship. I had never intended to make the military a career, but I’m sure glad I put in the years I did. I’m proud to have served my country, and the on-the-job training was unbeatable. I was assigned to a division that maintained a small fleet of cargo planes and general-purpose transport aircraft. When people think of the Air Force they tend to think of flashy fighter planes, but we also operate a large fleet of utilitarian planes that move America’s military might around the world. These planes land in 15

deserts, on grass airstrips, on runways with bomb damage. They fly almost nonstop for days at a time and operate in conditions as different as the arctic and the tropics. If you can figure out how to keep them flying safely and efficiently, you can do anything, aerospace-wise. I started with my current employer after finishing my service with the Air Force and immediately started working on the company’s large civilian jetliners. The technology that goes into these planes is pretty mature, but they always need a little tweaking. A minuscule increase in fuel efficiency can slash thousands of dollars off the cost of a cross-country flight, reducing the cost of travel for everybody. I’ve earned a master’s degree since starting this job and have really honed my skills. The fundamental goal in building any kind of civil aircraft is to carry as many people as possible as far as possible for as little cost as possible. Air travel today is far less expensive than it was 20 years ago mostly because the advent of huge jetliners with efficient engines can move so many people so cheaply. My company’s main competitor, a European consortium, is working on a jetliner that will be the largest aircraft ever. We have some designs in the works, but aren’t pursuing it quite as aggressively as they are. That’s a multibillion-dollar investment. I love my job because it’s so important to the rest of the world that it’s taken for granted. Nobody thinks of me and my colleagues when they plan a trip or step onboard a plane, but they wouldn’t be there without us.”

I Am an Aerospace Engineer With a Large Defense Contractor “I wish I could tell you exactly what I’ve been up to lately, but I can’t because it’s top secret. I work for a specialized division in one of the world’s largest aerospace companies. We invent stuff that you wouldn’t believe. By the time our innovations become public knowledge we’ve already been working on them for a good 20 years. If you’re impressed by the aerospace products my company is already selling on the open market, you’d be dumbfounded at the things we are currently cooking up in our little corner of the factory. 16

I specialize in unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. These vehicles are the wave of the future. Much of what makes tactical aircraft so expensive is the need to put pilots in them. Planes need life-support systems in addition to the obvious trimmings like avionics. And aircraft have reached the point that they can do things that would kill a pilot, like corner so sharply that a pilot would be compressed into the ejection seat. Conventional aircraft technology has surpassed the ability of humans to survive in them, if taken to the fullest extent. UAVs eliminate the problem by not requiring onboard pilots. Much smaller, less expensive and more maneuverable than conventional aircraft, UAVs are flown by operators hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Sort of like the world’s most realistic video game. The best part, of course, is that UAVs don’t put pilots in harm’s way. If a UAV gets shot down, nobody dies. Even taxpayers come out ahead because UAVs are so much less expensive than conventional aircraft. We have UAVs that can stay above a specific area for almost two days at a time and provide pictures of enemy movements that even a satellite couldn’t get. We have also deployed tactical UAVs that carry weapons and can quietly get into areas that a large, noisy conventional fighter aircraft couldn’t, at least not without attracting attention. Do we have UAVs that can do everything a conventional fighter plane can do, and more? No comment. You’ll have to get a job here to find out.”

I Am an Aerospace Engineer for a Small Aircraft Company “My employer manufactures small aircraft that regular people can purchase. Some of our aircraft are so simple that we sell them in kit form, so customers can build them in their own garages. My job brings a lot of enjoyment to a lot of people. Some of our aircraft are pretty conventional, and wouldn’t cause you to take a second glance if you saw them lined up at a civil airport. Some of our aircraft are classified experimental by the FAA and are not conventional at all. They all need my expertise. Any aircraft design can be improved. Safety is of paramount importance for aircraft design, so anything that will help a plane 17

to survive an accident or engine failure is always a good thing. Efficiency is also important for these small aircraft. Most small planes are owned by regular folks who buy and fly them because they love to fly. For most people, an airplane is an expensive indulgence, rather than a necessity. The cheaper we can make them to buy and fly, the more we’ll sell. We try out some very innovative stuff around here. It’s not top secret, but we have been at the forefront of pusher technologies that put the propellor at the rear end of the airplane rather than the front. This allows us to design lift into the fuselage of the plane, as well as the wings, which really boosts fuel efficiency. It makes for some strange-looking planes, though. Great fun! I love my job because it’s intellectually inspiring without getting into politics and multibillion-dollar budgets and the like. There is more to aerospace engineering than just the big companies. There are a lot of small companies doing great work. Like most aerospace engineers, I started out with one of the big companies. I liked the job, but I wanted to do my own thing, experiment a bit. I’ve found that here, and I couldn’t be happier. When it comes time to send out resumés, remember the small companies! It’s a great place to work.”

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PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS YOU WILL NEED AEROSPACE ENGINEERING IS WHAT IS KNOWN AS A GLAMOR PROFESSION. THAT

means that the job looks so cool that many people want to get into it just because it looks awesome from the outside. In reality, like any other glamor profession, such as acting or politics, aerospace engineering is actually mostly grunt work punctuated by occasional moments of glory. If you want to succeed as an aerospace engineer you need phenomenal mathematical skills, an equally impressive work ethic and a healthy dose of wonder. There is no getting around the fact that aerospace engineering is a number-crunching profession. In fact, aerospace engineering is just about at the very limits of human technological capability and understanding. The staggering complexity of aerospace technology that already exists makes it abundantly clear that there is no room left for amateurs. New developments tend to take many years and are very incremental, as opposed to the dazzling breakthroughs of the early days of human flight. Mathematical skills are the currency of the aerospace realm, and the more you have, the farther you’ll go. Those incremental improvements don’t happen by magic. The aerospace industry is driven by demands that would be unusual in most industries. The team that put the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon worked seven days a week to meet President John F. Kennedy’s demand that the US put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. They did it in 1969. Aerospace engineers working on military projects never have a second to waste. During the Cold War, the American aerospace industry was driven largely by the Soviet aerospace industry. American engineers had to stay ahead of their Soviet counterparts so we could win World War III, if it ever happened. Today’s American and allied military aerospace engineers don’t really have technologically sophisticated enemies to worry about, but have been challenged to employ technology in new ways. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, have become an important part of the modern battlefield and are vital weapons in the war on terrorism, for example. Still, there’s no doubt that what motivates most aerospace engineers, at least at some level, is simple wonder. Flight is a primal fascination, and probably always will be. We can move through water without boats and move across land without cars, but we can’t fly without machines. We can walk by taking a single step and swim by holding our breath. But to fly, we have to outsmart nature. If the thought puts a smile on your face, you may have what it takes to be an aerospace engineer. 19

ATTRACTIVE FEATURES IT’S NO WONDER THAT YOU WANT TO be an aerospace engineer. If you have

the mandatory mathematical flair and sense of wonder about the science of flight, then aerospace engineering is a very attractive profession. You will be at the knife edge of human scientific achievement. You will also be at the center of geopolitics and the give and take of the global economy. Medical research is arguably the only other profession that takes applied science to the limits that aerospace does. The urgency created by the needs of national defense and the global economy are similar to the urgency fostered by the need to save lives. Both professions make use of various unsung professions to make much of their headway, notably material technologies that allow, for example, doctors to design new artificial heart valves and aerospace engineers to concoct wings that can warp without the aid of separate flaps. In aerospace and medicine, those new technologies are brought together into impressive products that improve people’s lives. As an aerospace engineer you will be at the very forefront of human achievement. If you can’t do it, nobody can. Aerospace engineering is one of the main supporting professions in global politics and business. When people refer to the global village, or say that the world is getting smaller, they mean that advances in transportation and communications have made it easier for people to work with each other no matter where they are. As an aerospace engineer, you will be one of the people making that happen. When it comes to global politics, politicians can get to know each other better by flying around the world and meeting face to face. In theory, this should help to prevent wars. When it doesn’t, it’s aerospace technology that wins wars. Not just in the form of fighter planes and missiles, but in communications and reconnaissance satellites and the Global Positioning System that allow troops to know where the enemy is at all times. Such knowledge allows American and allied commanders to strike the right targets as hard as possible while limiting damage to surrounding areas. People wouldn’t stand in the hot sun all day at air shows if aerospace achievements weren’t exciting and interesting. Your friends and family will look up to you. And you will feel great pride in your accomplishments. The one day that you get to bask in admiration at an air show will make the other 364 days worth it. 20

UNATTRACTIVE FEATURES AEROSPACE ENGINEERING ISN’T ALL NOBLE, HARD WORK. MUCH OF IT IS JUST hard

work. All manner of outside interests meddle in the industry. You will need to qualify for a top secret security clearance if you want to get very far. The world’s aerospace companies and the smaller shops that supply them with parts and components are filled with anonymous engineers on the fringes of the bigger, more interesting projects. The huge aerospace companies, like most huge organizations, have ingrained bureaucratic cultures that can be very frustrating. Sometimes it’s not the best engineers who rise to the top, but the engineers who make friends with the right people. Even the small companies have to respond to the needs of the huge companies, which can be an up-and-down prospect under the best of circumstances. All aerospace companies have to work closely with the federal government. The Department of Defense and the Federal Aviation Administration make most of the big decisions in the aerospace industry. The FAA makes the rules that govern how airlines and aircraft manufacturers do business, and the Department of Defense determines which research programs live or die simply by funding one or the other. The history of defense acquisition is riddled with stories of bad programs being chosen over better programs simply because the bad program would create more jobs for a part of the country represented by a particularly influential member of Congress. Funding for much of the cutting-edge research being conducted at the end of the Cold War dried up shortly after the Berlin Wall came down. The end of the Cold War was a good thing, but the point is that, as an aerospace engineer, you will be on the receiving end of many decisions and historical events over which you will have no control. If you do find yourself working on a really fascinating project, you may not be able to tell anybody about it. Being on the cutting edge of military technology of any kind means that you will have to abide by the rules of a top secret security clearance. You’ll need such a clearance in order to participate in top-level projects or even to be exposed to information concerning them. You won’t be able to talk about these projects with anybody except the people you work with, and maybe not even them. Getting a top secret clearance isn’t easy. Bad credit, a history of drug use or mental illness and a criminal record will all disqualify you. Once you get a clearance, you have to maintain it. Your whole life will be scrutinized. Stay on the straight and narrow path always. Starting yesterday! 21

EDUCATION YOU WILL NEED THERE ARE ABOUT 50,000 AEROSPACE ENGINEERS WORKING IN THE UNITED

States today, and every single one of them went to college. You cannot get into this field without a bachelor’s degree, and you probably won’t get very far without a master’s degree. In time, you may need to earn a PhD degree in order to keep moving ahead and achieve your goals. Aerospace engineering, like all forms of engineering, is a learned profession. Many universities offer degree programs in aerospace engineering. Many offer specializations in aeronautics or astronautics to allow students to concentrate on engineering airplanes, or spacecraft and missiles. Most baccalaureate programs expect students to learn the broad strokes of aerospace engineering, which starts with generous portions of math and physics and then applies that basic knowledge to aerospace-specific topics. Course work you will encounter in a bachelor’s degree program will include thermodynamics, structural design, wind tunnel testing, aerodynamics, fluid mechanics, telecommunications, vehicle design, propulsion systems, basic metallurgy and others. This course work tends to be time-consuming and unforgiving. There is no margin for error in engineering. Engineering is a very exact science. During your undergraduate years you will have the opportunity to complete an internship. Don’t pass it up! In simplest terms, an internship is a semester or summer of working in your intended field rather than taking classes. You will probably be expected to write a paper about your experience, or complete some other kind of project that will earn a few hours of college credit. Most interns get paid, and many complete specialized training programs that are offered only to interns. At the end of the semester or summer you will be free to walk away and go back to school with no hard feelings, no bridges burned. Interns are often hired after graduation by the same companies they interned with. At the very least, an internship will give you a glimpse into the real world of aerospace engineering and will provide you with a few friendly contacts to get your career in gear after college. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Some colleges even require an internship in order to graduate. You will probably want to earn a master’s degree if you want to keep moving ahead in the aerospace industry. You can earn the advanced degree right after you finish your bachelor’s degree, or you 22

can wait until you’ve been in the business for a few years. There’s really no rush, but in the formal environment of the federal government and the big aerospace companies, engineers with advanced degrees will be moved up the ladder faster than those without advanced degrees. You may even want to earn a PhD someday, but that is definitely a decision you can make after a few years on the job. Advanced degrees are important not only to advancing your career, but to staying on top of the aerospace industry. Few industries march forward as quickly as aerospace. You cannot simply earn a bachelor’s degree, get a job and expect to coast in it for the rest of your adult life. The industry will pass you by. If you stop studying just because you’ve finished school, you won’t last very long as an engineer of any kind. Aerospace engineering comes with a requirement of safety that demands engineers to be the best they can be. Real live human beings are going to climb aboard the machines you create, and they expect to get where they’re going safely. The aerospace products that don’t carry people, such as rockets and missiles, are often used to protect people, and that’s pretty important, too. You had better be a lifelong learner if you want to succeed, even survive in this profession.

EARNINGS FINANCIALLY SPEAKING, A CAREER IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING FOLLOWS THE

usual pattern of highly skilled professional jobs. Careerists generally earn more money as their career progresses, assuming they work hard and stay on top of the constant education and training necessary to stay competitive in the field. Constant learning is the key to financial success as an aerospace engineer. True, even aerospace engineers without many promotions typically earn comfortable, middle-class salaries. But the organizations that employ aerospace engineers tend to be large and have very formal hierarchies. Reliable engineers who do solid work but never make an effort to improve themselves could find themselves in the same paygrade for decades, doing essentially similar routine work over and over again while their peers move up and become their superiors. Aerospace technology has made breathtaking advances through the efforts of aerospace engineers who weren’t willing to settle for second-best. Technology moves fast in this business, and you will have to move even faster in advancing your career. 23

Recent graduates from college with aerospace engineering majors can expect to start their careers with salaries of about $50,000 per year, depending upon the employer and the region of the country. Those starting their careers with a master’s degree can expect their starting salaries to leap to about $60,000 per year, while new PhDs can expect offers from $65,000 to $75,000. Few professions feature such attractive salaries for recent graduates, making aerospace engineering a very attractive career option. Keep in mind, however, that there are few opportunities ever to achieve really high earnings in the aerospace industry. You may become a top executive at Boeing someday, but basically, there are fewer than 10 core companies in the American aerospace industry. Understandably, competition for those top jobs will be fierce. About 15 percent of American aerospace engineers are employed by the federal government, mostly in the Department of Defense and NASA. Working for the government, you will earn less than the highest-paid person on the federal payroll: the President of the United States, whose salary is $400,000 per year. Not nearly as much as many private sector CEOs. On the other hand, employment of aerospace engineers also tends to come with very attractive benefits. In addition to the usual health insurance and paid vacation time, many aerospace companies post employees all over the world to do fascinating jobs that few other industries can offer. Boeing, for example, is the single-largest exporter in the United States. The company’s famous F-16 fighter plane is used by dozens of air forces around the world. Boeing engineers are routinely dispatched to those countries for months or years at a time. That would be a desirable tour of duty.

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OPPORTUNITIES YOU CAN PREPARE FOR YOUR CAREER IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING WHILE YOU

are still in college. In addition to an internship, which you should consider mandatory, you can pursue your career in other ways. Two of the most straightforward are learning to fly and enrolling in the Reserve Officer Training Corps ROTC. It seems obvious that an aerospace engineer who actually knows how to fly an airplane would have a professional edge over others who’ve only ridden in planes as passengers. It’s not a requirement, but it’s a good idea. If you’ve never looked into it, you might be surprised at the many opportunities there are for aspiring private pilots. Some universities offer flying lessons as part of various curricula or even as extracurricular options. Private flying schools are fairly common and will offer flying lessons to anybody who can pay for them. If your eyesight is fairly normal, even with corrective lenses, you are probably eligible to learn to fly. Earning a private pilot’s license usually involves about 40 hours of flying time with an FAA-certified instructor. Your actual time in the air may vary. Earning the license involves learning to fly a small, single-engine plane in daylight. Students fly with an instructor for roughly the first half of the learning period and then prove that they’ve been paying attention by flying a solo flight. More instruction follows, at the end of which the student is awarded a private pilot’s license. The license enables the pilot to fly single-engine small planes during the day and to take family and friends as passengers. With further instruction, pilots can earn certificates to fly at night, with instruments only and for commercial purposes. A pilot with only a private pilot’s license can’t take paying passengers or work as a pilot. Obtaining a private pilot’s license can cost $6,000 to $8,000, depending upon the number of hours spent in the air and the type of plane rented. The cost and time can be spread over six months of weekends, easily. Another excellent option, and one that you will only have during your college years, is joining ROTC. In return for a full or partial scholarship, you will be required to serve in the military for five years after graduation. All of the armed services use aerospace engineers, technicians and pilots, with the Air Force and the Navy using the most. You may or may not want to turn the military into a career, and you don’t have to. But with the Department of Defense exerting so much influence over the aerospace industry it may behoove you to gain a good understanding of what makes this massive bureaucracy tick. 25

In the services, you can qualify for topnotch training in aerospace engineering or any number of related professions like flying or air traffic control. You will get to see the aerospace industry’s most advanced products up close and personal, every day. The military isn’t for everybody, and you can always leave after you’ve completed your initial obligation. But if you become an aerospace engineer you may be dealing with the military for the rest of your life, even if you are employed in the private sector.

GETTING STARTED SO YOU’VE EARNED A BACHELOR’S DEGREE, COMPLETED AN INTERNSHIP AND

made a few connections in the aerospace business. The time has come to call in every contact and connection you’ve ever made and see what opportunities are out there. Don’t let the process intimidate you. Millions of recent college graduates go through the same process every year. Most organizations that employ aerospace engineers have fairly formalized hiring processes. The federal government and very large businesses tend to take resumés constantly and save those of candidates who might have something to offer. When there’s a vacancy, or, more often than not, vacancies, a relatively large number of candidates are called for interviews. Based on those interviews, some candidates are called back for a second round of interviews and maybe some tests. Candidates for jobs involving military projects may be required to pass an extensive background investigation to prove that they can be entrusted with secrets that are important to national security. Federal background checks can take a year, so don’t be too disappointed if you have to take a job doing something else for a while. If you aren’t sure you can write a good resumé, hire somebody to write one for you. Most human resources professionals look at resumés for about 10 seconds before making a decision. The money you spend on a professional resumé writer may make the difference between getting an interview and winding up in the trash can. Dress conservatively. You’re trying to appeal to engineers, not fashion designers. Don’t crack jokes or pretend that you know things that you don’t. You will be dealing with very, very intelligent people. Treat them accordingly.

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Above all, don’t lose faith. Finding any kind of job can be a time-consuming process fraught with false starts and many emotional ups and downs. Finding a job in the aerospace industry is likely to be harder than most other fields, from this perspective. Just remind yourself that anything worth having is worth working for. You may have to jump through more hoops than most job-seekers, but the job you eventually get could take you to the moon. Literally. Keep your eyes on the prize. Good luck!

ASSOCIATIONS PERIODICALS WEBSITES n Aerospace Engineering and Research Associates www.freeflight.com n Aerotech News and Review www.aerotechnews.com n Air and Space Magazine www.airspacemag.com n Airbus www.airbus.com n Air Forces Monthly www.airforcesmonthly.com n Air Force Research Laboratory www.afrl.af.mil n Air International Magazine www.airinternational.com n AirLiners.net www.airliners.net n Airtoaircombat.com www.airtotaircombat.com n American Association of Engineering Studies www.aaes.org 27

n American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics www.aiaa.org n American Society of Civil Engineers www.asce.org n BAE Systems www.baesystems.com n Boeing www.boeing.com n Cessna www.cessna.com n Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency www.arpa.mil n DefenseLink www.defenselink.mil n Discover Engineering Online www.discoverengineering.org n Experimental Aircraft Association www.eaa.com n Exploratorium www.exploratorium.edu n Federal Aviation Administration www.faa.gov n Future Scientists and Engineers of America www2.fsea.org n General Dynamics www.generaldynamics.com n How Stuff Works www.howstuffworks.com n Jane’s Information Group www.janes.com

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n Junior Engineering Technical Society www.engineeringnet.com n Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory www.llnl.gov n Learjet Corp. www.learjet.com n Lockheed Martin www.lockheedmartin.com n National Academy of Engineering www.nae.org n NASA’s Classroom of the Future www.cotf.edu n NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts www.niac.usra.edu n National Aeronautics and Space Administration www.nasa.gov n National Science Foundation www.nsf.gov n Naval Research Laboratory www.nrl.navy.mil n Northrop Grumman www.northropgrumman.com n Raytheon Aircraft www.raytheonaircraft.com n Society of Automotive Engineers www.sae.org n Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command www.enterprise.spawar.navy.mil n United States Army www.army.mil

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n United States Air Force www.af.mil n United States Coast Guard www.uscg.mil n United States Marine Corps www.usmc.mil n United States Naval Institute www.usni.org n United States Navy www.navy.mil n Universities Space Research Association www.usra.edu

COYRIGHT 2007 Institute For Career Research CHICAGO CAREERS INTERNET DATABASE www.careers-internet.org

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