A proposition in design education with a potential in commercial venture in small aircraft manufacture

Critical reviews made by various organisations on both sides of the Atlantic have identified the need for continuing changes in engineering teaching curriculum, emphasising inclusion of more intense design education to meet the requirements of industry. The concept of this paper outlines introducing design education within aerospace engineering in an integrated approach involving industries, universities, regional technical colleges and vocational institutes to produce a marketable ab initio trainer aircraft. The task involves conceptual studies, design, analysis and testing of the aircraft through course assignments. The aircraft is to be certified and manufactured by a participating industry also responsible for product liability. By combining the educational programmmes of university students and industrial apprentices, the bulk of manpower can be obtained free with quality of workmanship sufficient for prototyping (preproduction aircraft) assured through strict supervision by experienced personnel from both academia and industry. An innovative management set-up, modelled as a ‘Virtual Company’, is proposed as an organisational structure to execute the project. The success of the proposition depends primarily on planning and co-ordination of the project. The crux of the progress hinges on the availability of hi-tech resources from industry and attitude changes in the teaching establishments. The benefits are the output from institutes who have acquired the analytical capabilities and trade skills along with the opportunities to acquire those traits of creative synthesis and judgement required by the industry, while producing a marketable product with no development cost to be amortised in the selling price (more than 15% price reduction possible).