A while back Bishnujee wrote an email regarding the kind of questions that aerospace engineers can expect in his or her technical interviews. Most of these technical interview questions stress on basic and sound understanding of Aerodynamics, Aircraft Structures & Performance related questions. Apart from that he had some very specific points that you might want to keep in mind while preparing for a technical interview as an aerospace engineer, so here’s an excerpt from the email
Normal questions range from basic Aerodynamics questions usually involved with Circulation & Vortex of airflow, generation of aerodynamics loads from laser scanning of aerospace vehicles, Aircraft structures questions test on Validation of Finite Element Models techniques,advantages & disadvantaged of Hi Loks fasteners over solid rivets, material corrosion issues to dissimilarities in materials, then queries involved on individual experience and academic subjects depending on there background.
There are questions on of use of A & B stress allowable in determining the Margin of Safety of your calculations and basis for using same. There are further question on comparative behavior and properties of 2024-T3,6061,7075 alloys and there application in various sections of airplane.
Well I had my share of interviews and for a propulsion or aero-mechanical stream engineer from AeSI following are the question that cropped up in most of the interviews. Explain Brayton cycle? What is entropy? Explain second law of thermodynamics? Explain working of a gas turbine engine? What’s the basic principle on which compressors works? What's the effect of nozzle on gas turbine performance? What are the loads acting on a compressor blade, on a turbine blade? What's the usual material of compressor and turbine? Why is it used? What is service ceiling? How to determine the range of an aircraft? What are the different stages of aircraft flight/
Well these are some of the question that I have faced in my technical interviews. As I said in this post, most of the question crop up from your resume, so when preparing for an interview do scrutinize it and get all the basics ready.
If you want a specific book or subject you want to look at for the preparation then I will recommend introduction to flights by John D Anderson. its good and covers most of the topics.
