Head - Flight Mechanics & Control

About The ePlane Company: We are engineering the inevitable. Incubated at IIT Madras, ePlane is building India’s first compact flying electric taxi (eVTOL). We aren't just a startup; we are a deep-tech manufacturer solving one of the world's stickiest problems: urban congestion. We don’t just move people; we defy gravity. We are a team of 170+ engineers, dreamers, and doers who believe that the future of mobility is vertical, electric, and silent.

Job Responsibilities:
•Lead, mentor, and develop a team of flight mechanics and control engineers.
•Collaborate with other departments, such as aerodynamics, structures, and systems engineering.
•Manage multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring on-time and on-budget delivery
•Set performance goals and provide regular feedback
•Manage the team's budget and resources
•Developing project plans, setting goals and milestones, and allocating resources effectively.
•Assigning tasks to team members, monitoring progress, and ensuring tasks are completed on time and within scope.
•Develop mathematical models for aircraft flight dynamics of fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and hybrid platforms.
•Design and optimize flight control laws including autopilot control laws and stability augmentation systems.
•Analyze and evaluate aircraft stability, controllability, and aerodynamic performance under various conditions.
•Create high-fidelity simulations for the aircraft systems.
•Simulate mission scenarios to validate aircraft performance and mission feasibility.
•Develop software-in-the-loop (SIL) test facilities.
•Design, build, and test of Systems Integration Labs for systems integration, software, and hardware-in-the-loop testing of Flight Control, Avionics, Electrical, and Actuation Systems including Fly-By-Wire Flight Control Systems

Tech Skills Required:
•Provide expert guidance on flight mechanics, control theory, and aerospace engineering principles.
•Experience in full lifecycle development including system requirements, design, system-level integration, validation, and verification
•Familiar with safety critical development including ARP4754, DO-178B/C and DO-254 or equivalent stringent process requirements and regulatory frame works of FAA/EASA/DGCA.
•Strong understanding of flight dynamics, kinematics, and control theory.
•Hands-on experience with flight control system element design, testing and tuning.
•Good understanding of linear and nonlinear systems
•Expertise in handling reliable flight control sensors, inceptors,
•Strong oral and written communication skills to work with both technical and non-technical team members
•Demonstrated experience understanding aircraft missions and translating these into system use cases and requirements for the development of flight controls systems.
•Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
•Knowledge in basic Physics, Mechanical Mechanisms, Electric power train and Electronic Circuits

Preferred Qualification & Experience:
•Bachelor's Degree in Aerospace / Aeronautical / Mechanical / Electrical / Instrumentation Engineering or related field and 14+ years of experience leading the architecture, design, and integration of military and commercial flight controls systems which include hardware, software and actuators.
Or
•Master's Degree in Aerospace / Aeronautical / Mechanical / Electrical / Instrumentation Engineering or related field and 12+ years of experience leading the architecture, design, and integration of military and commercial flight controls systems which include hardware, software and actuators
Or
•PhD in Aerospace / Aeronautical / Mechanical / Electrical / Instrumentation Engineering or related field and 10+ years of experience leading the architecture, design, and integration of military and commercial flight controls systems which include hardware, software and actuators

Location: Chennai