And just like that...I'm Finished

It's funny. I've had a week of boredom with nothing to do between the end of my masters and the start of work on Monday, but couldn't find 20 minutes to sit down and write about the huge event of FINISHING the SCHOOL part of the MASTERS.

So that's it, I'm finished. Now it's just 6 months of internship and voila a Masters Degree. I guess I haven't written as I'm still figuring out how I feel about it. The school part being over.

There is always the usual elation at being done. No more paper, no more books. But it all seemed to go to quick. When I first applied for this school I thought it was a two year program. Upon getting here I learned it is a two year...but we all got accepted into the second year, thus we are here for one year. I'm still unsure how I feel about this. On one hand, WOO HOO, I save myself a boat load of money, one year of my life and I get a 2 year degree.. in one year. But now that I'm finished it just seems that the course went to quick. It all felt so rushed.... I mean I just did a Masters Course in 7 MONTHS.

But on the other hand it's good. Because at this point, I think school can only teach so much. I really felt I learned more in my 8 months of Soloy learning by doing then I did in my undergradl. And all the jobs I look at, are looking for someone with 3-5 years experience. So it's about time I started going out and getting that experience. (Plus NASA requires 3 years experience to apply and Masters counts as one year).

Most of all, I'm really looking forward to this job. It's funny how 7 months changes things. When I first got here, my first thought about the internship was anywhere but Airbus. I didn't want to work for this massive huge company where I'd be a peon. But this job came along, and it just offers so much for me to learn. To try and apply a bit of everything I've learned at school.

Which brings me to the face, i never actually made a blog concerning my internship....ok here it is

INTERNSHIP

I have my Internship at AIRBUS. For those of you unfamiliar. Think Boeing. Airbus and Boeing are the two largest commercial plane makers in the world. And each year it's neck and neck who builds, delivers and sells the most planes. Airbus has taken the lead in deliveries the last couple years, but they've also had their problems with setbacks to the Super Jumbo the A380 (you have to see this plane in person...it's incredible). And now Boeing is fighting back with the 787 Dreamliner.
(For a rough estimate of the size..it's 73m long, 3/4 a football field and the tail wing...is the same size as the full wing on smaller planes like the A320)

So there is the background. I'm unsure of what I can say about my project...so I'll just say what was freely available on the internet through the job posting. I'll be working with the flight simulator on lateral flight dynamics. Flight Dynamics is basically how the airplane reacts to manouvers in the air. It's hard to explain through type, much easier to explain in person (with a little airplane model) If your interested maybe wikipedia does a better job http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_dynamics

Anyways Airbus has of course their own flight simulator for each airplane. So I will be working in the General Design Office working on the flight simulator, trying to improve how accurate is and how well it models real airplane flight.

I'm excited though, as flight dynamics quickly became my favorite and most interesting class of this entire Masters.

I'll do another post soon with a small selection of some of the stuff I've done during the masters. The projects and such.

Cheers

Logan