I have resumed traveling again after a few years of COVID restrictions. When I am traveling I am not working all the time (this is a rarity) and traveling gives me time to think. This Christmas we spent some time in France, which is always enjoyable. What a beautiful country and such great people. We […]

I have two clients at roughly the same point in their respective programs. They have both successfully completed a multi-year prototyping phase, they are zeroing in on a realistic and viable production configuration and they are both looking at the best way to get through the minefield of production R&D, certification, volume manufacturing setup, commercial […]

As I get older and I see more young engineers enter the industry, including my own daughter, it is interesting to reflect on what characteristics result in success. How you define success is another discussion.

The FAA has published the airworthiness criteria for the Model JAS4-1 Powered-lift aircraft. (https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2022-23962.pdf) If you read the preamble, Joby applied for the type certificate on November 2 2018. It has taken over 4 years to establish the certification criteria. Well, you might think, this will mean that they can drive forward through the certification […]

I was privileged to spend a day at ITPS in London Ontario. Giorgio Clementi and his family are old friends and ITPS is a true family business with his wife Bev and all his sons involved.  If you get a chance to tour the facility you should. As well as the wildly diverse fleet of aircraft they have extensively […]

All analysts know that a solution to a problem is only as good and the boundary conditions used to define the problem. The same principle can be applied to other aspects of product development. It can also be applied (in a similar sense) to life. If there are no boundaries, rules or limitations the social […]

In aerospace engineering there is a natural conservatism forced on us by the laws of physics, the regulatory framework and the market. Interestingly, as much as they may believe differently, the market is almost as conservative as the laws of physics.

How far do you have to go to put yourself in the clear with regard to ethics in engineering? This is an issue that I always have trouble managing for myself.

Metal part drawing checklist – this list is not comprehensive. Any and all errors will not be tolerated whether they are on this list or not.

Towards the end of 2021 I connected with Eugene Pik on Linkedin. Eugene is an interesting guy – raised in Soviet Belarus, moved to Israel and has been running his business in Canada for many years. He wanted to produce a eVTOL aircraft that would serve the medical evacuation (medevac) market better than the helicopters […]

A version of this article recently appeared in our free newsletter, to subscribe click here. OK – upfront, the data for the Wright Flier I am using is taken from the Wright Flier Model B wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Model_B).This was the last iteration of the original Wright Flier configuration and was sold in 1910. Their famous first […]

A version of this article first appeared in our free newsletter, to subscribe click here. All the numbers used in this article are Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) numbers. Nothing nuanced here – just back of the napkin numbers. If you disagree with my assessment let me know, send me your numbers and I will publish […]

A version of this article first appeared in our free newsletter, to subscribe click here. My daughter is shortly to graduate from Ryerson University and recently took part in the ritual of ‘The calling of the Engineer’ She told us about it and my first reaction was that it was all rather silly. However, being […]

One of our contacts found an error in our part 23 loads landing gear loads spreadsheet. You can find the corrected version (Revision B) here. The reference length a’, b’ and d’ were incorrectly calculated and the resulting loads nose landing gear loads were up to 5% lower than they should be. If you use […]