Aeronautical Engineering

DennisZ

Hello everyone,

did anyone here study "Aeronautical Engineering" ?

My kid (did Junior Cert this yr) is thinking about career in Airspace Engineering field (Design)
So, what are education options ?
Seems only University of Limerick provides reasonable course here - LM077 ...
Another place is Queen's University Belfast (more advanced ... and more expensive).

Any thoughts welcome .

Thank you

ScabbyLeg

Hi Dennis,
I'm a graduate of Aeronautical Engineering in UL.

I had a quick look at some information on the Queen's website for comparison, and it looks like their MEng is the equivalent to our BEng. We also found this when it came to applying for jobs- for some reason in the UK they are calling their 4 year degrees Masters or MEng as opposed to our normal Bachelors.

One difference between the courses appears to be the fact that in Queens you don't get any work experience, whereas in UL, one semester+summer (for a total of 8 months) is dedicated to getting experience in industry. In UL it's not uncommon to spend these 8 months working abroad for a big name in the industry, and it really is invaluable experience in my opinion. This was definitely the highlight of my time in UL.

Really the degree is quite similar to Mechanical Engineering. First year in UL is totally common to Aeronautical, Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering so students of all three do the same subjects. This means that after first year, your son would have the option of switching to either of the other two disciplines if he decided it looked more interesting! After that the subjects get a bit more specialised.

Regarding career options, there isn't a massive aeronautical industry in Ireland. Unfortunately, a career in design is difficult to come by (it's also what everyone wants!) but it is possible to get into the area in companies such as Airbus. Most of the work done in Ireland is maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) and as an engineer in that area, work is probably closer to that of a manufacturing engineer rather than a design engineer.

If your kid is doing his Junior Cert, he has plenty of time to look into it! The course in UL is very much maths and physics based, so he should have a good aptitude for that type of stuff- it will make the course much easier and much more interesting for him.

Let me know if you have any questions!

David

pclancy

What did u go into afterwards David if you dont mind me askin...

ScabbyLeg

I'll tell you in about a week!
I'm just finished the just finished the course since June so it's difficult for me to say, but I'm hopeful to get a job in a large MRO in Germany. Wish me luck

DennisZ

ScabbyLeg wrote:

get a job in a large MRO in Germany. Wish me luck

Hey David, do you really have to have a Degree to get MRO job ?
Would B1/B2 licensing be sufficient ?

I would expect people with degree to take some kind of "creative" jobs (say, design).
No offence ... just looks like "downgrade" ... unless you are taking management position (where degree might be "prereq").

Anyway, best of luck to you

ps:
it was my dream since school to have aircraft _design_ job , but I ended up as software engineer ... popular choice, but can be really boring
Oh! and I am trying to realize that dream with modeling hobby now

ScabbyLeg

Hi Dennis,
the work of a licensed engineer and one with a degree would tend to be a bit different alright. I suppose you're right in saying that it would be more managerial- in my experience the guy with the degree oversees the work being done in the workshop. The small bit of 'design work' that can be done in this role would be a modification of a repair scheme that isn't yet in the aircraft manual (CMM) but anything more than what is considered to be a minor deviation must be authorized by the OEM anyway, so there wouldn't be any stress analysis or anything like that. Any jobs I have applied for, a degree has been a prerequisite In fact, we aren't qualified to do most (if any!) hands on work that a licensed engineer would.

Really I think the design job that we all dream about isn't really out there, unless you happen to be working with Burt Rutan! From what I have heard, working with Airbus in a design role means you might be placed on a longterm project looking at the design of a panel, latch etc., or maybe a system to be integrated into an existing design. So really it seems to be something quite specific. The really good guys get into the graduate programme which does seem to expose them to more exciting things, though!

Modelling is something I was always interested in myself but never did anything about it till I had to, in college! We had a subject whereby we had to design and build a model to perform a particular mission, and it really was interesting stuff, I wouldn't mind doing it again sometime although it was very time consuming!

5uspect

DennisZ wrote:

Hello everyone,

did anyone here study "Aeronautical Engineering" ?

My kid (did Junior Cert this yr) is thinking about career in Airspace Engineering field (Design)
So, what are education options ?
Seems only University of Limerick provides reasonable course here - LM077 ...
Another place is Queen's University Belfast (more advanced ... and more expensive).

Any thoughts welcome .

Thank you

Hi Dennis,
I finished Aero Eng in UL about 3 years ago, I'm still there doing a PhD in fluid mechanics. Aero Eng is really mechanical engineering with more emphases on aircraft related stuff. First year in engineering is the same across the board, after that the different streams split.

For example in second year Mechs do Fluid Mechanics 2 while aeros take Aerodynamics. Its all basically the same maths just different problems.
Mechs do powerplants and pumps while the aeros study aerofoils and jet engines. The same applies to structures, we did wing sections they did bridges. Once again its all the same stuff.

So if he does Mech Eng he's getting essentially the same education.

Actually getting into aircraft design can be incredibly difficult. There's not many new aircraft designed from scratch anymore, its just modifications of existing parametric designs. However there is lots of research in the academic side.

So maybe a good option would to do a good mechanical degree and then consider doing a research postgrad. Engineering postgrads are pretty well funded so that shouldn't be an issue. Most students change their minds anyway after being exposed to a new world after college.

We have students working on natural convection inside wing fuel tanks to microfans for electronics cooling. I work on wall bounded flows looking at sources of thermodynamic loss (jet engine efficiency etc) in wind tunnels.

We get a lot of projects from the likes of Airbus as they now outsource a lot of their problems to universities simply because its cheaper for them. Airbus are fond of using numerical simulations to do their designing, and look to people like us who have the equipment to do the model validation for them.

Gablin

About to run out of time in a webcafe, so I'll be breif.

Finishing a three year diploma or Ordinary Degree as it's now called in Manufacturing Engineering, applied for 2nd year Aero, have to repeat some exams, results aren't announced until a week into UL term starts. If all goes well I'll be getting a Pass.

How would you rate my chances?

5uspect

Your chances of gettin or doing well in the degree?
I've no idea about entry for transfrees.
As regards the course:
How's your maths? There's a lot of theoretical stuff that you'll have to work hard at. Its pretty project intensive too be prepared for long nights!

Good luck, I hope you get it.

Gablin

Well, I've cut my teeth already maths-wise and project-wise (ohhhh the stress of last minute!) so once I'm in I'll be ok.

Gablin

Gablin wrote:

About to run out of time in a webcafe, so I'll be breif.

Finishing a three year diploma or Ordinary Degree as it's now called in Manufacturing Engineering, applied for 2nd year Aero, have to repeat some exams, results aren't announced until a week into UL term starts. If all goes well I'll be getting a Pass.

How would you rate my chances?

You need at least a merit 1 to get accepted.
If you attained this grade in your Cert, you'll prob get in on that basis.
Is your Cert in Mech? You may have problems because manufacturing is seen as a different field.

There is a huge difference in the amount of work required by UL and an IT.
You also don't have the same level of support from people in U.L. They are a bunch of mé féiners.
Which IT are you graduating from?
I've seen alot of transferees struggle because after 3 years in college they think they have the system sussed, and they don't realise this difference until it is too late.
If you are struggling to pass your B.Eng in Manufacturing I would give Aero a miss to be honest. The course is quite dry and scientific, a big change from the dipolma course.

Why do you want to study Aero in the first place?