AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING

Aeronautical Engineering

Aerospace engineering involves the design, construction and science of airplanes and space vehicles and uses computer technology in the design space extensively. Aeronautical engineering is a branch of aerospace engineering and encompasses aircraft design, construction and testing of aircraft, missiles and spacecrafts. Aeronautical engineering uses the science of propulsion and aerodynamics. This popular and glamorous field deals with the development of new technology in the field of aviation, space exploration and defence systems. An aerospace engineer is involved in the designing, construction, development, testing, operation and maintenance of both commercial and military aircraft, spacecrafts and their components as well as satellites and missiles. There can be further specializations in areas like structural design, navigational guidance and control systems, instrumentation and communication or production methods or it can be in a particular product such as military aircrafts, passenger planes, helicopters, satellites, rockets, etc. Aeronautical engineers are in good demand in airlines, aircraft manufacturing units, air turbine production plants or design development programmes for the aviation industry, etc.

Career Propsects of Aeronautical Engineering

Aeronautical engineering offers a wide range of roles in research, design, development, testing, manufacture and maintenance. Many engineers specialize in a particular area such as propulsion, computational fluid dynamics, aerodynamics or materials and structures. You have the option to work as a structural designer or gain expertise in navigational guidance and control systems or specialize your work on a particular product such as a war plane or space missile etc.
If you are into computers then there is scope for you in drawing up project plans using the computer aided design (CAD) software. There is always a lot of R&D happening in this field. You can make your valuable contributions to the never ending process of devising new fuel efficient parts like wings, engines etc. Aircraft maintenance is another challenging task. You can also get into the managerial domain of this industry. Another dream domain of any aeronautical engineer is the Air accidents Investigation Bureau which is responsible for finding out the cause of air mishaps. A high level of analytical ability and reasoning are required for this task and is a sought after job profile among the engineers.