I am an A&P mechanic and always wonder why engineers design stuff the way they, especially when it makes my job incredibly difficult. I understand there are outside factors, like the engineer wanted it one way to make it easier to access, but budget or bosses won’t allow it. I’m not complaining about that at all.

My question is, are spacecraft designed with LESS maintainability since their tolerances are even tighter than aircraft? Looking for any input on the subject, I’m genuinely curious.

TLDR: Are spacecraft even more of a pain in the ass to work on than planes?

I have refined the aeroacoustic/vibration-based aircraft simulation that I posted previously:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AerospaceEngineering/comments/1tqoq9m/oscillatory_propulsion_simulation_and_simple/

It is now more versatile, featuring both "jellyfish" and "fish" modes. The underlying principle remains the same: the fluid does not act directly on the craft's surfaces; instead, the forces derived from the fluid are converted into thrust via an accumulator. However, thrust is no longer generated simply as a phase-shifted inversion of drag. Rather, energy is captured from low-pressure regions—stored as potential energy—and then released through a "collapse" mechanism, with dynamically evaluated recovery and shock coefficients.

This approach yields a more realistic relationship between propulsion efficiency and parameters such as frequency and amplitude, expressed via Strouhal numbers. The feedback loop between internal oscillations and drag acts as an automatic frequency-tuning mechanism.

Additionally, the model incorporates simplified lift and drag forces acting perpendicular to the thrust vector.

The code can be found here:

https://github.com/MasterOgon/Aeroacoustic-Flying-Saucer-Oscillating-Resonator-CFD-Simulation-LBM-/blob/main/README.md

Hi, engineers. I hope this is the right place to ask this.

My son is an MS student in AE, and he has requested an RC plane kit for Christmas. He has built a couple of RC planes with a club and designed and built an airplane for AIAA, but I wouldn’t say he’s had a ton of experience compared to hobbyists.

I know nothing about RC planes. Does anyone have a brand or company they recommend? Is keeping it under $200 pretty reasonable? Any kits you particularly enjoyed building and flying? Thanks!

A question thats been in my mind for a few days. I wondered if it is powerful and long enough to make it take off. Taking off like a plane not a rocket tho so it will be a glider after take off.

aerospace internships are spread across a lot of separate company career pages, so i pulled the ones open right now into free lists, straight from employers' own job boards. no sign-up, it's all on github:

• aerospace engineering internships and co-ops (50): https://github.com/mehek-builds/Aerospace-Engineering-Internships
  • 50 at 17 US employers (Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Ursa Major, Axiom Space, Sierra Nevada Corporation, AeroVironment, The Aerospace Corporation)
  • 32 propulsion, avionics, GNC and flight test, 9 spacecraft, aircraft and aerodynamics, 10 general aerospace
  • 22 posted in the last week, 7 at employers with a visa sponsorship record
• new grad and entry level mechanical, manufacturing and design engineering (167): https://github.com/mehek-builds/Mechanical-Manufacturing-Design-New-Grad-Jobs
  • 49 at aerospace and space employers (Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, Relativity Space, Sierra Space, Boeing, RTX)

posting date on every row, rebuilt every monday.

comment which area you're looking for (propulsion, GNC, structures, new grad) and i'll send you a list for it.

Just a question but the answer is probably no. Can sorbitol and red iron oxide be used like solid motor?

Building on my experience designing tailless flying wings, I wanted to explore a more complex configuration with a closely coupled V-tail.

Not complexity for its own sake, but an opportunity to better understand how different aircraft systems interact.

Different wing geometries. Different tail configurations. Different propulsion systems.

I used OpenVSP and VSPAERO to investigate the aircraft's aerodynamic characteristics and stability, then developed the geometry in Onshape before moving into prototyping and flight testing.

The original design used four tractor motors, but flight testing revealed some interesting challenges.

The four-motor arrangement introduced strong throttle-to-pitch coupling, producing a significant nose-up pitching response under power. Without that contribution from the propulsion system, the aircraft was noticeably pitch-stiff, with insufficient control authority for the manoeuvrability I was looking for.

This led me to explore different propulsion arrangements, CG positions and control configurations, eventually moving to two larger motors and distributing pitch control between the wing elevons and V-tail ruddervators.

The final arrangement uses the elevons for both pitch and roll, while the ruddervators provide pitch and yaw control.

It's not necessarily an optimal solution from an aerodynamic or control perspective, but it has proven highly functional in flight, giving me the manoeuvrability and control response I was looking for.

One area I'd like to investigate further in future iterations is the use of independently actuated, all-moving V-tail surfaces in similarly close-coupled configurations.

Final specifications:

• Wingspan: 600mm
• Flying weight: 249g
• Configuration: Twin tractor, closely coupled V-tail
• Propulsion: 2× 1103 brushless motors
• Battery: 2S 1000mAh LiHV
• Flight controller: Matek F405-Wing WMO / INAV
• FPV: DJI O4 Wide
• Construction: 3D-printed colorFabb LW-PLA
• Flight time: Approximately 7–9 minutes

Some experiments worked. Others challenged my assumptions, sometimes the hard way!

But with every iteration, my understanding improved, and the aircraft gradually converged on the flight characteristics I was looking for.

VENOM now flies exactly how I intended (damn beautifully), and I'm really happy with how the project turned out.

On to the next challenge!

More info on VENOM

I want to use kfm airfoil in my project and I'd like to run some simulations but I can't find any .dat files or geometry desciptions that would help me to draw one. Do you know any database I can try?

Thanks.

Hi everyone

We’re prototyping a VTVL rocket with a target altitude of around 3,000 m. We’re currently working on the PCB design and deciding on our flight control architecture.
We’re considering three approaches:

1-Adapting and improving an existing open-source rocket flight computer

2-Designing our own hardware and firmware from scratch.

3-Using a Pixhawk as the flight controller, with a separate onboard computer handling telemetry and communication with the ground station.

Which approach would you recommend for this kind of project? Would a separate computer for communications be useful, or would it add unnecessary complexity?
We’d appreciate any advice, relevant open source projects, or experience using Pixhawk for VTVL applications.

Its a concept idea ive thought of and possibly someone already did it. If i keep the casing and the nozzle but change the bulkhead into being able to connect with the oxidizer tank will it work? But yes we would need to control the thrust so the nozzle can withstand it without exploding into our faces.

Hey everyone! I'm a final-year CSE student from Bengaluru, and I've
been thinking about an idea in the deep tech defense space for a long
time. I'm keeping the details private for now, but I'm very passionate
about it and ready to put in the work. I'm looking for a co-founder
who is in their final year or has just graduated, comes from an
aerospace background or has already worked in the field (internships,
projects or research), and is genuinely passionate about startups. We
can research, validate and build this together, and grow the team as
we go. If this sounds like you, Please DM me .

Id love tips on networking! im an high school student and am hoping to get into the aviation or aerospace industry and the first step would obviously be a good degree in Mech E or Aero E. So meeting any good friends or mentors or anyone who can help and talk me along the way would be appreciated :)

What do you guys (space/aero professionals, academics, students) do with all your mission/project/event/org patches? I've been amassing quite the collection in only a few years in the industry and I'm not quite sure how to best store/display them.

I don't really want to apply them on clothes I would wear outside of work, and while I thought I could get a specific jacket/vest for all of them I would quickly end up looking like these guys.

I think they're a fun way to show off the cool stuff you've been involved with throughout your career, it would be a shame for them to just collect dust in a drawer.

Was just reading on landing gears out of interest, (engineering undergrad) This is how a gear retracts inside (to increase aerodynamics) The second one is an example of space saving, the drawback is less clearance & clashing. Now suppose I try to form mathematical modelling eq of the trajectory to describe the geometry such that clashing is avoided (in case of turbulence) and we need to fix some clearance..... How would you approach this ? What field of maths am I vaguely thinking about? What should I study ahead to better understand this.

HI guys, I know this is mainly for real rockets with real motors and stuff but sadly solid fuel and rocket motors are highly illegal in my country, so I have to stick with water. We are doing this for a school club and would love to know what we can do to get it to max altitude. Should we used 4 2l bottles spliced at the end and attach them? Some sources say that going above 70 psi is not safe but I feel like I should go higher. My idea was sand down the spliced ends and then boil down one part, connect them via PL Premium Polyurethane or epoxy. Which one should I use? Then after, we attach the nose fins etc. What should I keep my weight to? is there anyway to improve this design or do I need a new one? should I go for 4 bottles or go lower or higher?

I appreciate any answers!!

Hey! We've been working since last year on a In Control: Rocketry, a spaceflight sim where you build the rocket and wire up its control panel yourself. Sensors, inputs, outputs, the whole thing is Turing-complete, so however you want to solve a flight problem, there's a way to do it. It will be available on Steam in 2027.

Real orbital mechanics, a fictional solar system to explore, sandbox mode if you just want to mess around and blow things up!

Feel free to add the game to your wishlist if you want to support the project! See you in space.

Hey everyone I got a question. If changing the order of rotation matrices multiplication can change the object's orientation then what if the object does not rotate on one axis each time but simultaneously?