Aerobloggen

Greetings everybody! It’s time for my (Joakim Åhman) first blog entry! My home department will be Engine Systems Performance in the military sector here at GKN. I’ve been at this department for a few weeks and so far I really like it here. More on this in an upcoming blog entry.

A few weeks ago was the first graduate engineer theme week for us. During the year we will have four of these weeks, during which we will be conducting study visits and doing team building exercises and more. During the first week we visited ACAB in Linköping and SAS in Stockholm. You can read more about these visits in a earlier blog entry from my colleague Emelie Roslund. We also made an interesting and inspiring visit to the Swedish air force museum in Linköping. There was a lot of interesting airplanes to behold, from the early 1900s to more modern fighter jets, such as the legendary JAS 39 Gripen (Gryphon).

JAS (or Gripen) is a name which rings a bell in the ears of most Swedish people. The letters in JAS stands for Jakt, Attack and Spaning. Translated into English this means Hunt (the actual English term is “Fighter”), Attack and Reconnaissance. A fighter is an aircraft designed to destroy other aircrafts. An attack aircraft is an aircraft designed to act as air support for ground troops, with more precision than common bomber aircrafts. A reconnaissance aircraft is an aircraft which carries surveillance intruments in order to carry out aerial reconnaissance. JAS 39 Gripen is, as the name suggests, an aircraft designed to be able to carry out all of these tasks. GKN Aerospace Engine Systems owns and has the responsibility of RM12, which is the engine powering the Gripen aircraft. As you might have guessed, my home department at GKN is very involved in service and developing of the RM12, which makes the Gripen aircraft a more interesting aircraft for me personally.

Other personal favorits to behold at the museum was among others:

• SAAB 37 Viggen (Thunderbolt) – An earlier swedish fighter jet, in service the years 1972-2007.
• SAAB 35 Draken (Dragon or Kite) – The first Swedish fighter jet using a delta wing.
• P-51 Mustang – A legendary fighter aircraft developed and used by the Americans during the second world war.

If you ever go to Linköping then I highly recommend a visit to the air force museum!

Hello again dear readers!

My thought is to shortly tell you about my home department, where I have been working for three weeks now, but to also tell you about our trainee assignment which Niclas so nicely left a teaser about last week.

My home department is with the manufacturing engineers working with the space and military production. Manufacturing engineers are called MEs for short, which greatly facilitates as manufacturing engineer is a long phrase. Anyway, as an ME you work very close with the production and the operators. The goal is to constantly improve the production by, for example, solving problems that arise – both urgent and more long-term matters and update the operation information material the operators have. I think it is very interesting and I am very happy that I get to spend another 7 weeks at this department!

Moving on to the cliffhanger – the trainee assignment. The essence of the project is to raise awareness and interest in the profession of engineering as well as technology in general. We are very interested and passionate about technology ourselves and we would love to inspire others to feel the same. What we hope is that we, through our project, will get in contact with high school students, who might have started to reflect upon over their future careers, and help them sort out the different paths there are to choose between in order to get to work with their interests and dreams in their professional life.

We believe many teenagers are nervous about their future (we were), that many teenagers are worried that university studies and the engineering profession might be too difficult or that the journey is perceived as too long and distant. Therefore, we want to use the project as a tool to reach the teenagers and help them sort out their questions about the future and perhaps also help them find and set goals in order to realize their dreams about future careers. An important part of the project is therefore to inspire and inform about the possible paths there is to take. Hopefully we can also spread enthusiasm and dedication to stimulate their interest in technology and take the first step towards successful careers.

It is a very exciting project and there is so much for us to do in this area. The whole group is eager to start and we truly hope that we will be able to make a difference, especially for the teenagers. I hope that we get the chance to meet at least some of you readers – and to hopefully get you as interested in the company and the aerospace industry as we are!

If this sounds intriguing – please keep following this blog as we will post more information about the project and different activities we will arrange, such as school visits and opportunities to discuss technology, education, engineering and other interesting topics. If you cannot wait to get more information or have any questions – contact us at aerotrainees@gknaerospace.com and we can continue the discussion together!