Simon Williams
Placement Employer: AirbusCourse:School of Engineering & Design |
Some other great things have happened…
- If I’m lucky, I should soon be going down to Seville to the FAL (Final Assembly Line) to help with some testing on the actual A400M.
- We were also fortunate enough to have a Vulcan, and a Harrier do a fly-by and to see them within a 1000 feet!
- We also one Saturday had an A380 come into Filton for the day which was amazing to see!
While on placement, I have managed to carry on with my dream which is flying! It really is amazing to be able to take off and land on such a huge runway as that of Filton’s. And to think that I am using the same runway that the A380 (the largest aircraft in the world) uses when it comes in is just so cool!
I am enjoying my placement very much! There is so much experience and knowledge that you can gain, and if you play your cards right there are so many opportunities that you can take advantage of as well (as long as you are prepared to look for them), including having a private group employee tour of the last Concorde that ever flew! Also, you can make a lot of contacts which could help later in coming back to the same company.
Third Month
This is my 14th week at Airbus. I have recently finished my task of investigating different gauging methodologies. After two months of working on this task I was asked to write a technical report outlining all the work that I had done. Through writing this report, although I already had a good grasp of Microsoft Word, I again managed to improve my abilities.
Since finishing this task, I have now moved onto something different. I am going to be working more closely with Airbus documents to enable me to better understand what are known as requirements documents. The plan is to gain a working knowledge and understanding of them so that I will be able to write a requirements document of my own soon.
The other day we managed to get out of the office for a few minutes as the all the Red Arrows came in to land at Filton for the night. It really was amazing to be able to see them all so close and without being at an air show. The formation take off really was truly amazing!
A couple of days ago, I had my longest meeting yet. We ended up being in this meeting for five hours with a five minute break in between! Being in a meeting for that long is fine if you know and understand everything that is being talked about, but when you are constantly trying to understand the details of the meeting with only a general knowledge of what is being said it ends up being really tiring!
Fourth Month
This is now my 17th week at Airbus. I have recently come back from a week in Seville, Spain. I was helping our FQMS (Fuel Quantity and Management Systems) team with GTRs (Ground Test Requirements) at the FAL (Final Assembly Line) for the A400M. This has been by far the highlight of my placement so far! Firstly, to see the actual aircraft before it flies and to work on it is just amazing. To think that I have taken part in testing on the second A400M aircraft ever to be built is really incredible. While I was there I managed to get a peak at the first A400M. What is even better is that the A400M should have its first flight during my placement.
Being at FAL really was so interesting as for a start it is huge. Also, I was able to see all the different stations that each MSN (Manufacturers Serial Number) will go through in its production process. Each station in itself is massive. While we were there, the weather was amazing, cloudless skies, and 32degrees most days from about 10am. It was really so nice. It was just the last day which was really bad as when it rains in Spain it really does rain torrentially! I also met lots of people of who work down in an office called the MAP office, which is basically the first point of contact for the people at Filton when discussions about the aircraft at the FAL take place.
When I was not helping with testing I took the opportunity to have a good look around MSN 2. The inside of this aircraft is huge. From the Airbus website, you can see for yourself that it is capable of transporting huge loads. For example, it can carry 116 paratroopers, or it can transport a transport helicopter. It can take 66 stretchers along with 25 medical personnel, or 125 stretchers with assistants. As well as this, the range, cruising speed and altitude are really good for a prop aircraft.
Apart from work, there was some time to go around Seville and explore. Seville is a really pretty city. There are lots of really good tapas restaurants. The two hotels that we stopped in were also really nice, was almost like being an exec! I am hoping that I may be able to get myself onto another trip to Seville.
Seventh Month
This is the end of my seventh month, and just over half way through my placement with Airbus. This last month I have been involved in a different task. I have been involved with updating what is known as a BITE database (Built In Test Equipment). This database holds all the different messages that could appear on the screens in the flight deck of the A400M. My task this time was update all these messages with pictures of what the pilot would see on the ECAM (Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitoring) screen in the cockpit. This meant I had to teach myself how to use a desktop fuel simulator simulation programme which is based on MATLAB.
For this task, I took each message from the BITE database and setup every single different scenario on the desktop simulator and then took a screen shot of the ECAM window (what the pilot sees) so that when all the pictures were taken, they could be put onto a main server and hence linked to each message on the BITE database.
This was a good task for me to do as it gave me a much greater understanding of exactly how the fuel systems for the A400M work, and also put into a much greater perspective all the testing work that I was involved in out in Sevilla.
After this, I had to then link different types of messages together. This meant taking a message for each individual pump or valve from the Unit Internal Fault Detection Specification (UIFDS) and linking it to the corresponding set of Flight Deck and Cabin Effects (FDCEs) of which there are usually quite a few. This took quite a while as there are many pumps and valves to go through.
Through doing this task, I have learnt a great deal about the fuel systems and just how much there is going on within all the computer systems, which some of it the pilot will not see as it just happens automatically.
However, the majority of the work that I do seems to involve excel spreadsheets in one way or another, which is good as it gives me a great deal of practice with excel, but the brain does need a rest every so often...
Another thing to mention is that I do feel very lucky and privileged that the first flight of the A400M just happened to coincide with being halfway through my placement. Also the first flight of MSN002 (the second aircraft) to fly in the near future, I feel very lucky to have worked on it before its maiden flight.
Eighth Month
This is now the end of my eighth month, I am almost three quarters through my placement with Airbus Military. During this last month, I have been following on from the work I was doing last month. This work involved the Built in Test Equipment Database or BITE Database. The BITE database holds all the different error messages that could appear on the aircraft.
After having completed the screen shot task, the next task was to take each Unit Internal Fault Detection Specification (UIFDS) error message and link it with the corresponding Flight Deck and Cabin Effect (FDCE), whether these were part of the Control and Display System (CDS), Flight Warning System (FWS), or Over Head Panel (OHP) or LOCAL. As well as doing the linking, I also had to find the relevant Boolean that makes the different error messages appear.
This exercise took a few weeks, as firstly there are many pumps and valves and many different FDCEs that can relate to each UIFDS. This task has really helped enormously in giving me a much greater understanding of how the fuel systems for the A400M operate and how many different components there are involved with the system.
Aside from work, while down here in Filton, due to another Intern friend of mine who is studying Aeronautical Systems Engineering at the University of West England (UWE), I have for the last seven months taken up a dormant interest of mine, which is rock climbing! I really am thoroughly enjoying it. Ironically, I didn’t touch the climbing wall at Brunel during the last three years, I come to Bristol and start climbing, better late than never!
Ninth Month
I am now three quarters the way through my placement in Filton with Airbus MILITARY. This last month has been quite busy again.
Two weeks ago the A400M fuel dept had a work experience student come for the week from one of the local schools. He was 14yrs old. It was delegated to me to have the responsibility to look after him for the week and to attempt to keep him busy and occupied. During the week I managed to keep him occupied and only in the office half the time to try and keep the interest in engineering alive (In fact so much so that one of the managers actually asked if he had done any work...). This involved me giving him a tour of the A400M Wing Assembly. I also took him to see the last ever Concorde to be built and last one to fly. I also managed to get him a tour of the A380 Landing Gear test rig.
Another morning, we had to go into a local school and do a Paper Plane Workshop. This just meant going into one of the local primary schools and talking to the kids about the four forces of flight, and then helping them to make paper aeroplanes followed by and paper plane competition. It is actually much more fun than it sounds!
Although I kept the work experience student out of the office half the time, he did actually do some work. I gave him a simple but fun task of validating the screen shots that I had made for all the different failure conditions for the fuel systems for the A400M. This involved me explaining the fuel systems to him and then showing him how to work the simulator. He then played around with it to familiarise himself with it so that he could undertake the task set.
As I said above, the paper plane workshops were surprisingly fun, (as well as the fact that it meant I was out of the office for a few hours...). The kids really enjoyed it as they were all running round screaming and chucking planes all over the place! I have never seen so many planes being thrown around at one time before! Not to mention the amount of times I was hit by stray paper planes.
If I manage to play my cards right, I should be going back down to Seville next week to help with some more ground testing on the A400M MSN003.
MSN001 has now down quite a bit of flying and is well on the way to success! It would just be nice to see it fly into Filton before the end of my placement
