Collaborating on takeoff

Communication and common goals are vital for success in bringing engineering projects to fruition.

Collaborative engineering has been a way of life in the aerospace industry for many years. The number of independent aviation companies has dwindled or businesses have merged as research and development costs of major programs-particularly military-have soared in recent decades. But in parallel with this has grown the necessity for multi-national program collaboration, creating a shared cost and risk base.

In the commercial sector in Europe, the Anglo-French airliner program that resulted in the supersonic Concorde demonstrated what could be done. So did Panavia in the military sector from the 1970s into the 1990s, with the variable geometry Tornado. But multi-national collaborative research, design, engineering, and production of highly complex aircraft to meet manifold criteria are extraordinarily difficult. Not only is it surprising that it can be done so well, it is surprising, despite all the necessities, that it can be done at all.