Quote:
Originally Posted by dotti34
Not sure, K99, to what degree of actually being a rocket scientist you were - I'm not saying you weren't of course as that would mean I was implying you fiddled with the truth about your working life....oh! gee - nothing has changed. Still fiddling with it.
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Well dotti, wishing to be polite and not wanting Less to dash off to the Mods I will try to be brief. I always liked chemistry at school but having seem Frank Whittle testing his jet engine at school one rainy lunchtime I fancied going into the aircraft industry. I got a job with Lucas Aerospace which at the time was known as Joseph Lucas GTE Limited. The job was an apprenticeship in Industrial Chemistry which I did for 5 years. It involved three types of analysis, metallurgical, fuel and gas analysis. It involved working in the test rigs where I learned to write upside down as two of us were working the same apparatus using one test sheet to record the results. Some of the senior chemists had moved over to the combustion side as the lab was only a service department and when the opportunity arose to do the same I grabbed it with both hands. I loved the work which was very varied and eventually rose to the position of senior project engineer. This involved taking on a project from start to finish with only minimal supervision. Testing costs were high but we were not highly paid. I didn't mind this as it meant little competition from the high flyers. The work was very varied including work on Concorde and RB 211 and many others but my final job was on MLRS. I cannot say more than that as it could be construed as breaking the Official Secrets Act although I never signed up to it as it would have involved telling a lie but nobody seemed to mind. I hope that satisfies your curiosity.