Thursday, August 09, 2012

Life of a Avionics Trainee !

We are habitual to read A as in Apple but now I shall tell you how this Apple become Avionics.
We all know the taste of an apple. Come let's taste Avionics this time.
I'm sharing the real life training experience of an avionics student and due to confidentiality, I'm not sharing his name & the laboratory name where he is working as a trainee.

Hi Bhaiya
I’ll try to make it feel like a story instead of a report, I think it is a better way to make people understand by telling them a story along with a moral instead of making them feel that it is some kind of a report.

After trying very hard for 6 months by pulling strings ,repeatedly begging people ,I finally got the chance to do a project at **** in autopilot. So I’m happy and at the same time nervous , about how thing are going to be in  **** , such a big organization and such scholar people, and I’m just a puny aesian who have just a little knowledge about control system.
Some how I reached there and meet my mentor , the profound scientist in autopilot.  The first day he said I’m a very busy person ,I’m not going to give much time. You do what ever you can , show it to me , then I decide what to do and rest. I agreed. The division of **** I’m in , I didn’t knew that they only make missiles and have no interests in aircrafts. My mentor said draw me the control forces and the moments of a tail control missile , that was the first question. I have studied about aircraft for the 4 yrs but I have no knowledge about missiles, so I said I don’t know about missiles, but if u want I can draw you the control forces of an aircraft. He said ok, but I need the diagrams for missiles. He gave some books and said read this and come prepare tomorrow. Now ,how to draw the control forces diagrams of a thing which is complexed and unknown to me in one day. Still I read 2 , 3 chapters and went the next day.
That day I figured out what are the types of missiles, how they are classified,and so on.
Next day I went and I showed what have I done, mainly the diagrams of cp aft of cg for stability and the basic control surface movement from the book he gave me the previous day.
He saw the thing and said, no I don’t want this, just tell me how do you control a tail control missile?.
I was speechless and breathless. I shot few blank arrows ,nothing happened though and then I turned the page where there was a diagram of statically stable missile with cp aft of cg. I said the criteria for statically stable missile. He asked how do you control an unstable missile?
Again I went blank. He said studying one or 2 chapters won’t do study the full book. I was thinking how was it possible in a day, still I said sir can you me more books I can’t understand from the previous book. He gave some more books, and I said I will come back after I finish these, he said go.
I started reading those and got nothing, ‘cause they not the basic books and so I turned to check what aesi have suggested for rockets and missiles . I got SS CHIN there and started with that.  The book was meant for the basic and I was happy.
I drew the control forces diagram along with the transfer function and went to him. He again asked me the same question how to control a unstable missile , I said it not possible using a single control surface.
He said tail control missiles have only one control surface, then he himself told me the answer which I knew but I thought that was not  appropriate ‘cause you won’t get a proper stability using it, as there will be oscillation, but he said that is different but basic is this.
So that happened and next task he gave to  design a 2 loop configuration of a missile pitch , yaw and roll autopilot and determine the gains. I thought I came here to learn it and he Is telling me to design it,wow.
After looking here and there in various thesis and algorithms which I didn’t understand  I drew a design and showed him. He said I told just close the loop no compensators are needed, ne never said anything like that previously ,but still you can’t tell him anything. He said just close the loop and check the root locus, nyquist ,bode plot of the plant and the closed loop system. I asked , what should I checked for?
Then he gave the the design criteria’s , like the gain margin, phase margin, overshoot, settling time and others. He asked what datas are you using I said no datas, just the examples given in the books. He said come and use my thesis data .i was thinking who is a bigger **** me or he? I wasted my whole week looking here and there and now he is talking. Still i’m going to get his data tomorrow and start over again.
So what is the moral
-Know about the company you are aiming for.
-Complete the literature  of your project and select a area of work before entering the company.
-Get a good mentor.  

This is the story of a student who is in Section-B of Avionics and waiting for his final result. I hope by reading  it you'll understand what is the job of a trainee ? What one does in internship ? and apart a real example of the quote : "Where there's a will, there's a way."

If you have something to share which can become a lesson to learn for others, so you're welcome.
Please contact team-MyAeSI at
sukhbinder.singh@gmail.com

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