It might surprise you to know that for a single UAV product, you don’t actually need an aerodynamics engineer for the full process. Wild, right?
In the years I was employed at a large defense contractor our division only had around three or four aircraft it supported. Therefore, every year there would inevitably be a couple of slower times for me. Whether it was due to the total volume of aero work needing to get done, or how well my coworkers were handling what work did exist, sometimes there just wasn’t much aero design or analysis tasking to be done.
So, because I hate sitting around being bored, I’d become a pest to everyone in the building and find other ways I could contribute. Some of the things I found to do that were definitely not in my job description include:
- Auditing one aircraft product’s records in our configuration management system, making sure the CAD matched the BOM matched the native part structure
- Learning to read electrical harness drawings and use Visio to implement redlines
- Writing and editing acceptance test procedures for an aircraft being productionized
- Drafting tutorials and wikis for some of the aero analysis tools we used most (okay this one kind of counts as my job)
- Completing ground school for one UAV platform and starting operator training
Did I learn a lot of really valuable skills and insight from all of these adventures? Absolutely!
Were they the best use of my time specifically as an aerospace engineer, from the company’s perspective? You’ll have to ask my former boss, but probably not.
The thing is: engineers are expensive. Aerospace engineers (who honestly can be engineers of any discipline, they just only work on aircraft/spacecraft) are even more expensive.
And if you’re an aerospace engineer who specializes in aerodynamics and flight sciences, like me? There are very specific times in a development process where you are actually needed. And the rest of the time—well, you’re doing things that are honestly probably above your pay grade.
For the record, I am not trying to put ANYONE out of a job, or suggest you shouldn’t hire an aero engineer. Depending on your product, development timelines, product lineup, etc, it would probably be enormously beneficial to have a full-time aeronautical engineer on staff. Please go hire one! I can give recommendations!
But if you’re:
- A smaller company
- Have only a handful of products, maybe one to three
- You talk about timelines in terms of months, not years
Then you probably only need an aeronautical engineer for shorter-term sprints.
And honestly, you’re exactly why I started my business.