Aerobloggen

I have been lucky enough to be a part of a very cool event! I have been to a conference with people from all around the world who discuss and improve quality in the aerospace industry. I went on a boat ride around Stockholm and I have had the most amazing dinner in the Blue Hall – the hall where the Nobel Banquet takes place every year!

How did this happen, you might wonder? It happend thanks to my supervisor at the quality department who is one of the people arranging the conference. I got the chance to be a part of the conference for two days to be a helping hand as well as experience and learn.

So, what kind of conference was it? Well, it was an IAQG conference. IAQG stands for International Aerospace Quality Group and is an organization aimed at quality for companies within the aerospace industry. The conference is bi-annual and takes place for one week during the spring and one week during the fall. The place of the conference varies and Cleveland will be hosting next time.

A gala dinner takes place every Wednesday of the conference week and this time it was in the Blue Hall. I went up (and down) on the famous stairs where all Nobel Prize winners ascends every year. We were informed that the stairs was designed with women in high heels and long dresses in mind (the architect had his wife go up and down different types of stairs in order to find the optimal stairs). No one has ever fallen in these stairs so I guess he and his wife did a good job.

There are a lot of meetings, discussions and workshops in smaller groups during the week. A General Assembly takes place on the Thursday of every conference week where everybody gathers and listens to presentations from several of these smaller groups. They usually talk about what they have been up to since the last conference, which made it a great day for me to get some insights into the work of IAQG.

In conclusion: I had two great days in Stockholm!

Hi again

Just as the current placement is reaching its end, its soon time for the next. On my next rotation, I will spend some time within the quality department. I’m sure it will be a dear revisit to some of the fields I have currently studied and worked with in my previous summer employments.

During this week, we had another visit from some school pupils through the Topp initiative. It was a nice field visit with a facility tour, presentations and lunch.

In next week, it’s time for another activity week for the graduates. This time we will be heading for Germany for some exciting company visits. We will visit GKN Aerostructures, MTU, GKN Sinter Metals, Volkswagen and Airbus. More regarding what we saw and experienced at our visits is promised to be presented in the following posts.

Next thing on the horizon is to plan the internship abroad. It seems like all the graduates are heading to different places. Personally, I am really looking forward to this adventure and all the experiences that are sure to come with it. Most of the graduates are on the final stage of confirming their placement, and I’m sure that more information will be presented in the posts that follow in the next weeks.

Lastly, for the employees at Trollhättan: Remember to keep an eye open for all the presentations of the master thesis researches conducted at site. The graduates have successively been meeting the thesis researches through lunches and other activities. And from what I’ve heard, I’m sure there are numerous of interesting and exciting presentation pending in the next few weeks with a lot of educative conclusions and discoveries.

 

 

Ps

Made a fun reflection of the year that has passed. To finish school and enter the working life has really had a tremendous impact on the daily life. Not just from switching lectures to the office on the daily schedule, but more on the experiences that comes with it. After a quick recap, perhaps with a lack of accuracy, I calculated that I have traveled to 9 countries which resulted in a length of over 3000 metric miles. It should be added that this is not solely through work, vacation trips have added a significant share to that number. But the point is that it has created a life, so rich of experiences which I could barely imagine when a sat in the school lectures just about a year ago. So when I pack my bags for the next trip to Germany, you might wonder what rouses my excitement. I will try to answer that question by ending this post with a quotation of being on a journey towards something.

 

”I’m not running away.

But this is one corner,

of one country, on one continent,

on one planet that’s …

never staying the same for a single millisecond.

And there is so, so much to see.

Because it goes so fast,

I’m not running away from things,

I’m running to them before they flare and fade forever” – Doctor Who

Good day readers!

As you regular readers know we graduate engineers sometimes conduct study visits to companies of interest to us. In part during our activity weeks, where we travel for a whole week, but we also go on day trips to companies located closer to home. Last week we had the pleasure of visiting Arcam in Mölndal and Ruag Space in Gothenburg. Lots of fun!

Arcam is a world leading company in additive manufacturing (AM). A more common term of AM is 3D-printing. This is a modern technology which is a very hot topic within aerospace engineering today and which will likely change the foundation of classic production methods such as milling and chucking. An important reason why AM is such a hot topic for the aerospace business is that it will allow for the production of much more complex geometries than is allowed by classic production methods. By opening this door a lot of weight in an airplane can be saved and saving weight of flying products infers a possibility of making a lot of money.

At Arcam we were given a presentation of what types of AM methods exist today, which of these Arcam focuses on and what possibilities AM brings. We also had a tour of Arcams production and assembling of new AM machines.

Ruag in turn is a company which develops and manufactures electrical components for use in the space industry. Among other things they make the guidance computers for the Ariane 5 – the ESA heavy lift rocket – and circuit boards for satellites. In contrast with Arcams visionary technologies Ruag is a company which uses very experienced and proven technology. As the cost of an Ariane 5 launch is hundreds of millions of dollars Ruag is a company where quality is a strong focus. Strong computational power is therefore not a focus of these products. If a personal computer crashes there will likely not be any big consequences but if a guidance computer to Ariane 5 would crash during a launch this would lead to very big consequences.

Apart from a presentation of Ruags products and business we also had a tour of their facility in Gothenburg where we were shown their production, their clean room and their vibration test centre among other things. As usual we had a very interesting and fun time conducting these study visits. Now we look forward until next week when we will visit a few companies in Germany!

 

Over and out

Joakim Åhman

As you might remember, I mentioned in a previous blog post that my grandfather’s brother, Jan Ingemar Holmquist, flew for the Swedish Air Force during the cold war. Unfortunately, 1952 on December 11^th he collided with another airplane during an exercise flight with a Vampire J28. Both planes involved in the collision plunged into the ground. So how did it actually go for the two pilots? What happened that day?

Thanks to Hans Brandt, previous fighter pilot at F7 Såtenäs, and Göran Jacobsson, expert on Swedish air force history, I have got my hands on the commission report.
So, let’s make a trip back to 1952, December 11^th, a day that in many ways came to reflect the harsh conditions and coldness of the ongoing war. The following story is a reconstruction of the events as expressed in the commission report dated December 13^th, 1953.

In the early Cold War, Sweden began sending out its young pilots on increasingly risky and advanced low-flying exercises. This was considered necessary as the threat from foreign powers felt significant at the time. Sweden was caught in the middle of a war characterized by distrust and tensions between the communist East and the capitalist West. As the preparations for a potential invasion increased, more and more Swedish pilots payed with their lives.
The pride and greed that grew forth with soldiers in service often overthrew the fear and concern that naturally arise from conflicts. These attributes could especially be found in pilots. They were often brave, filled with honor and they rarely backed away from challenges. According to flight physician E. Nyström, the two Swedish pilots, Jan Holmquist and Ingvar Lindeberg fulfilled these attributes despite of their low ages. According to evaluations they often showed both courage, will and determination during flight sessions.

It was a chilly day, the 11^th of December 1952 at the royal Airforce F8 just outside of Stockholm. It was soon time for Holmquist and Lindeberg to practice flying. Both looked forward to getting up in the air again. Holmquist, 21 years old had around 200 flight hours, and Lindeberg with his 20 years came close with his 192 h. The day was clear and cold, the visibility under the clouds was around 8 km, and over the clouds the visibility was very good at around 50 kilometers. The wind blew cold with its 8-10 meters per second. It was a good day to practice flying and both Holmquist and Lindeberg had flown under significantly worse conditions.
They got ready and boarded the two planes of the model Vampire J28. They were both well-off as they moved out to the runway. The control tower gave them the green light to start their exercise flight and one after each other, they lifted, unaware of the fact that neither of the two aircrafts would ever return home again.

Holmquist could feel how the G force pushed him down while he aimed for the clouds. A few minutes into the flight, the two pilots were stable at an altitude of about 2500 metres in marsch-formation, Holmquist just before Lindeberg.The engine of the type RM1A gave both the aircraft a maximum speed of approximately 700 km/h.

The air traffic management had closely monitored the development within the European military aircraft industry, and in 1944 it was clear that the propeller era was over. In the autumn of 1945, a project named “JxR” was started, which would later result in the SAAB J29 Tunnan aircraft. During the same time Vampire aircrafts were imported from the British company “de Havilland” to enable pilot-training, and to bridge a stable transition to the new jet age. Sweden and British RAF (Royal Air Force) thus became among the first air force in the world to fly the Vampire aircrafts. The aircraft later received the Swedish name J28, and the earlier versions, J28A, were to be used mainly for pilot training.

Holmquist turned left with a 30 degree baking and Lindeberg suddenly ended up slightly behind Holmquist, thus pulling on gas to keep the distance constant. In the same moment, he was dazzled by the sun, of which he released the gas and shaded the sun with his left hand. Suddenly, Holmquist’s aircraft approached Lindeberg’s very quickly and Lindberg took down his arm and tried to slow down, but it was too late. The two aircrafts collided. At the moment of collision, the right tail of Lindeberg’s aircraft was torn off when hitting Holmquist’s aircraft, and as a result Lindeberg’s aircraft lost all its ability to stay airborne. The severely battered aircraft did no longer respond to rudder maneuvers. Lindeberg therefore took the very fast decision to jump. He untapped himself from the aircraft, opened the hatch and got sucked out of the airplane as a result of the high velocity. The spite of being hit in the face by his harness and the fact that he hit his shoulder in the hatch opening, he managed to stay conscious enough to pull out his parachute.

Further up in the sky, Holmquist had felt the collision underneath his airplane, and had in the same moment seen Lindeberg’s aircraft plunge uncontrollable into the clouds. At about 600 km/h Holmquist went down to an altitude of 750 meters. The rudder bounced from side to side and his aircraft started to spin out of control. The instruments were no longer readable. Holmquist tried his best to control the airplane, but failed. There was only one thing left to do, to leave the aircraft. He loosened himself from his harness, uncoupled his oxygen and radio, loosened the hatch and tried to climb out. Unfortunately, he was thrown back in the aircraft, giving him the impression that his parachute was stuck. He eventually put both his hands behind the parachute and got out. In the next second he pulled out his parachute. At the moment of release, Holmquist was so close to the ground that he did not feel the difference between the trigger shock from the parachute and hitting the ground. In other words, he had pulled out the parachute just in time.

A few kilometers from there Lindeberg had landed safely and moved to a nearby farm to contact F8. Just as Lindeberg, Holmquist managed without any injuries.
The story ended happily as both pilots survived. Jan is today 85 years old and he finished his career as a commercial pilot for SAS. Ingvar Lindeberg is also alive today at age of 84. Short after the accident Jan decided to propose to his girlfriend, Ann-Charlott, and you might guess what she answered. Jan Ingemar Holmquist and Ann-Charlott Holmquist is still married today.

A cold day with a sunny end!