Mechanical engineering degree & aircraft design

[ZK-Awesome]

I am a first-year engineering student in New Zealand, and I am trying to decide what to specialise my study in for the last 3 years of my BE. I ended up with all A's for my first semester. I got my PPL while I was at high school, and I am now interested in aircraft design. So my long term goal is to get a job as an engineer in an aircraft company.

My university has a very good mechanical engineering program, but no aerospace engineering program specifically. Is this a barrier to entering the aircraft design industry? Would I need to do a postgrad program somewhere to make this happen? How do aicraft companies hire junior engineers?

Also- what about the internships that some aircraft companies offer?

ZK

[Genghis the Engineer]

I am a first-year engineering student in New Zealand, and I am trying to decide what to specialise my study in for the last 3 years of my BE. I ended up with all A's for my first semester. I got my PPL while I was at high school, and I am now interested in aircraft design. So my long term goal is to get a job as an engineer in an aircraft company.

My university has a very good mechanical engineering program, but no aerospace engineering program specifically. Is this a barrier to entering the aircraft design industry? Would I need to do a postgrad program somewhere to make this happen? How do aicraft companies hire junior engineers?


You're on a good track so far, and pretty much all aerospace companies employ a lot of mechanical engineers, so that degree will do you no harm and much good.

Designing a whole aeroplane, "aircraft design", is a rare occupation mostly only undertaken by graduates in aeronautical / aerospace engineering. The vast majority of jobs are of a narrower scope - design or certification of specific systems. These are core MechEng jobs.

If you want to chase the more specific aeronautical jobs - typically conceptual design, airworthiness, or flight testing, you probably will want a specialist degree. I've no idea about New Zealand, but there are certainly plenty of MSc options throughout the English speaking world that will build on a good BEng in mechanical. I'd start by looking at Cranfield in England - that is pretty much the industry gold standard you can compare everybody else to.



Also- what about the internships that some aircraft companies offer?

ZK

Unpaid internships are an evil American invention that create unpaid slave labourers who will do anything in the hope of a paid position or good reference - one day. I'm not so naive as to believe that no good comes of these schemes, but I also regard them as a very unethical practice.

If you're going to work for free, go and get involved with a charity project such as an aircraft museum trying to get a vintage warbird flying again. You'll probably learn a lot more, and it's far more honest.

However, in Engineering, there are many schemes to work for limited pay for a fixed period (typically 3-12 months) to build experience, usually working on a small and useful but non-critical project. I don't know what these schemes are in NZ, but I'll bet that they exist.

G

[ZK-Awesome]

Thanks for your help Ghengis -
what quite a few do after they graduate is get a job and work in industry for a year or two, then do an MSc or the like.

I didn't realise that those internships would be unpaid - I understand all about why unpaid work of that nature is selfish. Thanks for the tip about the warbird thing - I never considered that kind of thing for gaining experience before.

ZK

[h3dxb]

Genghis

what should I pay a man doing a practicum in my company ? I will train him, teach him and he will leave me................. It is not a perfect world. The future is: some one will obtain his license, his type ratings and I will pay him for this, but I cant afford to pay him till he gets his license. Offcourse I will train my staff to be ready for all the work, but I could not afford a general 147 layout. So what to do?
Should I have a agreement with a 147 to give me people for their practicum and should I pay, or the school will pay? I could not use the people for work and even I would need to supervise them ? So what to do ? I have to feed 200 people based doing maintenance on aircrafts.....and you know yourself the market is instable.

H3

[Genghis the Engineer]

In the UK, the going rate for short term placement students is around £1.2k/month. They're hardly going to make it rich on that, but nor will it bankrupt the company nor leave them to starve.

I've had a few on that basis over the 15 or so years I've been running engineering departments, I've always felt that I got value for that money.

And when did we start talking about part 147s, licenced engineers and type ratings? -the question was about a graduate engineer trying to get into aircraft design. A different community, only really matched to maintenance by the words "aircraft" and "engineer", but not a lot else. Graduate engineers don't maintain aeroplanes apart from to gain a bit of experience, licenced engineers don't design them except for some input on maintenance issues, and the two have quite different educational and career paths.

G

[Engine Wizard]

G'day,
Get in contact with Altitude Aircraft Interiors. They're advertising for someone with your skills / quals right now.
It could be a foot in the door to bigger and brighter things.
Cheerio.
Wizard

[Charlie Parker]

Hi ZK,

What uni do you study at? If in Auckland there are a bunch of opportunites up here to get involved in the aerospace industry, definately try Altitude Aerospace, they take on summer students and this is a great foot in the door, also there are companies like Flight Stuctures Ltd, Airwork (out at Ardmore) and a few other Pt 146 design organisations.

As far as specific aerospace engineering, this isn't offered in NZ, however a general mech eng degree is a very good grounding as you should cover all the essential mech of materials, aero-hydro etc anyway. A solid BE (Mech) will take you as far as you want to go in NZ aero industry. If you want to work for the big overseas companies, then after your degree go do a masters in aero at somewhere like cranfield, caltech whatever. However if you want to end up working for Airbus, etc, be prepared to be sitting at a desk working on one component (e.g. wing spar) for a few years. Not the most exciting job in the world IMO. Other avenues though are mods and design, of which there is a fair bit here in NZ and AUS.
Another option is Engineering Officer is the RNZAF, they have schemes whereby they pay for your studies through uni, in exchange for a small return of service, (not to mention good experience and training).



Hope this helps.

Chur