Staff Engineer, Aerodynamics

Company Overview:

At Overair, we are dedicated to bringing next generation sustainable air transportation to everyone.  Our answer is Butterfly, an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft designed to safely and affordably carry passengers over traffic and congestion. Butterfly leverages over two decades of VTOL aircraft development, patented VTOL technology, and flight vehicle experience. 

Overair believes in the lofty goals of sustainable air mobility and we are committed to solving the hard challenges along the way.  We are building an industry leading team covering an expanse of skills, talents, and expertise in order to build a superior electric VTOL aircraft. If you enjoy solving difficult problems, and seeing your ideas and visions expressed in flight hardware, we want you on our team.

Job Overview:

Overair is seeking an experienced Aerodynamics Engineer to help guide and execute numerical aerodynamics analysis and design tasks towards the revolutionary Butterfly electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. The Aerodynamics CFD Engineer will have exposure to no shortage of novel and interesting aerodynamic phenomena: from traditional wing/body/tail CFD analyses, to challenging and engaging propeller-airframe interaction effects, to detailed analyses of our low-noise propellers. The engineer will work with a wide swath of the Overair engineering team including the performance, loads and criteria, flight controls, test and evaluation, thermodynamics, airframe, industrial design and conceptual design teams to provide important aerodynamics support from early design stages through certification flight testing of Butterfly.

Roles and Responsibilities:

The Aero CFD Engineer will be part of a team that will have broad responsibility in aerodynamics-related tasks. Each engineer will be expected to be able to execute a majority, but not necessarily all of the following items:

• Analytical modeling of the aircraft using steady and unsteady flow solutions.
• Analytical modeling of the rotating components of the aircraft in isolation and installed on the vehicle.
• Generate high-quality CFD meshes of complex geometries from CAD surfaces.
• Assist with CFD database generation for external loads, stability and control and aircraft performance.
• Automate and streamline CFD workflows.
• Support design trade studies with CFD data.
• Support the thermodynamics team with air inlet and exhaust analysis and design.
• Support ground and flight test activities including analyzing and interpreting experimental and computational data.
• Analysis and design of high-lift systems.
• Detailed analyses of control surface gaps, leakage and large excrescence items.
• Generate data in support of an aero smoothness specification including criteria for surface roughness, pillowing, waviness, steps and gaps.
• Enhance the CFD team's set of tools by evaluating and onboarding new aerodynamics tools, improving the use of current tools, and validating aerodynamics tools.

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s degree from an accredited university in Aeronautical, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline with at least 8 to 10 years of professional experience; or PhD and 6 years in the aerospace industry and aerodynamics fields.
• Excellent analysis skills and a track record of demonstrated success analyzing actual products.
• Highly experienced in computational fluid dynamics tools such as STAR-CCM+, Fun3D, Overflow, or similar.
• Experience using industry-standard mesh generation tools on complex geometries.
• Experience with industry-standard CFD post-processing tools.
• Working knowledge of scripting and automation tools such as Linux/Bash, Python, C++, or Matlab.
• Adept at running sweeps of CFD runs for support of aircraft design trade studies or generation of databases for stability and control, external loads or performance evaluations.
• Experience post-processing and extracting relevant data from CFD databases

Preferred Qualifications:

• Extensive CFD experience modeling rotorcraft (3-4 years), or other types of rotor- or propeller-powered VTOL vehicles.
• Experience with Pointwise and with Tecplot.
• Experience with advanced meshing techniques (such as adjoint, overset or adaptive).
• Experience producing large aerodynamic databases that merge CFD and non-CFD data sources.
• Experience correlating model outputs to experimental data produced via wind tunnel and/or flight tests. Prior experience supporting experimental campaigns including wind tunnel and flight testing is also a plus.
• Familiarity with vorticity-based solvers such as CAMRADII, CHARM, or similar
• Prior exposure to aerodynamics support of vehicle conceptual design and a good understanding of the aircraft governing forces, moments and physics of flight.
• Experience with CFD-based aerodynamic shape optimization.
• Proficient in 3D CAD surface definition via 3DExperience generative shape design (preferred), CATIA V5/V6, SolidWorks, or similar.

Summary of Benefits:

• Overair pays 100% of the premiums for Medical, Dental, and Vision for employees and dependents.
• Flexible Spending Account with a company match of up to $1,000.
• 401(k) plan with a 6% company match, no vesting period, and immediate eligibility.
• 12 weeks of supplemental paid family leave.
• Company-paid Life & AD&D Insurance.
• Voluntary Life, Accident, Hospital Indemnity, and Critical Illness insurance.  
• Employee equity incentive program (stock options).
• No cost Employee Assistance Program and Virtual Counseling.
• Generous paid time off policy, including 4 weeks of vacation, 10 holidays, 6 sick days, and volunteer time.

Pay range Overair expects to pay: $140,000-185,000 per year. Your level and the compensation package offered will be determined by location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Remote possibility.

Diversity and Inclusion:

Overair believes that diversity and inclusion are vital to our success. We believe that by embracing different ideas and approaches, we enhance our ability to deliver the best results for our employees, our environment, and ultimately our business partners and customers. We foster a culture where all colleagues are able to share their passions and ideas in order that we may collectively embrace and overcome the challenges in our industry, and work toward a brighter future.

Overair is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, or any other federally protected class.