Aircraft Industry Swells With Postwar Boom

The aircraft industry, riding the crest of a war boom, now offers almost unlimited opportunities to the college graduate. But there is always the danger that the bubble will burst.

This is a capsule-sized description of one of the nation's biggest industries, but it is an apt one. For there is no other field except armaments that is so dependent on the country's war economy.

Aircraft companies, swollen with defense contracts, are now hiring any competent college graduate with engineering or scientific training. But pessimists in the field are grimly pointing to the days following World War II when aeronautical engineers were forced to learn the details of wash tub fabrication in order to keep their jobs in a rapidly shrinking industry.

Promising Future

There is a rosier side to this picture, however. It is probable that the United States will not allow her preparedness to fall to such low levels in he foreseeable future. The rapid rate at which airplanes becomes outdated will keep the industry at high strength, say the optimists. Military aircraft are outmoded nowadays before the prototype model rolls out the factory door on the test ramp.

The complexity of modern airplanes multiplies as each new model flies faster and further than its predecessor. For this reason, plane manufacturers are hiring men who were never before associated with aviation. Civil engineers, electronics men, and even chemists are eagerly sought after.

Basic Research

A great deal of research is being done today in the most fundamental aspects of science, and not merely in science's applications to the problems of flight. Manufacturers are spending large amounts of money to investigate the basic properties of matter. Much of their work will find no application now, but will only pay dividends in the dim future when machines that fly will no longer be called aircraft but spacecraft.

The applications of atomic energy to the powering of flight presents a great challenge to power plant designers. Space trips will only be science fiction until a means of securing a sustained thrust from light fuels is devised.

In the more immediate future are guided missiles that will strike any corner of the globe under complete control by "pilots" on the ground thousands of miles away. Defense Department officials have hinted that these are already available.

All these facts indicate that the optimists are closer to the truth than the pessimists. The aircraft industry is now becoming stabilized, and increased demands for its products indicate the stabilization process will continue.

Manpower Shortage

Anyway, the fact remains that plane makers and research laboratories, as well as the Air Force and Navy, are hiring more scientists now than ever before. And the shortage of scientific manpower remains as critical as ever.

Graduates with degrees in physics, mathematics, and non-aeronautical forms of engineering are being hired as aeronautical engineers and then being trained in elaborate company training programs.

Within aeronautical engineering itself there are many subdivisions. Each has such distinct requirements that men generally choose one and rarely practice in any of the others. In an aircraft plant these divisions are termed "groups." Each group--for example the design group or the flight test group--contains various levels according to the training, experience, and ability of the group member.

Aerodynamics

Demands are most critical now for men to fill the aerodynamics groups. Men in this group are more concerned with the physics of flight than those in others. The duties of the topmost of several jobs in this group are to conduct the preliminary analysis of new or modified airplane designs.

The aerodynamicist performs complicated mathematical analysis in order to predict the flight characteristics of a plane still on the designer's drawing board. He advises the design groups regarding the influence of aerodynamic considerations on the eventual design of the airframe.

For this reason, virtually all men accepted into aerodynamics groups have advanced degrees. To have the Ph.D. degree in aeronautics is the ideal qualification for the job. While most other types of aeronautical engineering require only four years of college training, the enormous complexity of the problems dealt with by the aerodynamicist make graduate work almost imperative.

Aeroelasticity

In recent years, as air speeds have risen across the threshhold of the sound "barrier," a specialized aspect of aerodynamics, aeroelasticity, has come firmly into its own. For planes to fly faster, it was found that their life and control surfaces had to be thinner, in order to out down the drag offsets of air resistance. As these structures became thinner, it was seen that at certain speeds, they developed a noticeable flutter. When wings flutter, their airfoil shapes are distorted, and they sometimes lose all their lifting ability.

At certain speeds planes grow sluggish and fell out of control for no known reason. Until recently, very little was known about flutter. Now, most aircraft companies have their own "fluttering groups," working along with the aerodynamicists.

Designers are the backbone of the aircraft industry. Aeronautical engineering consists mostly of the design of the detail components that go into an overall design. It is here that aeronautical engineering differs most from other forms of science and engineering. The main enemy of the designer is weight, for every ounce of extra weight in the airframe means one less ounce of payload. The designer works in media almost unknown in other industries. He designs strong structures from thin, light metals. These metals impose rigid limitations on the designs, for it is frequently difficult to fashion them.

In the last analysis, it is the man who has the practical understanding of how things can be made in the shops who is successful as a designer. Graduate training is not so important in this field.

The Creative Touch

Very few aircraft designers work on the whole plane. Those that do are the cream of the group. These men, called preliminary designers, create the original design of an airplane. Working only from specifications of a customer, they have the opportunity to use their creative talents to the fullest extent, Needless to say, a preliminary designer must be well versed in aerodynamics and the other aspects of engineering.

At the bottom of the engineering ladder are the stress analysts. Except in rare cases, these men spend most of their time doing detailed calculations of the various forces that are imposed on the plane's components. College graduates with bachelor's degrees frequently start out in stress analysis; after a few year's experience here they move on to design groups.

When other parts of the airplane besides the airframe are considered, myriads of other specialists come into the picture. Mechanical engineers may design the engine, physicists the instruments, electrical engineers the wiring.

Electronics

Tremendous numbers of men with training in electronics are now being hired in aviation. In the age of push-button warfare which we are now approaching, these men must design the devices which seek out the enemy and guide the pilotless aircraft.

Industry, research organizations, and government are competing for the small number of men with aeronautical training who graduate each year. In this race, government is most often the loser, for the salaries paid by private industry and research organizations far outstrip federal Civil Service pay. The average B.A. or B.S. with a scientific background commands a starting salary of at least $350 in industry today. Private research pays approximately the same.

Government jobs are with the armed services and with civilian organizations like the National Advisory Committee. on Aeronautics, which maintains huge laboratories throughout the country. The services employ many civilians in their research programs. The Air Force's Cambridge Research Center, located in Boston, is presently involved in research of the most fundamental nature. Also, civilian engineers are employed at air bases to repair and service planes.

The large difference in pay levels between men who have gone to college for only four years and those who have done graduate work comes between the Master's degree and the Ph.D. Aircraft companies in many cases recommend that graduates come directly into industry instead of pursuing advanced studies if their goal is eventually in administration.

Administration

Most of the administrative positions in aeronautics are now filled by men who rose through the engineering ranks, in many cases through engineering sales.

The air transport business, on the contrary, does no require technical training for executive positions. If graduates are willing to start out behind the ticket counter or in other equally trivial jobs, they can work up to positions of responsibility.

With the exception of only one or two major lines, airline training programs are not nearly so complete as those in airplane manufacturing. American Airlines is a notable exception, having a rigorous two-year program for executive training.

Airlines Stable

The airlines, on the other hand, do not suffer from the one great disadvantage of the aircraft industry, that of a comparative insecurity based on a fluctuating national defense budge. It is not uncommon to see half of one company's engineering staff hired by another because the second organization has been awarded a large government contract and the first had a contract discontinued.

This defect has been largely remedied in the past few years. Company sizes have been largely uniform, with various operation sub-contracted to other organizations if especially large order are received.

In spite of the boost provided by a swollen war economy, the nation's aircraft industries are more stable now than over before. The demand for scientific talent should continue indefinitely