Originally Posted by
flyawaybird
GengHis the Engineer,
Thank you so much for such detailed information on the vast above topic. Being a lay person in this, I did not know how wide this topic is. I am indeed very grateful for your time in writing a detailed account of the information I requested here. In fact my son read all your responses and ask me to request for further info as stated in my next paragraph. I know it is very much time consuming for you, and I do appreciate the time you have so far taken to give me this information, being a busy person. We also need to know the College websites for systems and flight test engineering in UK.
As you clearly state about the standard of education between UK and US, I can only confirm that it is verys true what you said because even my son has repeatedly told me, since our arrival here, about a year ago, how he found education here much easier. I am sure he would love to come to UK if we only we knew rought the estimates in particular about Systems Engineering and/or flight service engineering or flight test engineering.
Is it possible to get brief accounts on those two type of engineering? You see in school, when they request for info on different types of subjects they want to do in college, they are told to go to internet. At the internet unless one knows exactly which websites to browse, it can awfully take a lot of time to read the numerous details given in general. Since you, youself are an Engineer or well informed on the subject area, I would rather hear from you.
In case we find that we cannot afford, then my son and I can discuss the US Marine, Airforce, Army training. James at 18, is not of the idea to go to the armed forces for fear of being sent to the war zones. I keep on telling him that there a lot of other young people there and that not everyone dies but among his peerage, a different story is discussed.
Once again, thank you so much for being so kind to us as to relay to us such informative info.
Thank you.
Mary
Firstly on the last point (and sorry for being slow replying), in any age - and the current one is particularly no exception, anybody joining the armed or emergency services (and a few allied trades) can expect to be sent in harms way. This is a harsh fact, and if your son considers that unacceptable, then he's absolutely right not to look in that direction - it's not for everybody. Personally, it was never a major consideration for me, but I'm aware that a lot of people have a major problem with personal risk, or with the military activity.
Now, individual disciplines.
Systems engineering in a relatively new name for a very old field - it is all about integrating the numerous parts of a large complex machine (such as an aeroplane), and making them work effectively together. With the increasing complexity of modern aircraft, it's become a discipline in its own right, rather than just what senior aeronautical engineers got on and did. There are undergraduate degrees in this, but more commonly it is a specialist job people go into after graduating in something like aerospace /aeronautical engineering.
Flight Services Engineering - I really don't know, but it sounds a bit mickey mouse to me.
Flight Test Engineering (very much my own discipline) is about taking flight equipment (varying from a small black box to a whole new aeroplane) and eventually either proving that it'll do the job for which it was designed, or finding the faults with it so that other engineering disciplines can sort it out. In my entirely biased opinion, it's one of the most exciting fields to work in - but it's also one of the hardest to get into. A first degree in some aerospace engineering discipline is pretty much essential, then it is a matter of further education either on the job or via a specialist course. To a civilian, there are really two MSc programmes available and worth doing - at NPTS in California (Master of Flight Test Engineer), and at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire (MSc Flight Dynamics). There are far more options to military people, but at the same time there are many options to train up whilst working in an allied field in existing aerospace organisations.
G