My Internship at Aurora

During the summer of 2008 I was employed as a summer intern by Aurora Flight Sciences. This relatively small aerospace company of about 300 employees gave me a summer that I will never forget. I travelled from Texas to their northern Virginia facility and it has been well worth the move. As a young, soon-to-be engineer this hands on experience in the field of aviation was invaluable.

Aurora is full of very intelligent, energetic and optimistic people working on all types of cutting edge technology project. Because of the culture and the spirit of its people I think this company is definitely on its way to the top.

Even though I was one of ‘the interns,’ I was not treated like one. The Human Resources department took very good care of us at the Virginia facility. I was able to develop personal relationships with my co-workers. I was glad to be with Aurora because if I worked at a larger company I would have become just another number in the system.

My weekdays were full of excitement. Getting paid to learn hands-on engineering and working on cool projects was the icing on the cake. From the start I was expected to work diligently, and I was rewarded for my hard work.

As an intern, I was expected to work a minimum of 40 hours a week. My coach assigned me very challenging tasks and pushed me out of my comfort zone to see what I was capable of. This, I had expected to happen prior to my internship, but luckily I never had to work on the weekends. I started working for Aurora with very little work experience in the field of engineering and left with an abundance of knowledge and hands-on experience. I had three goals for the summer; learn CATIA V5, get hands-on composite structures design-fabrication experience and develop an estimating tool used to predict the cost of airframe assembly jigs during the design development phase of a project.

For the first two weeks I learned how to use CATIA V5, a CAD modeling software. Once I mastered the fundamentals of CAD modeling, I began applying my new knowledge and skill on 3D modeling of the subsystems for the Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft derivative wing design. I was even paid to travel to Myrtle Beach, SC to visit a Dornier maintenance facility to take pictures and record measurements of the Dornier wing’s subsystems. On this project I got a chance to work hand in hand with some of the best engineers in the nation from Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Company’s Advanced Design Group.

While working on the CATIA models, I concurrently assisted another intern with creating fiberglass and carbon composite bulkheads and fuselage pieces. We built a fuselage test section from these pieces for one of Aurora’s new UAVs, Excalibur. I was able to experience the entire design to build process of creating composite structures.

To accomplish my third goal of constructing an estimating tool to predict the fabrication costs of assembly jigs during the design stage, I had to track down all the assembly jig files in Aurora’s tooling history and model each individual jig’s design with 10 key parameters. These parameters along with the jig price enabled me to create a tool which could be used while the jig was still in development to quickly estimate the jig’s price.

Because life was not all about work, HR wanted to give us interns a well-rounded experience. They went above and beyond my expectations. I was given the opportunity to ride/fly in a dual propeller Diamond-DA42, travel to West Virginia to take a tour of Aurora’s manufacturing facility, go white water rafting on the Ohiopyle River, and was given many free meals/ice-cream. In addition, since the Aurora building was located in Manassas, Virginia it was very easy to travel around the east coast and beyond. Therefore I travelled to Philadelphia, New York City, Washington D.C., Atlantic City, Myrtle Beach, and even to Barcelona, Spain all during the short summer.

Based on my personal experiences at Aurora, I would like to state that the internship is not defined by one’s boss or company, but by what one wants to do with it. I did not sit idle and wait for people to assign me tasks. From the start I went out of my way to let the employees know I wanted to be a part of the Aurora team this past summer, and they welcomed me. I moved my desk from where all of the interns were sitting to the ACCA project section of the building. In just 3 short months I became part of a team and made myself valuable. I assisted with the projects and in return they let me soak up as much knowledge as possible.

In order to gain anything one must take risks. Some risks are greater than others, and without trying and taking risks there is no opportunity for success.

- Brian