Lighting up the sky

From designing decorative chandeliers to lighting up the sky with photoluminescent floor path marking, Rhian Bache has had quite the journey in aerospace lighting.

Growing up, I was adamant I wanted to be an engineer, most likely a mechanical engineer, because I liked the detail of how things work. Though ultimately, I later found my passion was in design. It was one of my teachers who told me to look into becoming a design engineer, because it would mean I could have the best of both worlds.

Until then, I didn’t even know it was an option. Now I’m a design lead and love my job because I get the technical engineering complexity, and the opportunity to apply my creativity to design passenger-oriented products, which are used on aircrafts as a safety requirement. That’s a huge thrill!

My passion for design, led me to study a BSc in Product Design at Brunel, which included a placement year. I was introduced to the world of lighting at a premium architectural lighting company. I spent my days working on creative design and decorative elements for buildings. From there, I applied for a job at STG Aerospace to become a design engineer. I would have never thought I would fall in love with the aerospace industry, like I have.

Moving from the decorative side of lighting to creating designs that need to meet regulatory requirements for products in a confined space, has been fascinating to me. There have been some challenges, but overall, I really enjoy developing products – knowing the lighting I design is installed in aircrafts flying all over the world, serving an important safety purpose as their emergency exit marking system, while also complementing the interior cabin design, is very rewarding.

While the aerospace industry is more regulated than architectural design, I enjoy the fact that I’m faced with new challenges and problems to solve every day. I use Design Thinking to be creative and encourage innovation within our teams, while balancing the fact we have to comply with regulatory and certification requirements and ensure the products are durable, easy to install and look great.

I recently completed an innovation skills development programme via the Welsh aerospace and defence sector, and it really focused on the importance of thinking differently. We explored the idea of continuously performing very small tests to prove concepts early on, giving teams the time to explore more concepts that actually work. Not only does this align with STG’s innovative ethos, but also my own – I’m excited to bring this way of thinking to the industry and see what concepts, designs, and improvements it can help us create.

STG is really open to trying new things like this, so it’s opened up my career and given me the creative freedom to really innovate and develop the best products I can. I really enjoy the challenge of making the lighting both functional and aesthetically pleasing. I’ve been at STG for six years, starting as a design engineer. I have since moved up to lead designer of photoluminescent products.

One of the favourite parts of my role as a lead designer working in the aerospace industry is talking to our customers and how simple conversations on their challenges, often lead to the best products and improvements. I get such helpful insight by communicating directly with our customers, and feed that back into our designs. This has helped me to design new versions of our products that directly solve user-problems.

We’re seeing the aerospace industry evolve constantly, which is exciting. Such as greater focus on customisation and personalisation, in addition to key sustainability requirements. It brings us new opportunities to review and improve our design and products. That’s a challenge I’m always up for.

www.stgaerospace.com