MechanicalEngineer

The work

The broadest engineering discipline, and the one most aerospace work is actually built on: mechanisms, structures, thermal management, fluid systems, tolerances and the manufacturing that has to produce them. A mechanical engineer in aerospace does the same analysis as anywhere else, against tighter mass budgets and a harsher environment.

A typical day

• 01Take a requirement to a design, then to a drawing somebody can make
• 02Run the stress, thermal or tolerance analysis that says whether it works
• 03Sit in design reviews and defend the choices
• 04Find out from test that one assumption was wrong, and fix it

How people get in

• Engineering degree

  The usual route. Placements and industrial years matter more than the exact title on the certificate.

• Degree apprenticeship

  Employed from day one, degree paid for, and several years of real work by the time you graduate.

How it unfolds

1. DegreeFour years, or a degree apprenticeship with the work attached from day one.
2. Years 1-3Junior engineer. Detail design, analysis, and learning what the manufacturing people will actually accept.
3. Years 4-8Owning a subsystem, running your own analysis, defending it in review.
4. LaterPrincipal engineer, or into project and technical management.

Is there a job in it

The hard parts

Most of the work is not designing: it is analysis, review, documentation and argument, and the drawing is the fastest part. Test will eventually prove one of your assumptions wrong in front of other people. Aerospace timescales mean you may not see a thing you designed fly for a decade.

What you would need

• Statics, dynamics and thermodynamics
• CAD and tolerance stacking
• Materials and manufacturing processes
• Technical writing