My placements on the graduate programme gave me a range of experience across areas such as Avionics, Flight Dynamics and Aerostructures. Finding out what each team work through was really important for deciding what I wanted to do long term.
After the placements, there were a lot of opportunities across the company. It was a hard choice as I enjoyed them all.
But, the early lifecycle aspect drew me to Future Combat Air Systems (FCAS), it’s very rare for someone in this field to get to work from the design stages, through to the actual delivery of an aircraft to the customer.
The facilities we have are fantastic. Getting to support wind tunnel testing and using simulators is exciting, it’s all things I’d never seen before. This really brings it to life, it’s not just data on screen and you can see the design decisions you’re contributing to. Watching our test pilots fly in a simulator, shows how what we’re doing is having an impact, which is really cool and really fun.
When I joined the team, I had to learn and adapt to the tools we’re using, and I’m not just developing my technical skills but also my soft skills, like communication, leadership, and adaptability. At university, we’d use these skills occasionally but here, it’s part of the day to day.
When you’re new in the team as a graduate, you have a baseline level of knowledge, which is mostly academic, so you need to be brought up to speed with how it’s done in industry. Getting that knowledge transfer from those who have years of experience really helps kick-start your career.
We’re developing new ways of working, using technology we didn’t have available in the past, which allows us to work a lot quicker. We want to push our limits, we want to be better, and make what we do the best it can be.
Any engineer would want to work on a new aircraft; we’re all enthusiastic and dedicated to what we do, it’s just great; and not just in BAE Systems but across the UK partners, we’re as synergetic as possible.
As the programme matures, there’s going to be a lot of exciting work coming up to refine and develop this into something really at the top of its class.
I definitely want to be there for the first flight. Given the amount of dedication to this programme, it’s worthwhile to have that sense of achievement. To see the aircraft in service and to be able to say to your kids that I worked on that. I’ll feel a huge sense of pride and accomplishment.Allan, Aerodynamicist
We are on the hunt for the brightest and boldest minds to help us deliver technologies and ideas that will secure the future of combat air for years to come. Could this be you?