Aviation Begins Its 2nd Half-Century

Fifty years ago today on the beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilber Wright pioneered in achieving flight with heavier-than-air craft. The associated industries that have grown up around the airplane during its half-century of existence new provide work for over half a million people. In the midst of the growth of these industries, a striking change has taken place in the attitude of the public toward aviation. Once considered a dream of impractical man, aviation today has an honored place among vocations and professions.

Where it would have been considered daring to make a career of aviation a quarter of a century ago, there is not only prestige, but capital in the business of airplanes and air travel.

There are two distinct divisions of enterprise in the aviation industry, the production of airplanes, and their operation. In huge plants throughout the country, aircraft corporations transform the dreams of designers and engineers into safe, comfortable, speedy vehicles of a new medium of transportation, the air.

A revolution in thinking has come with the increasing number of airplanes from the assembly line. Distance, always measured in hours and not in miles, shrinks every year as faster and faster aircraft are built. At present there are no two places on earth more than 36 hours away from one another. People in a hurry utilize an industry unthought of twenty years ago. The country is crisscrossed with the routes of air lines. It is as easy to fly to Bermuda from New York as it is to drive to Boston, and it takes no more time.

It is a sign of the stability of this new industry that it provides more and more openings for college graduates. College men have invested in four years of education, and few are willing to risk their investment by starting a career in an unsound or risky profession. Unfortunately for the liberal arts major, however, by far the greatest number of jobs open to college graduates will go to men trained in some technical skill, who go by the general name of engineers. With all the recent advances in science, never before have the prospects been so bright for the prospective engineer.

The Curtiss-Wright Corporation, one of America's largest manufacturers of airplane equipment, sums up the opportunities for a young engineer in its 1953 brochure: "For the aeronautical research worker and engineer, there is an evergrowing challenge to contribute to the progress of a field firmly established, yet limitless in potentialities. Working daily at the threshhold of the unknown will bring the engineer into many closely related fields. An aircraft increase in size and speed, the role of the engineer and research worker becomes even more important."

Engineering A Keystone

The brochure goes on to say, "Engineering is the keystone of the organization." This attitude is the determining factor in the employment programs of all major aviation companies. In recruiting college graduate material, the emphasis is on men with technical training.

Most of the work, however, that is carried on in this industry--the actual manufacturing processes, lathing, machine shop work, operation of testing apparatus, and so on, is done by men without college degrees. Opportunities for pure science majors lie in engineering: research, design, and development. Nevertheless, the chief shortage in the aircraft Industry today is in trained technical personnel. Engineers are in great demand in an ever-increasing and accelerating scope of investigation.

For the liberal arts major, advertising, contract selling, all the white collar occupations are available' here as in any other industry. Good selling and desk jobs need filling for the aviation people in todays' complicated business environment, but companies don't scout for men to fill them. The search is for the future inventor of an economical rocket, a foolproof de-icer, or a radical new wing design.

An unfortunate development of this constantly expanding frontier of science is tied up with the growing complexity and diversity of the industry. The white collar workers are growing more and more divorced from the technical aspects of airplane design and construction. The industry has reached the point in its development where the founders, once contemptuously called dreamers, have had to hire accountants and all the tribe of regular and orderly minds to keep tabs on their sprouting colossus.

Quick Conselldation

It has been typical of other industries that after a period of growth and expansion, there has come a time for consolidation of gains, perhaps even retrenchment, followed by decline or new growth as new processes are developed. This process has been true in the aviation industry, but far accelerated by the continued crises of the last two decades. With the present world tension, and the almost incredible advances made by the designer and innovator, the period of consolidation immediately following World-War II was very short.

The industry has kept growing and expanding despite the temporary letdown when military orders were slowed in the period of disarmament. The current need for fighting planes will not slack off soon. In fact, it promises to increase. Experimentation is going on in subsonic, transonic, and supersonic flight--new developments are coming on in reciprocating (propeller driven), turbo-prop (combination jet and reciprocating), ram jet, and rocket engines.

In the near future, the whole field promises to be revolutionized by the effective development of a power plant driven by atomic energy. As military planes get bigger and faster, private planes grow more economical to operate. Since the last war, the booming air transportation industry has aided the airplane manufacturers to swell the volume of planes produced.

Increased Demand

As the volume of production increases, the demand for trained engineers also goes up. The airplane industry is just one of many industries clamoring for the services of the graduating engineer. Severe shortages in the supply of these men red many industries to set up their own training programs, or to help schools produce more engineers by giving grants and aids and initiating cooperative advanced study programs.

The Boeing Corporation was one of many companies to realize that the gap between college classrooms and "out in industry was a major drawback in modern technical education. The professors couldn't relate their subjects to practical aspects of engineering, and industry would eventually have had to foot the bill for additional training.

Boeing, along with other manufacturers, set up a program whereby college professors and faculty members would work for them during the summer to see how industry operates. Then, when the professors went back to school, the companies expected them to pass the knowledge gained on to their students.

According to Boeing officials, their program has resulted in mutual advantage for them and the colleges. The professors go back to teach with more knowledge of industry and the practical aspects of engineering. This added insight helps them turn out efficient graduate engineers without the "traditional green of new sprung college men." A. A. Soderquist, administrative engineer in charge of the Boeing program, calls the summer study plan "a long range gamble that has already started to pay off. Even if we weren't getting better oriented men, just the work the professors do during the summer makes the program profitable for us."

In airplane manufacturing corporations, the engineer occupies an esteemed position. Again, Curtiss-Wright's brochure sums up an industry-wide attitude: "The engineer is afforded an exceptional opportunity to work on the more challenging engineering projects of today with the latest and most complete laboratory and testing equipment of its kind in the world, to associate with engineers who are outstanding in their fields, and to gain personal prestige for himself as a professional engineer."

Opportunity are open to men from almost every field of engineering skill and knowledge. Although the greatest requirement is for mechanical engineers, in most cases the fundamental engineering education is a more important consideration that the particular engineering major or degree.

The large aircraft companies desire people of "high academic standing, who have participated in extra-curricular activities, can work with others, and have a specific interest in one of the fields of investigation under study. The must be able to take orders and have potentiality for leadership, and organizational ability." (Hughes Aircraft Corporation Handbook --1953)

Specialization

The mere list of the specialized fields in which men can find accupation in the aircraft industry shows at once both the great diversification on the industry and its extreme draft toward specialization. These interests fall under three large classifications: design, research, and production.

The groups of study under the general heading of design include: armament, equipment, heating and ventilating systems, anti-iceing and defrosting systems, electrical power systems, electronic equipment, controls, and hydraulics.

Under research, which overlaps design on certain points, is the study of acoustics to eliminate interference with radio and radar equipment from weather and other electrical systems, and projects in aerodynamics on stability and control involving use of wind tunnels. Other research projects include improvements in power plant performance, new fuels, structural strength, and elimination of vibration.

Production control and industrial engineering require less pure science and more knowledge of problems in work load, manpower allocation, machine tool requirements, and timetable and machinery needs determination.

The opportunities open may be summed up as the actual design of the airplane, research, analysis, development, and testing of new concepts in the field, and development of improved production processes, quality and techniques.

May companies have branched out into other field, and require men with additional skills. A typical company, North America Aviation Corporation, has become interested in guided missile and atomic energy research. Their primary needs are graduates of technical schools who specialize in "autocontrols, propulsion fuels, reactor, sold state, and irradiation physics, and reactor engineering." The process of specialization has penetrated this industry so much that two men may work on similar problems, one on rocket fuel and the other on design of the rocket motor, and never come in contact with each other. The industry-wide proportion of the various specialties is 30 per cen mechanical, 22 per cent electrical, 21 per cent aeronautical, 8 per cent civil, and the rest scattered specialties.

The initiation to industry given the young graduate by Boeing Aircraft is typical of the industry: "Now engineers go though a training period of six months or more which consists of actual, on-the-job, useful work in the Engineering Department's Testing or Development Labor atories. The neophyte engineer's first assignment is usually as assistant to a test engineer in one of the experimental laboratories. At the close of the training period, a definite assignment will be given suited to the individual's background, experience, and capabilities. Whenever possible, assignment is made to a field of the individual's selection."

High Wages

Pay scales for engineers are a high in the aircraft industry as in any other field. Lowest pay for a Bachelor of Science operating tenting devices is $305 a month to start, with advancement and raises according to labor contract. Wages range from the low through the middle range, $425-650 for B.S. or M.S. men with general electronics or mathematical background, to the upper brackets, $800 and up, for organizational or administrative positions. In addition, all major companies in the aviation industry offer fringe benefits equal to or higher than other industries, paid vacations, employee's group life and accident insurance, aid in finding living quarters, and in some companies, free baby sitting services.

One of the brand new fields opened up by the last war is the study of rockets. Guided missiles and rocket-assisted take-off units are but two of the innovations to come out of rocket research. Experiments in this field opened up new avenues of approach to problems in aerodynamics, metallurgy, fuel chemistry, and electronics.

Despite the seeming preoccupation with science in the aviation industry, the liberal arts graduate is not forgotten. Many opportunities are open in administration, management, advertising, clerical and accountancy fields. There is, however, little emphasis upon obtaining or training white collar workers.

The white collar man, a prospective management official, seems a different bread from the technically trained men who produce the industry's bread and butter, airplanes. Little advice can be given about job opportunities, starting salaries, or benefits for the desk man compared to the laborer or the technician. The lack of recruiting at the college level is starting because these are the men who will eventually run the concern. There is often no definite way in which the liberal arts graduate gets into the concern. He may know a family friend who will give him his initial chance, or he may enter one employment office with nothing but his references and obtain a junior administrative post.

Training Programs

Curtiss-Wright is one of several companies that have recognized this lack, and the firm is running a two year intensive Management Development Program which puts qualified young men in first level supervisory positions after an initial five to six months training at company expense. Starting salaries at this level are $80 to $90 a week, or just about what the beginning engineer can make. Requirements, however, are much stiffer, as the competition is better. Optimum requirements set by Curtiss-Wright: "must be 21 to 27 years of age, married, a veteran, must have majored in Commerce, Business Administration, Industrial Management, Industrial Engineering, or the Liberal Arts." The inclusion of liberal arts is the admission by most companies that specific training is not always the best qualification for a specific job.

Additional opportunities in the aviation industry are available in air transportation. Job opportunities in the field range from junior secretaries to flying captains.

Airplane pilots must be at least high school graduates, although most companies will only accept men with college degrees. Before becoming an officer, a pilot must have a minimum of 100 hours of flying time, and held a commercial pilot rating, an instrument rating, and a third-class radiotelephone operator's license.

Pilot trainees undergo complete ground courses, covering Civil Air regulations, CW code reception, meterology, navigation, airway traffic control, radio, and study of the aircraft that is to be flown (Including fuel, oil, electric, and hydraulic systems, engines, and their overhaul) and a refresher course in instruments. prospective pilots practice orientation and beam bracketing. A pilot starts as third crew member and works his way to captain.

Radiotelephone

a radiotelephone operator may go as to become chief operator in charge of a terminal station or to be a functional or technical staff assistant at the headquarters of the Communications Department. The main requirements for this job are a high school diploma and a second class radiotelephone operator's license. Starting salary for junior radio operators is $263 per month. Before completion of six months' service, employees must pass qualifying tests for a radio operator's position, with salary of $288 per month. The maximum salary in this field is $363 a month.

Postilions as reservation clerks and ticket agents are open to men and women who have had two years of college or two years of some business training. Selected agents receive one week of initial training at the station for which they are employed, after which they receive six months of continuation training on the job until fully qualified. Duties require not only knowledge of their own company's air routes, policies, and procedures, but also those of other airlines, bus, and railroad facilities. They are required to handle ticket sales, confirm space availability, issue tickets, and make up cash reports on tickets, sales. An agent's starting salary is $239 a month, with maximum of $360 possible.

Airlines employ large crews of ground service men to inspect, equip, and overhaul aircraft. Included in this group are radio maintenance men. Requirements for these positions are one year of experience in construction, maintenance, and repair of aircraft, but not necessarily a college degree.

Women in Aviation

Women can gain employment in the aviation industry in manufacturing, engineering, and passenger service positions. The last is the field most available to women. It includes ticket clerks, space reservations, and stewardesses, the largest category.

Although the main emphasis in selecting stewardesses in personal appearance and disposition, an applicant must also qualify herself by having a college degree or registered nurse certificate. Lesser qualifications are accepted as exceptions. The supreme requirement for stewardesses is that they remain single while employed, and this restriction results in a rapid turnover of employees. Salaries are low, starting at $185 and reaching a limit of $275 a month.

Other occupations connected with aviation include charter service, resort and tourist flying, and non-scheduled air freight service. These jobs have no basic requirement of college education, but the most successful people in them do hold some sort of degree.

In addition to career work, part-time summer jobs are also available in most factories and airports. Ramp and cargo handlers, office work, catering service and other minor services have made many summers profitable for college undergraduates.

Literature and general information on all fields of vocational work in the aviation industry are available at the Office of Student Placement, 54 Dunster Street, or can be obtained by writing specific airlines, aircraft manufacturers, or aviation research foundations.Research workers in the Hughes Aircraft Corporation Research and Development Laboratories conduct investigative tests of missile characteristic. The Guided Missile Laboratory is concerned at present with military application, but tests will eventually be applied to civilian uses.