Kitty Hawk

Mechanical Engineer

I worked as a Mechanical Engineer for Kitty Hawk’s Project Heaviside, developing an eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft. My role encompassed several domains:

Development Testing

Owned test campaigns for structural and electromechanical systems including propellers, inceptor, landing gear, pylons, seatbelts, control surfaces, pitot, and parachute hardware

• Led propeller development and validation test campaigns for loads (rotating DAQ), bird strike, blade twist as a function of RPM (strobe), tension, endurance, thrust, and pitch

• Consistently delivered ahead of schedule fixtures, instrumentation, documentation, and testing

• Developed team processes for test documentation and work tracking (Jira)

Ergonomic Design

Designed door and occupant packaging of eVTOL aircraft

• Conducted UX studies with physical mockup and VR, delivering ergo, and visibility requirements

• Designed doors (CAD) and trades of latch mechanisms for access control requirements

Mechanism Design

Led control surface development as responsible engineer

• Designed and tested control surfaces for next generation vehicle using living hinges

• Developed control surface loads in collaboration with aerodynamics and controls teams

Manufacturing / New Product Introduction

Drove New Product Introduction of inceptor

• Collaborated with mechanisms, hardware, manufacturing, and systems to iterate on design

• Developed manufacturing and assembly processes, delivering complete workflow to integration

• Designed and programmed automated fixture for fatigue testing of all inceptor axes