Engineer V-22 Flight Test Instrumentation (Patuxent River, MD)

Textron - Patuxent River, MD

Full-time - Entry Level

Patuxent River, MD

Transportation Equipment Manufacturing

About the position

Bell Flight is seeking an experienced Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) Engineer to support the testing and development of product improvements for USMC and USN V-22 tiltrotor aircraft at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station located in Patuxent River, Maryland. As a FTI Engineer, you will play a crucial role in an Integrated Product Team (IPT) by engaging in the organization, planning, and management of test aircraft instrumentation to meet program and customer defined requirements. This position offers the opportunity to work on significant engineering problems while gaining experience in leadership and communication. In this role, you will collaborate with test directors, discipline engineers, instrumentation technicians, and test pilots to define system requirements and hardware/software implementation strategies for instrumenting test aircraft. Your responsibilities will include planning and executing multiple projects, defining requirements, designing instrumentation systems, facilitating installations, supporting calibration and check-out, and maintaining and troubleshooting systems throughout the test program. You will also analyze and troubleshoot instrumentation systems and flight test data to ensure accuracy and efficiency in obtaining test data. The position requires a strong understanding of flight technology, design engineering, stress and fatigue analysis, aerodynamics analysis, and flight test engineering. You will be responsible for integrating simulated hardware and generating tactical threat environments using multiple image generation platforms. Additionally, you will interface with end users, customers, and subcontractors throughout product development, supporting new aircraft and technology development as well as proprietary analytical tools and applications.

Responsibilities

• Support the flight test team for experimental tiltrotor aircraft, requiring teamwork and collaborative problem solving in a multi-team environment with direct customer contact.
• Develop and execute project plans for installing and upgrading instrumentation sensors, wiring, and processing hardware, along with associated schedules and metric tracking.
• Analyze and troubleshoot instrumentation systems and flight test data to ensure accuracy and efficiency in obtaining test data.
• Demonstrate understanding of flight technology, design engineering, stress and fatigue analysis, aerodynamics analysis, flight test engineering, and other engineering related disciplines to provide optimal instrumentation support to the flight test team.
• Review and understand all related procedures, processes, and best practices.
• Integrate simulated hardware such as multifunction displays, control loading systems, aircraft instrument & control panels, etc. and generate tactical threat environments using multiple image generation platforms.
• Interface with end users, customers, and subcontractors throughout product development.
• Create data interfaces for ethernet, serial and various avionics bus protocols and support throughout the entire software development life cycle from requirements definition to product deployment.

Requirements

• Minimum 2 years of flight test experience (helicopter, airplane, or vectored thrust aircraft).
• Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Math, or a related science discipline is required.
• Must have excellent written and oral communications skills and be able to interact well in a team environment.
• Must be proficient with Microsoft Office products including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook.
• Must be proficient with AutoCAD, or equivalent for creating, modifying, or updating electrical drawings.
• Must have strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a team-player mindset.
• Must be capable of mastering unique, company-specific Flight Test software for data collection and analytical processes.
• Must have a working knowledge of industry-standard airborne data acquisition, recording, and telemetry system hardware and software.

Nice-to-haves

• Advanced degrees will be considered as additional experience.

Benefits

• 80 hours of Personal Time Off (PTO)
• 120 hours Vacation time
• 12-13 paid holidays per year
• 6 weeks parental leave
• Tuition reimbursement
• Competitive salary
• Comprehensive health insurance
• Access to more than 11 Employee Resource Groups