Flight Dynamics Engineer

About the role

You will join the flight sciences team of an aerospace company responsible for how the vehicle flies: stability, control, performance, and handling qualities. The team owns flight dynamics modeling, simulation, and flight test validation. This role matters because the difference between a vehicle that flies beautifully and one that fights its pilots lives in your models, and your predictions must hold from first simulation to envelope expansion. You will build the mathematical bridge between the vehicle's physical design and its behavior in flight, and your models will be used by control designers, loads engineers, and flight test teams who all depend on their fidelity. You will develop a healthy skepticism of your own simulations, validating against flight data relentlessly and characterizing exactly where the model can and cannot be trusted. Your flight test support will put you in the control room during envelope expansion, where your real-time analysis of maneuvers determines whether the next test point is safe to fly. You will become fluent in the handling qualities language pilots speak, translating their qualitative comments into quantitative model updates.

What you will achieve

• Deliver 6-DOF flight dynamics models correlated within 5 percent of flight test data across the operational envelope
• Cut flight test hours by 20 percent through pre-flight simulation that predicts handling qualities and identifies test points efficiently
• Own stability and control analysis: static and dynamic stability, control power, and departure resistance assessments
• Drive control law design or evaluation with gain and phase margins verified in nonlinear simulation and flight
• Ship handling qualities evaluations per MIL-STD-1797 or equivalent with pilot-in-the-loop validation
• Reduce flight test risk by building pre-flight predictions with uncertainty bounds that accurately forecast maneuver outcomes

What you will bring

Must-haves

• 2 to 5 years of experience in flight dynamics, stability and control, or flight test engineering roles
• Deep understanding of aircraft equations of motion, linearization, and modal analysis (short period, phugoid, Dutch roll)
• Proficiency with MATLAB/Simulink for 6-DOF simulation development and analysis
• Working knowledge of aerodynamic derivatives and their effect on handling qualities
• Experience analyzing flight test data: parameter identification and model updating
• Familiarity with handling qualities criteria and pilot rating scales (Cooper-Harper)
• Clear technical writing for flight test plans and dynamics reports

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with control law design: classical, modern, or adaptive methods
• Knowledge of STK or GMAT for trajectory and mission analysis
• Exposure to unmanned or autonomous flight dynamics
• Flight test engineer training or crew experience
• Experience with frequency domain or time domain system identification methods