David A. Collings PE
Background and Experience:
I started my engineering career with a
five-year Aeronautical Engineering Apprenticeship with the old A.V. Roe Company
in Manchester, England. After collecting a Higher National Certificate in
Mechanical Engineering along the way, I joined the Weapons Research Division as
a stress analyst designing a large winged rocket propelled bomb called
"Blue Steel". During this time I spent my weekends as a gliding
instructor with the AVRO Gliding Club. In 1959, I joined the newly formed Light
Aircraft Division at Short Brothers and Harland in Belfast, N. Ireland where we
engineered the prototype "Skyvan" light freight aircraft. A couple of
years later I joined Beagle Aircraft in Farnborough, England. After working on
some experimental devices for the Institute of Aviation Medicine and the
Fighting Vehicles Research and Development Establishment, I was contracted to
work with the Swiss-American Aircraft Corporation in Switzerland helping Bill
Lear to convert a Swiss fighter aircraft into the world's first business jet.
In 1966, I brought my family across the
"pond" to settle in Connecticut, USA. For the next four years, I was
employed at the Sikorsky Aircraft Division of United Technologies in the
Advanced Design Branch where we developed some innovative ways of using new
materials to make better helicopters.
For the past 26 years I have been engineering
noise control products and systems with the Industrial Acoustics Company in the
Bronx, New York. We did a lot of heavy stuff with ground run-up silencers and
"Hush Houses" for jet aircraft, Power Plant silencers etc. Along the
way I learned a lot about applied acoustics. In 1986 I was made a Vice
President and ran the Research and Development department until leaving the
company in 1998.
Although I don't do any soaring anymore, I do
have a sailboat and sometimes find time to use it…..