BOB HOOD
Principal Consultant
Bob has over 40 years’ engineering experience within the RAAF and Australian Industry in the fields of structural integrity management, design and analysis, and aircraft manufacturing on civil and military aircraft types. He provides an advisory role for company engineers and is currently Vice President of the Vertical Flight Society Australian Chapter where he coordinates the biannual international conference and reviews submission papers for technical and presentation content.
His experience in structural integrity management was gained as a RAAF Engineering Officer on C130 aircraft wing refurbishment, as well as airworthiness management of Mirage and Macchi aircraft. He planned, supervised, and managed extensive modification and structural enhancement programs of these aircraft types.
Specific knowledge gained on how to manage continued airworthiness using inspection processes. Further application of knowledge was applied during full scale fatigue testing programs of these aircraft by defence funded industry programs and when manager of the development program for the Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) for the F/A-18 aircraft.
He has developed extensive practical and analytical skills in classical stress analysis of metallics and composites, fatigue and damage tolerance analysis methods and material testing to recognised standards. Analysis skills cover knowledge of approved fracture analysis software and extensive experience of where to examine an aircraft for possible structural integrity failure sites.
Bob spent time at RMIT University where he participated in research activities as a key research leader for the AMRL, Centre of Expertise in Aerodynamic Loading supervising research into aircraft loads and data analysis. He supervised two PhD students in these areas and was commended for the innovation of the PhD work presented.
He has lectured and conducted workshops on aircraft design and analysis at the company and at Universities in Australia and overseas. He was an approved CAR 35 engineer and is familiar with the CASA processes and documentation required for aircraft certification and continuing airworthiness.