What is an Aerospace Engineer?
Aerospace engineers are responsible for the design, testing and production of aircrafts, spacecrafts and other high-altitude vehicles. Aerospace engineers concentrate their work on a particular type of craft, such as helicopters, commercial planes, fighter jets or missiles.
More specifically, those who focus on aircrafts are aeronautical engineers and those who focus on spacecraft are astronautical engineers. Aeronautical engineers try to develop new vehicles that are both faster and more efficient for consumer, private and military purposes. Astronautical engineers attempt to develop complicated vehicles suitable for space travel and their corresponding equipment and devices. Such vehicles may be constructed in order to retrieve data and transfer it back to computers on earth.
Aerospace engineers also specialize in different areas such as navigation and control, structural design, production methods and instrumentation and communication. Regardless of their duties, they must be able to work in a team, deal with overlapping projects and projects that are suddenly discontinued.
How to Become an Aerospace Engineer
Those who wish to enter the profession enroll in four-year aerospace engineering programs in which they take classes such as engineering materials, thermodynamics, incompressible flow, compressible flow, aerospace flight mechanics, applied aerospace structures, aerospace dynamical systems, aerospace systems design and aerodynamics propulsion lab. Prerequisite classes taken during the first few semesters include calculus, physics, computer science, and statistics.
Aspiring aerospace engineers should cultivate communication, teamwork, creativity and organizational skills. They’re required to work in teams during the creation of new crafts and their components, which are often designed to feature enhanced technology. Projects are very complicated and must be undertaken methodically.
In order to gain experience, aerospace engineering students are advised to find internships. Successful engineers thrust themselves into the action early on during their education so they’ll be ready to effectively contribute to an employer immediately upon graduation. Nothing substitutes for hands-on experience.
Aerospace Engineer Career Outlook & Salary
Employment growth for aerospace engineers is expected to be about as fast as average for all occupations from 2008 to 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The occupation remains in demand because of the prevalence of new designs and technologies for aircraft and spacecraft.
The increase of aerospace engineering graduates, however, means there will be more competition for positions than in previous years. Compared to other engineering professions, aerospace engineering is expected to grow at a rate slightly below average, 1%, paling in comparison to the growth expected for civil engineering and environmental engineering.
Aerospace engineers earn an average starting salary of $56,311; low compared to other engineering professions but significantly higher than the national average for all professions. The average median salary for aerospace engineers is $94,780, while the top 10% average $137,730.
