Senior Flight Control Actuation Engineer

Senior Flight Control Actuation Engineer | Contract | Gloucestershire (Hybrid)

An international aerospace group is looking for an experienced actuation specialist to help mature an electro-hydraulic flight-control actuator ahead of serial production.

This is hands-on technical work. The actuator uses a direct-drive valve (DDV) architecture, and the team needs someone who can look at test data and hardware behaviour, work out the physical cause, and recommend fixes that can be tested and proven. If you’ve spent your career solving real actuation problems rather than writing reports about them, this will suit you.

Engagement is flexible and shaped around technical priorities, typically 2–3 days per week over an initial 12 months.

you’ll be doing

• Reviewing actuator design data, calculations, models, drawings and test results
• Investigating DDV behaviour including null, friction, hysteresis, leakage and contamination sensitivity
• Interpreting development and qualification test results and leading root-cause investigations
• Assessing dynamic performance, bandwidth, stiffness, accuracy and stability
• Identifying critical tolerances and sources of unit-to-unit variation for production readiness
• Reviewing verification and qualification evidence and closing out technical risk

What you’ll bring

• Hands-on experience designing, developing, testing or qualifying electro-hydraulic flight-control actuators (or close equivalents)
• Strong understanding of hydraulic servo actuation as a closed-loop system
• A track record of diagnosing real hardware performance and repeatability issues
• Confidence challenging assumptions and giving clear, evidence-based recommendations

Experience in any of these would be a bonus: DDV design or characterisation, primary flight controls, servo-hydraulic modelling or stability analysis, qualification testing, or precision manufacturing and acceptance testing. Nobody is expected to cover everything.

Why join

A genuine engineering problem to solve, a team that wants to be challenged, and a flexible part-time commitment that fits around other work.

Practical details

• Initial 12-month consultancy
• 2–3 days per week, mix of on-site and remote
• UK-based, within reach of Gloucestershire

For more information, or to apply, please contact Kieran Wilson