Bernardo.Malfitano

Bernardo Malfitano is a life-long airplane geek and has worked as an aeronautical engineer since 2002. He performs analyses, studies, and sometimes tests, around proposed features and configurations for future airplanes and improvements to current airplanes. This determines the optimal shapes, materials, locations, and manufacturing processes for new (or improved) airplane parts, so as to minimize drag, weight, cost, and risk.

Bernardo has a BS from Stanford University and an MS from Columbia University, both in Mechanical Engineering. Most of his academic career focused on aerodynamics and propulsion: i.e. many hours designing and running experiments in the wind tunnel and in the engines lab. He also has academic and professional experience working on control systems for UAVs and spacecraft.

In his spare time, Bernardo is a private pilot, has co-owned multiple RV-6s (which he has flown to Oshkosh), and enjoys flying aerobatics. He also occasionally works as an aviation journalist, and has been interviewed on TV shows as an aeronautics expert. Bernardo has built and flown all kinds of model aircraft including rockets, gliders, quadcopters, and flying wings. He is currently designing (and will soon start building) an all-metal single-seat ultralight that will break distance records for that class of airplanes.

Bernardo has worked most of his career as a structures engineer / researcher, specializing in fatigue testing, damage tolerance analysis methods, and structural maintenance planning. Bernardo was one of Boeing's experts on "airplane aging" issues, and taught new Boeing engineers how to do fatigue analysis and how to plan airplane maintenance, for new airplanes and for repairs and modifications to old airplanes. He designed, ran, and documented fatigue tests on components from the 787-9, KC-46, 737MAX, and 777X while those airplanes were being designed, and on technologies and materials that were being implemented for the first time on commercial airplane structure, such as new kinds of 3D-printed titanium. He currently does fatigue analysis, maintenance planning, and analysis methods development, for components used to convert old airliners into cargo planes, mostly on the Precision A321PCF.

From 2018 to 2023, Bernardo took a 5-year break from aero-structures engineering to have the experience of being a generalist (which is more fun). He first spent about two years in the Airplane Configuration group within the Product Strategy & Future Airplane Development organization of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, working as a Configuration Design Engineer, leading trade studies on the NMA and on the 777X freighter, doing competitive analysis, and creating and teaching courses about topics such as aviation history. However, Bernardo had always been curious about what it would be like to work for a small company, where "everyone does everything", where there is more room for creativity, where engineers also do hands-on work like prototyping and test-flying new components, and where problems are often solved by going back to first principles rather than by following a pre-established series of steps. So at the start of 2020, before the pandemic (and the layoffs) hit, he quit his job at Boeing... and spent over three years as one of only ~8 engineers at Van's Aircraft, helping to develop and improve airplanes that are literally designed to be as fun to fly as possible... such as the RV-15. The highlight of that experience - and one of the most meaningful achievements of his career - was all the work that it took to certify the RV-10, a very fun and safe modern four-seater whose cost is substantially lower than its competitors, and that can be flown using carbon-neutral biofuel.

Bernardo has published two books about airplane design: "You Could Design the Airplanes of the Future", a book for children (age 8-14) about the most interesting and exciting aeronautical technologies currently being tested for the next generation of airplanes (i.e. the kind of stuff that got Bernardo into airplanes when he was a kid)... and "Simplified UAV Design for Students", a book for college students participating in design-build-fly competitions such as the ones organized by AIAA, SAE, Boeing, etc.

His full resumé is here.