I'm staying in France a bit longer

Well the suspense and stress of finding what to do next is finally over. I have found something. 

I have accepted a position here at Airbus France in Toulouse. In fact, it's not a normal position it's an Industrial PhD for three years.

In the end it came down to this. I need experience. Over the months of July and August and September I applied to every job I could find all over the world. And in fact I was a bit surprised at the lack of response I got. There were responses of course, but most of the jobs I was really interested in....they were looking for people with experience 3-5 years, and my resume with it's lack of experience just was not catching eyes. 

So what was the best experience I can get. I had a lot of offers to stay here in France. 2-3 positions from Airbus itself and numerous positions from subcontractors. But I wanted a really multi-disciplinary job, a job where I could work with as many parts of the plane as possible. Now...that's not easy at a company like Airbus. The company is so huge....it's not like back when I was working at Soloy with 6 engineers in total. There is a department of 45 people in France, another 40 in Germany and more in UK just in the Loads Department. So they really specialize people in Airbus. 

I actually received this offer back in June, but turned it down because I wasn't really sure what I wanted. But I reconsidered throughout September and decided it really is the best move for me right now. 

So..what exactly is it?

First off, It is a PhD. At the end of the three years I will present a Thesis on my work, and assuming all goes well I will recieve a Doctorate. That's right, there will be a new Dr. Jones in the house. However, I did not choose it for the PhD. I chose it for the work experience, and hey, if at the end of three years a get a PhD (and was paid for three years to get that PhD) then that's just a great bonus. 

So basically it is an 'Industrial PhD'. What this means is that I work at Airbus, I get paid just like a regular engineer, I have all the benefits of a regular engineer, but I am working on a subject of specific interest to Airbus and the public, and as such the French Government will pay part of my salarie.  

So what was it about this post that interested me?

The subject is Takeoff and Landing Performance on Contaminated Runways. Contaminated means ice, slush, snow and/or standing water. Conditions us Canadians know well!!! I mentioned above it's hard to find something at Airbus "multi-disciplinary. " Well this is about as multi as it gets. I will be working in the Engineering Performance department, but I will be working a lot with Flight Testing, Safety and Certification, FAA/JAA Rules and Regulations, Flight Management and Flight Systems. Experience in a lot of areas!!!

The goal is this. To more correctly model the performance of the plane under these adverse conditions. The idea being, that if we can correctly model how the plane will react, how it's performance is affected by these conditions, we can develop new flight management and control systems. Systems that can take into account the current conditions of the runway and then calculate the optimal braking conditions to prevent the airplane from having a problem. 

I read and follow a lot of aviation related news. And I know how often that mishaps/accidents are due to takeoff and landing in bad weather conditions. We have often seen pictures of planes having slid of the end of runways. Sometimes this is just a minor mis-convenience (from a passenger point of view) and other times it can be fatal. 

So to be involved in developing a system that can model these conditions and brake the plane to safety....that is a really cool project to be a part of. You could sorta say I'm developing complicated ABS brakes for an Airplane. 

So i'm really excited to part of such a great project, a project that will hopefully reduce accidents and save lives. 

So when do I start?

That's the unknown right now. I didn't accept (and be accepted) for the post until the end of September. Because it is the PhD and the French government is paying part of my wages, there is some paperwork. All I know now is that the paperwork can take up to two months or more. So that could mean starting in December. Perhaps it can be fastracked to start in November. Or perhaps it  might not be until January. We will see. Now that I'm back from vacation, I should know within the next week or so what the timeline is. 

So yeah. I really thing this is the best move for me. I'm confident I made the right choice. I'll be getting great work experience. I'll be getting that work experience at the biggest Airplane manufacturer in the world and after three years I'll have a PhD, which can't hurt either. 

What does this mean for all of you?

It means you have three more years to come and visit me!!! And I know Toulouse isn't the hot tourist spot of Europe. But don't worry, just come to Europe and I'll meet you. Paris, London, Barcelona, Berlin wherever.