Flight Controls Systems Engineer

£50,000-£80,000 depending on experience + EMI share options

How do you keep an aircraft stable when you're pushing the limits of where it can fly?

You'll help answer that question.

Joining an aerospace technology business developing advanced unmanned aircraft, you'll take flight-control algorithms from modelling and simulation through ground testing and into real flight.

If you enjoy connecting control theory with what an aircraft actually does, this is your opportunity to own that journey.

See your work take flight.

You'll develop novel control approaches that make aircraft stable, controllable and ready for safe, repeatable deployment.

You'll:

• Develop control laws, flight-dynamics models and simulation approaches.
• Configure, integrate and tune autopilot systems.
• Support guidance, navigation and control integration, system identification and flight-data analysis.
• Develop software- and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
• Diagnose stability, sensor-fusion and actuator issues.
• Support ground tests, tethered tests, field trials and flight testing.
• Build the documentation and validation evidence needed to turn successful experiments into dependable systems.

You'll work alongside engineers across avionics, aerospace design, software, operations and test. As a priority technical hire, you'll make a direct contribution to how the aircraft performs.

You know how to make the theory work in practice.

You'll bring experience developing and testing control algorithms on real aircraft, UAS, robotics or autonomous platforms.

You understand flight dynamics, control theory, stability and tuning. You're comfortable working with autopilots, IMUs, GNSS/INS, actuators and onboard systems - and using test data to understand why something isn't behaving as expected.

You care about proving your solution works through disciplined testing, validation and documentation.

Experience with
PX4 or Ardu Pilot would be particularly useful. ROS/ROS2, Python, C/C++, Rust, state estimation, Kalman filtering or experience with multirotor, VTOL and unconventional aircraft would also be valuable. You don't need every one.