Originally Posted by
Check Airman
Forgive the silly question, but if you're employed to Boeing or Airbus as an aeronautical engineer, and the company's not working on a new design, what would your duties involve? Presumably, there's still lots of engineering to be done, but what exactly would that entail?
There has to be a team of engineeers filling the role of Design Authority. I'm presuming that means dedicating at least some time to maintaining knowledge of the aircraft, its systems, structure, propulsion, getting new people up to speed, etc.
The reallocation of engineers away from this role for Concorde to the A380 project (which was in sore need of manpower) was what made it impossible to keep it flying, no matter how dramatic one's beard is.
Retaining staff for the next project is vital - it's a big risk reduction. In Europe, especially in France, it's quite difficult to fire staff, so staff retention kind of comes as standard. In the US there's no such laws, so it must be very tempting to lay off people as soon as they don't look busy.