All-knowing Specialists: Why I Want to Be an Aerospace Engineer

Aviation engineers are involved in developing aircraft, airspaces, airports, and aircraft navigation technologies. The development of aircraft and spacecraft is an engineering branch referred to as aerospace engineering. Aerospace engineers usually work in teams with each person specialized in a discipline of aviation, due to all the factors that are involved in designing aircraft. They design primarily aircraft, spacecraft, satellites, and missiles. Aerospace engineers can specialize in developing many types of aircraft, such as commercial and military airplanes and helicopters, remotely piloted aircraft and rotorcraft, spacecraft, including launch vehicles and satellites, and military missiles and rockets. An aerospace engineer will usually spend most of their time working in an office space, because much of their jobs can be done using modern computers.Being an engineer also includes fixing aircraft. Engineers will fix instruments such as radios, altimeters, and other things. They will also fix engines and other parts of aircraft. Aviation engineers may also work from the legal aspect, by making laws, regulations, and public policies all in the aviation field. Aviation engineers could also be coming in from a more architectural side and design airports to make them more environmentally friendly, and help guide how to run them. Airport engineers will design, plan, and map systems, structures and facilities. Under aerospace engineering there are two branches, aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Aviation engineers have many choices within the field to choose from. As an engineer in the aviation field, engineers can choose from working at airports, the Air Force, aircraft production companies, and government agencies like the FAA.

In order to become an aviation engineer an ABET-accredited degree is usually necessary. To be an engineer one must also get a passing score on the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam. If one is pursuing a career in airport design a bachelor’s degree in civil, mechanical or structural engineering. An aerospace engineer needs to have a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, and have at least 1 year of professional experience. Most entry-level jobs for aerospace engineering only require a bachelor’s degree, but in order to move up to a higher level a Professional Engineering License in required.

Aviation engineering requires a lot of math. An aerospace engineer will use many different scientific disciplines in order to get planes to fly better and faster. Some of the disciplines are aerodynamics, propulsion, avionics, materials science, structural analysis and manufacturing. An airport engineer will use math to compute various requirements, including load, stress factors and other structural requirements. Calculus and linear algebra are the most common maths used in aerospace engineering.

Works Cited

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