r/AerospaceEngineering

Gark! I won't be investing in the SpaceX IPO.

According to AWST, SpaceX last year had "a $5 billion net loss in 2025 on $18.7 billion in sales."

Elon is the majority shareholder and "controls about 85% of the company ahead of the listing, with 12.3% of Class A shares and 93.6% of Class B shares that are particularly important because it gives him full control over the board which stops him from being ousted."

If you're thinking of investing in the IPO, you might want to dig deeper. That's a bad roller coaster to ride, IMO.

I absolutely love aerospace engineering and designing, but I also don't want to spend 70-90% of my time at a job sitting in an office or cubicle working on designs, which I assume many other people share. As a result, I want to know if, after I get my aerospace degree in 4 years, how easy it will be for me to get a job where the majority of the work is not spent at a desk, or at the bare minimum, at a desk at some test facility? Would I be more likely to find what I'm looking for with an astronautical or aeronautical concentration?

I am an aerospace engineer who passed out in 2025, while I'm studying college i found difficulty in choosing the right CFD material,software, and how to learn how to implement it. Later I saw some random ansys tutorials and replicated those and thought I'm a CFD engineer throughout my college days. But reality hits me when I'm searching for a job, I started to learn CFD again (this time from basics) and searched jobs, but not got any, then I'm placed in design related role on an automobile company as a fresher. But I'm constantly upskilling myself on the CFD side. I made rough notes of my path. I'm thinking of tuning it and making it a digital product and selling it on the gumroad website. What you think guys? I'm open to discussions.

I've attended AIAA SciTech and other conference for many years now. I enjoy going to them, however, I don't own a suit. I've tried dressing nicely with dress pants and formal shirts, but many of the people attending wear suits and ties.

I'm looking at purchasing a suit and tie, but they are rather expensive and I wouldn't wear it except for the conferences.

At my megacorp (major aerospace employer), the suits have disappeared even at the executive level. Curious if anyone had any guesses as to whether suits will disappear at aerospace conferences as well.

Thanks!

I am a CS student but also interested in aerospace engineering. I wanted to know where I can learn about how the trajectory of a rocket is planned, how it is put into orbit, and what the whole procedure is.

I am also interested in what type of software is used, what operating systems are used, and whether there is any open-source software that I can learn from.

https://preview.redd.it/jk14pke36b1h1.png?width=1684&format=png&auto=webp&s=08a92e3d8cd4e2ae57df5876532464dcf15cb1eb

We'll be here next Thursday 21st May, 3–5pm BST to answer your questions, with a focus on industrial and embedded use of Raspberry Pi.

Between the three of us we cover the full stack, so bring whatever you've got; board-level hardware questions, software and OS questions, the Compute Modules, RP2040/RP2350, real-time performance, interfacing with industrial protocols, or broader questions.

Post your questions now and we'll work through as many as we can on the day.

See you on the 21st.

— Eben, James & Gordon

Im currently a High school student working on a final long essay and i’m wanting to do some calculations with a wind tunnel. Im wondering what the best ways to go about making a large one and what i can do to get the most accurate measurements. The question I’m revolving around is “How does wing aspect ratio affect the lift to drag ratio of a model airfoil/plane at low Reynolds Numbers?”. Im really just looking for ways to measure the lift to drag ratio and a way to confirm how turbulent and fast the air is moving. Thank you for any ideas.

I am interested in this field but many people tell me it's not worth it there is lots of work and less salary . But still I want to continue on this path only if there is who is in the same field or path please share your experience and reality that you faced.If someone wants to pursue the same after 12th what they should do after 12th , is Aerospace engineering degree is better than other to go in this field ?Which college is good if someone wants to do aerospace engineering.

People that came from another country and study in usa. What job can they get before getting green card or citizenship before working their main job like nasa or big company? Most aerospace company requires green card and experience so while waiting what can you do? To gain experience and work.

https://preview.redd.it/xdvqz68dmq1h1.png?width=1230&format=png&auto=webp&s=2eabd87f85c60d382bd4f78a2667b00541da5aa6

Hi, I’m in high school and I’m building a high speed drone with the end goal of getting the world record for fastest drone ever. I’ve been working on this for about a year. I’m looking for people with engineering experience (especially CFD, composites, machining and electrical) who’d be willing to answer a few questions I have or even hop on a call for a few minutes.

Although I’ve been doing engineering projects since I was very young, this one has been much harder, because I put a lot of effort into learning the math and theory necessary to do CFD simulations properly. I went through Fundamentals of Aerodynamics and the Finite Volume Method: an advanced introduction. I also did the FEA part of the Cornell EDX Ansys course. More recently, I did part of the 2 week introduction to Openfoam (on wiki.openfoam.com). 

The end goal is not only to build the fastest drone ever, but more importantly to run aerostructural optimizations to figure out what the actual optimal design is. To me, this is the really interesting part of the project and over the summer, I’m going to try to set up an aerostructural optimization pipeline using DaFoam.

In addition, I recently got access to several places with different 3 axis CNCs. My end goal is to create the drone body out of carbon fiber and not 3d print it. Thanks to the CNCs, I’ll be able to machine molds and resin infuse the carbon fiber (I already have all the equipment for that).

CAD-wise, thanks to the student licenses, I went through tons of different softwares: fusion first, then solidworks, then Siemens NX (did Xcelerator academy courses), then Catia. The latest version was made in Fusion (so that I have a CAD I can easily modify when machining). I’m planning on making the final design in Catia (great surfaces and the design can be fully parametric and not break unlike with fusion and solidworks).

The problem I’m facing at the moment is that I have developed a lot of skills very fast but in this small amount of time I obviously didn’t develop a very deep understanding (I mean I can’t replicate a Master’s doing Aerospace and CFD…) Additionally, I have spent a huge amount of time learning and doing courses which means I have less and less time to actually build, test and tune the drone. 

There are many areas where I have very little knowledge. If I try to fill those gaps by going through more textbooks, I won’t have time to build the actual drone. That’s why help from people with experience would be incredibly helpful. Unfortunately, there are parts of engineering you just can’t google. 

On another note, I was also thinking of sharing parts of the project here. Watching the videos from the other record holders was incredibly helpful and if I can do the same, that would be incredible.

Edit:
For anyone interested in the official record, it's fastest battery powered quadcopter ground speed. The record is set at around 660km/h by Luke and Mike Bell who have been competing with Ben and the guys at Droneprohub (they got an insane top speed of around 690km/h).

I read that people generally breath in 21% oxygen air and breath out 16% oxygen air. If you kept recycling that air (like if you were breathing in and out of a paper bag) presumably the oxygen concentration would get lower and lower till you pass out or get brain damage or something bad.

If people fall asleep face to face cuddling, it is not sealed like a paper bag, but also not a well mixed environment. Presumably there is some sort of steady state percentage where oxygen used by person matches oxygen being mixed in from the fresh surrounding air. What is that steady state percentage?

Maybe some people end up breathing in as the other is breathing out as they sleep (and them breathing on eachothers faces significantly), and that is some sort of worst case. Why would that be worst case?

Person A breath out 16% and person B breathes in 16%
Then Person B breaths out 11% and Person A in 11% etc etc until dangerously low. Ik there is at least some mixing with the more oxygenated air. Idk how the percentage exchange would go.

I am using presumably pretty loosely. These assumptions are in question.

https://preview.redd.it/h8haefdtby1h1.png?width=2456&format=png&auto=webp&s=f76683b26463aadb1b16fb91d19c80f0c7f3875a

^(φ looks like a plane rolling. θ looks like a pitching choice up or down, ψ looks like a yaw choice left or right)

Im an Aircraft Maintenance Technician at a major US airline. I do structures work on heavy checks. The 787s that have been coming in have been some of the biggest nightmares of planes to work on.

1. Being fully composite on the outside makes it impossible for me to do any type of repair without getting boeing involved. Most likely they are going to have to send one of there go teams to do it for me because the process to do any repairs requires specialized equipment.

2. Any skin patches must be done with titanium, one of the heaviest and hard to work with metals known to man.

3. The entire floor structure is any made of titanium as well as the screws that attach the floor panels and the skin panels. The drill bits that we commonly use cannot handle titanium that well meaning I have to go through literal packs of them in a day.

4. Because of the torsion and flexing of the wing in flight the fuel panels constantly leak. We have to completely drain the tanks to fix that so in reality we have to do a temporary fix with speed tape, meaning that our fuel use is actually high.

5. The paint doesnt adhere to composite very well so its constantly peeling off making the whole plane look trashy from the exterior.

Basically the 787 is a giant hunk of turd and boeing would have been better off making the 767 more fuel efficient, with an engine upgrade and small improvements instead of a whole new plane. If im wrong, please tell me so I can stop being so damn annoyed by this plane.

Edit: I was wrong about titanium, the more you know.

I’m currently pursuing bachelors in aerospace engineering. So being in a last year of college, I’m unable to find the right path for my future. Is it necessary to pursue the Masters for better job opportunities or the bachelors is enough to get a high paying job. My minor is space engineering and Im a fresher with “0” experience and skills as of now. So any suggestions from the experienced one’s. Thanks in advance!

Edited: as I belong to India, where one hardly knows bout aerospace. And we’ve a lot of engineers but from different branches and scope of aerospace is below than average here in India. Now suggest something guys according to this, eager to know.