Favorite Parts Of Being A Retired Aerospace Engineer At Northrop Grumman
Michael, a retired Aerospace Engineer, enjoys developing successful new technology, and shares that "that's what every engineer and scientist loves to do" when responding to the question, later elaborating on a project where a creative solution was needed involving "very creative data manipulation" to gather crucial materials data at temperatures beyond room temperature which led to a breakthrough moment of brilliance. In closing, he stated the rare occurrence of a breakthrough moment makes all the tedious parts of the job worth it.
Aerospace Engineering, Materials Science, Data Analysis, Problem-Solving, Technological Development
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Michael Capoccia
Retired Aerospace Engineer
Northrop Grumman Corp.
Cal State University Long Beach
Pepperdine University Masters In Business Administration , Graduate Studies In Program Mngt. and Systems Engineering Cal Tech
Engineering - Chemical
Aerospace, Aviation & Defense
Research and Development (R&D)
Honors Student, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Transfer Student, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Developing successful new technology is a highly enjoyable aspect of the role, providing a sense of accomplishment when seeing a project come to fruition.
2. Overcoming challenges, such as the lack of data for materials at high temperatures, requires creative problem-solving and innovative solutions, like developing new equipment and data manipulation methods.
3. Achieving accurate results through creative data manipulation, even if unconventional, and validating them with independent testing can be a source of great satisfaction and a highlight of the job.
Transcript
What do you enjoy most about being in your role?
The enjoyable part is developing successful new technology. That's what every engineer and scientist loves to do. You get to sit down, look at something new you created, and know that's really great.
In this case, we had a problem. We had no data for the materials we were applying above room temperature. There's an old saying: low observables aircraft are designed at room temperature, but they're flown at something else. So, there are changes to those properties.
We had to develop some equipment to address this. It took about a year and cost around $350,000. And it really worked. It worked exceedingly well.
The hardest part was applying very creative data manipulation methods. Some people might say we were putting in dummy data. But to get the Monte Carlo software to collapse and give us an answer, we decided that if we put in data we knew was close to being real, in a frequency we didn't care about—way out on the low end—it would make the software give us the correct solution.
It turns out it did a very good job. When we tested those answers back with an independent type of test, they were very accurate. So, it was true brilliance on two people's part. That's the enjoyment. You get one of those every few years, and it makes all the paperwork you have to do worth it.