Careers

The growing need to launch satellites, scientific experiments, International Space Station supplies and other goods into orbit is fueling demand for payload integration specialists, technicians who install cargo on board and ensure it deploys from the rocket as designed. “It truly is a mechanic’s job. It’s turning wrenches, working with high-pressure fluids and gases, and […]

One of the first words Emmy Dillon, Garmin Human Factors Engineer said, was “plane.” Emmy believes that truly shows what she lives for. Emmy earned her Human Factors Psychology degree from ERAU, where she is also working on her masters. She picked that line of study because of an aviation camp she went to in […]

Michael Mainiero went to see the Patriots Jet Team performing in Sacramento, California. That was a life-changing decision for him. He was invited out to the Patriot’s facility in Byron, California. When he walked into the facility with his father, he said, “we are coming back.” With his experience with the Patriots Jet Team, he […]

Swarm intelligence, or swarm theory, refers to decentralized, self-organizing systems, such as flocks of birds, whose actions “enable relatively simple individual entities to produce complex behavior when operating with other simple entities,” says Michael Campobasso, CEO of Embedded Control Designs (ECD). The field is quickly moving from theory to practice as specialists like Campobasso seek […]

To say that Patrick Abel is ambitious would be an understatement. At a time when general aviation is trying to attract a new generation of pilots, Patrick’s story is refreshing and inspiring, if not proof to young people everywhere that this is an industry with vast, endless potential and possibilities. Currently a high school senior, […]

While we don’t have hard figures on their ranks or the number of jobs that exist, demand for aerial firefighter pilots is increasing, industry experts say. “There are opportunities, but it’s not very well-organized,” says Dean Talley, an air tanker captain and board member of the Associated Aerial Firefighters. In fact, operators “are having a […]

Today’s airborne law enforcement (ALE) pilots perform more than police work. At the California Highway Patrol (CHP), law enforcement is halfway down the list of aircrews’ seven missions, superseded by emergency response, homeland security and rural roadway patrol. “All these missions are about public service,” says Lt. Mike Sedam, commander of CHP’s Office of Air […]

No realm of piloting provides more career opportunities than government, or public service, flying. The Armed Forces, federal agencies, state aeronautics divisions and aviation departments, and county and municipal authorities employ pilots to operate what is by all accounts the world’s largest fleet of fixed- and rotor-wing aircraft and remotely piloted aerial vehicles. The numbers […]

With the first mission to bring material from the asteroid belt back to Earth underway, the longtime science-fiction staple of commercial asteroid prospecting and mining has put its “now hiring” sign out for tomorrow’s industry professionals, including those with “a solid background in orbital mechanics, asteroid astronomy, chemical engineering and patience,” says Dante Lauretta, of […]

Opportunities for advancement in aviation and aerospace aren’t only for those within the industry, says executive recruiter Rod McDermott, whose firm is searching for professionals from unrelated fields interested in aviation and ready for a career change. “We have so many people passionate about aviation who make their living doing something else, and we want […]