The aircraft industry, riding the crest of a war boom, now offers almost unlimited opportunities to the college graduate. But there is always the danger that the bubble will burst.

This is a capsule-sized description of one of the nation's biggest industries, but it is an apt one. For there is no other field except armaments that is so dependent on the country's war economy.

Aircraft companies, swollen with defense contracts, are now hiring any competent college graduate with engineering or scientific training. But pessimists in the field are grimly pointing to the days following World War II when aeronautical engineers were forced to learn the details of wash tub fabrication in order to keep their jobs in a rapidly shrinking industry.

Promising Future

There is a rosier side to this picture, however. It is probable that the United States will not allow her preparedness to fall to such low levels in he foreseeable future. The rapid rate at which airplanes becomes outdated will keep the industry at high strength, say the optimists. Military aircraft are outmoded nowadays before the prototype model rolls out the factory door on the test ramp.

The complexity of modern airplanes multiplies as each new model flies faster and further than its predecessor. For this reason, plane manufacturers are hiring men who were never before associated with aviation. Civil engineers, electronics men, and even chemists are eagerly sought after.

Basic Research

A great deal of research is being done today in the most fundamental aspects of science, and not merely in science's applications to the problems of flight. Manufacturers are spending large amounts of money to investigate the basic properties of matter. Much of their work will find no application now, but will only pay dividends in the dim future when machines that fly will no longer be called aircraft but spacecraft.

The applications of atomic energy to the powering of flight presents a great challenge to power plant designers. Space trips will only be science fiction until a means of securing a sustained thrust from light fuels is devised.

In the more immediate future are guided missiles that will strike any corner of the globe under complete control by "pilots" on the ground thousands of miles away. Defense Department officials have hinted that these are already available.

All these facts indicate that the optimists are closer to the truth than the pessimists. The aircraft industry is now becoming stabilized, and increased demands for its products indicate the stabilization process will continue.

Manpower Shortage

Anyway, the fact remains that plane makers and research laboratories, as well as the Air Force and Navy, are hiring more scientists now than ever before. And the shortage of scientific manpower remains as critical as ever.

Graduates with degrees in physics, mathematics, and non-aeronautical forms of engineering are being hired as aeronautical engineers and then being trained in elaborate company training programs.

Within aeronautical engineering itself there are many subdivisions. Each has such distinct requirements that men generally choose one and rarely practice in any of the others. In an aircraft plant these divisions are termed "groups." Each group--for example the design group or the flight test group--contains various levels according to the training, experience, and ability of the group member.