Engineering eye - September 2014

Hot on the heels of last month’s item about engineers enjoying a tipple or two [shurely shome mishtake – Eye Ed] comes a suggestion from reader Stan Gray about another hostelry to visit: the Tilly Shilling in Farnborough, which celebrates Beatrice Shilling. Shilling, one of the first women to study aeronautical engineering at Manchester University, devised an ingenious solution to a problem bedevilling Hurricanes and Spitfires during World War Two – the flooding of carburettors under negative-gravity effects during rapid dives. Before anti-G carburettors, Shilling devised a simple restrictor with a calibrated hole to limit fuel flow to that required for full power. This could be fitted at the fuel entry union with the engine still installed in the aircraft. So if you’re near Farnborough, Eye suggests you waste no time in toasting Tilly with a pint.

An Eye colleague visited the States recently for an engineering software conference, and it was obvious from the departure gate at the airport that many of his peers were on the flight across the Pond, too. The giveaway? The astonishingly high percentage of fellow travellers decked out in pristine chinos – always a sure-fire indicator of the male engineer attempting to do smart-casual. And the chatter on the plane steps confirmed suspicions that engineers were travelling in large numbers. Instead of the usual banal conversation about exchange rates and weather conditions, all the talk was of the beauty of the blisks on the aircraft’s Rolls-Royce Trent engines and of the high-tech composite content of the airframe. Engineers, it seems, take their work with them wherever they go. And Eye can confirm that they make for quiet and considerate passengers, certainly once the food and drink has been served.

As a major of neither the British armed forces nor of doing anything much useful with itself in general, Eye was pleased to see that is not the fate that befalls the average engineer – across the Pond at least. A recent survey indicates that, of US college majors, engineering grads are the most likely to end up using their grey matter and fulfilling their potential, including those in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering and civil engineering. In fact engineering degrees accounted for six of the 10 ‘least underemployed majors’. Putting its loafers up, Eye reflected that this was ironic as it had often positively sought out underemployment. Sit back and relax, readers.

If you have any news, rumours or gossip, email the Eye at engineering.eye.pe@gmail.com