"Bob Kuykendall" wrote in message
...
On May 27, 7:54 am, chd wrote:

...What motivated me to be an aero engineer was a desire to
design aircraft...

In my own direct experience, I've found a relatively weak correlation
between engineering credentials and actual design ability. It's there,
but it's not as strong as you'd expect or want.

If you want a career as any sort of aircraft designer outside of the
established industry, you end up having to bootstrap yourself somehow.
You will have trouble getting gigs, especially paying gigs, until you
can demonstrate your ability in a very tangible way such as with a
prototype that shows how you approach and conquer the various
challenges. But how do you finance that first project with no paying
customer? It's a chicken-and-egg thing that calls for an act of faith
and some out-of-pocket investment.

Thanks, and good luck!

Bob K.
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I strongly suspect that you, Bob, have hit the single greatest reason that
airplanes, and a lot of other things, are designed the way they are.

A mass produced product, especially one that requires government
certification to be sold, requires a tremendous investment to reach the
market; and then may be a failure if the market research was not accurate.
And accurate market research is extremely difficult for any new product--and
much worse for a product to be introduced at a future time.

Even so, there have been a number of examples of innovation such as the
Mooney Cadet (which was to be an improved trainer based on the Ercoupe) and
the BD2 (which was an effort to produce a $2000 airplane--about $20,000 in
today's money) which became the American Yankee. IIRC, both quickly gained
a reputation for treachery--although the Yankee was subsequently redeveloped
into the Cheetah and Tiger which had a measure of success under the Gruman
banner. And then there were the Beech Skipper and Piper Tomahawk, both of
which were designed to meet a set of design and performance criteria
suggested by the FAA after interviews with a large number of respected
flight instructors. The more successfull of the two was the Tomahawk, which
IMHO seemed to meet the stated criteria more accurately. However, the
Tomahawk did not tolerate fools gladly (which IIRC was part of the original
criteria) and quickly gained a reputation similar to that of the Yankee.

So that brings me to the Amateur-Built (Plans and Kit) market, which really
makes the most sense in a very traditional way. Typically one man, the
entrepreneur if the design is eventually marketed, designs and builds an
airplane that meets (or appears to meet) his particular criteria of
erformance and efficiency--and then he offers the plans and/or kit to other
builders of like mind. Remember that the design is still in the
"esperimental" stage of development and that, in most cases, will never
reach the stage of having a Type Design and Type Certificate. Presuming
that the design really did meet the objectives and that no major problems
appear later, and also presuming that the subsequent builders are truly of
like mind and that they have or attain sufficient skill to build dilligently
in accordance with the plans; then the design is a success and with a bit of
luck the business of selling plans and/or kits might be a success as well.

Peter