When Rob Whythe was just starting out as a simulation engineer, he learned
an important lesson: always test your system BEFORE you show it to a potential
customer.
"On my first ever simulator...I made a software modification to add a new
vibration model," he remembers. But his modification had a bug that only showed
up two weeks later at a sales demonstration.
"The customer triggered the bug, which caused the whole motion system to
try to shake itself to pieces - with me standing in the back as one of the
observers," says Whythe. "We all tried to hit the emergency stop, but the
cockpit was moving around so fast that we couldn't find it!"
The safety systems finally kicked in about 30 seconds later and shut the
system down. But Whythe never forgot the experience. "I learned a lot about
software quality and system testing that day!"
Whythe's goal is to make flying safer by creating realistic training for
pilots. "The whole purpose of the simulator is to persuade the pilot that
he is flying the real aircraft, not just a training box - only then will the
pilot respond as he would in the real thing," says Whythe. "And producing
a simulator that can give the pilot that sense of realism, and that can make
him sweat in fear, is what really drives me."
For Lyle Barner, getting a preview of the future of technology is one of
the best parts of the job.
"Typically, the simulations I perform involve better understanding cutting-edge
technologies," says Barner. He's a modeling and simulation engineer for defense
contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. "It's really exciting to be able to come
into work and learn about technologies that are looking 10, 15, or even 20
years into the future.
"It's given me lots of opportunities to grow as an engineer, that's for
sure," he adds. "I learn about new engineering disciplines every time I'm
assigned a new simulation task simply because of the nature of constructing
a simulation. You have to understand all the angles of the problem. For example,
I've learned a lot about aerospace engineering just by simulating aircraft."
Sandrine De Jesus Mota knows all about simulating aircraft. She's an engineer
in the flight dynamics and simulation group at an aerospace company. "[I]
develop models to represent the aircraft's dynamics and performance characteristics
under normal and failure conditions," she says. "The work I do is really exciting
because I realize that the simulation models that I develop are used by the
other disciplines for engineering tasks. I feel proud to be responsible to
build simulation models that reflect the best engineering knowledge of the
aircraft aerodynamic behavior."
You need strong problem-solving skills to be successful in this field.
"Simulations engineers have to be able to logically think through a problem
and construct a simulation solution," says Barner. "Anyone that enjoys thinking
analytically and logically analyzing a difficult problem should consider this
work."
Not that it's all fun and games. "I would say [the hardest part is] being
able to adapt to changing conditions and being agile," says Barner. "Sometimes
you have to become enough of an expert in a certain area to accurately model
it using software. This can be really difficult and stressful sometimes."
But if you can overcome the challenges, this career offers plenty of rewards.
"Easily one of the most exciting things is to see the finished products being
built," says Barner. "I've toured a few production lines and seen a few nearly
finished products being tested and it's always a really humbling experience."