Hello, how safe is it to make a flying machine (personal airplane or anything that will fly you) without knowing much about engineering? Lets say I find a project online and replicate it. I'm a master in biology, so I feel somewhat competent with something like this (as long as its following instructions). Any ideas to which open source project is good to try attempting? What would generally be thought or done when attempting to do something like that.

The basic idea: figure out what actually happened in some aerospace or space event—using whatever messy, incomplete evidence is out there. Orbital data, sensor readings, images or video, known object states, public records, whatever you've got. Can anyone share their thoughts about it ? Just curious about what everyone thinks , thank you in advance.

Hi everyone,

I’m an English language educator, and I’m currently working on designing an English training programme for professionals in the defence industry, with my first focus on UAV/UAS engineers and professionals.

This is not intended to be a traditional Technical English course based mainly on teaching terminology.

From what I have observed, many engineers already know the technical vocabulary of their field. The real difficulty often begins when they need to actively use English at work — during meetings, presentations, technical discussions, testing processes, international exhibitions, or communication with foreign colleagues and clients.

One of the main things I’m trying to understand is:

What English do UAV engineers actually use in their daily work?

For example, what words, phrases and communication patterns do you commonly use when explaining a system, discussing requirements, reporting a problem, talking about test results, troubleshooting, presenting a project, communicating with an international team, or speaking with potential clients?

Someone may have good General English or even a strong IELTS score, but still struggle to explain their own technical knowledge naturally and confidently in English.

My goal is to design training around real workplace communication and integrate all four skills — speaking, listening, reading and writing — rather than simply giving engineers another list of technical terms to memorise.

At this stage, my primary motivation is educational rather than commercial. Before designing the programme, I want to understand what engineers actually need and actually use in their working environment.

If you are an experienced UAV/UAS engineer or defence industry professional, I would really appreciate your perspective.

I’m particularly interested in hearing about the situations in which you need English, the language you actually use at work, and the areas where engineers tend to experience communication difficulties.

I would also be very grateful if anyone could recommend an existing programme, curriculum, research project, or training model anywhere in the world that combines English language development with real defence/engineering workplace communication.

I’m also happy to arrange a short paid consultation (approximately 50 minutes) with experienced professionals who would be willing to share their insights.

Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Tight tolerance bore, 0.12mm on a defense part, not exactly aerospace but it is a one time use part. Bore is oversize by .023-128mm. My company wants to use as is, WITHOUT customer notification. Am I being unreasonable to hold the line that these cannot ship (or at least I won't sign off) without customer notification and approval???

While I agree that the parts will probably be fine, I am not an SME for the end use of this part, nor is anyone in my company. Notification and approval should absolutely be necessary to do anything with these parts except scrapping them, yes?

Edit: 0.023-0.128, I'm a good engineer but I have production level thumbs.