So I don’t have too many other places to boast about this, and to be excited, so please excuse the gloating.
I graduate with my MEng (hopefully) in Aeronautical Engineering this Summer, and I’ve landed the job that I wanted with AgustaWestland - the UK’s only vertical lift provider (well, they’re Italian now, but no-one mentions that. Oh, and normal people call them Westlands Helicopters. They make Chinooks, Apaches, Merlins and the world-record-Lynx amongst others).
I’m on their post-grad programme, which means I’ll get experience across a wide-range, but I’m aligned to Flight Mechanics for my career based on my technical knowledge. It was my first choice, which was awesome.
I feel like I can’t really enjoy this victory amongst my friends since nine people on my course failed to get an interview, and the other guy that was at the interview with me hasn’t heard back yet - I got this offer a week ago. A few others have been knocked back from other companies. Defence Aerospace seems to be fairly recession-resistant, but there still aren’t that many good jobs going. So hence this thread - here, away from my colleagues, where I can enjoy it.
So I’m looking forward to having money, and moving back to the South-West and to hopefully get to fly in a helicopter really soon!
Tell me your good news…or any questions about helicopters that I might (will have to check notes) be able to answer!
Regarding helicopters, are there any kinds of technological breakthroughs anyone is working towards to make a much better helicopter in the near future?
I’m curious how now there are $25 dollar indoor toy helicopters. Is there any chance there could be super cheap but simplified real helicopters someday.
Sort of related to your news, my husband had an interview with a school today, a tenure track position and he’ll just be out of grad school in April, which is awesome. It went really well!
He’s sort of in the same position you are, regarding friends in his program - he’s the only person who’s had any on-campus interviews at all.
If I didn’t get this job, one of the things I was planning on doing was a PhD in Rotorcraft with my current advisor. It was aimed towards (and I hate to use the term) a ‘green helicopter’, by aeroelastically tailoring the blades to be efficient across different rotorspeeds - which they currently are not. This would lead to reduced noise and reduced power - both good things for a ‘better’ helicopter environmentally.
The thing with helicopters is that although they’re complicated (all that spinning crap), the basic design is pretty bloody awesome at what it’s supposed to do - manoeuvrability and access to hard-to-reach places. Developments into areas such as tiltrotors lead to aircraft that aren’t very good helicopters and aren’t very good aeroplanes - they go slightly faster, but are unfortunately much better at killing Marines.
A big development at the moment is into predicting brownout, and how to avoid it. It’s a big problem with fighting bad people in dusty places, that the pilot can’t see what he/she’s doing as they come into land, and often the upwash of air causes them to get vertically disoriented. By predicting how the air currents move in the rotor wake, the brownout can be designed out of the system, making for a better helicopter.