William J. Rae, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, got his professional start in Buffalo at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, the precursor of Calspan, and joined the UB faculty in 1983. Among his research interests: the aerodynamic principles behind the flight of a football.

You've had a long and interesting career, both in industry and at the university. What got you interested in the dynamics of a football in flight?

My interest in the flight dynamics of a football comes from teaching the course called Flight Dynamics of Airplanes to seniors in our aerospace program. One of the topics that's covered has to do with spinning aircraft and missiles, and I figured that study of a more benign and more familiar missile would arouse the students' interest. I'm not sure it worked on them, but I've certainly found it to be fascinating!

Did your colleagues ever give you grief about studying football aerodynamics? Would it have mattered if they did?

My colleagues occasionally point out that what I'm doing isn't exactly brain surgery, but they do so in a good-humored way, and I think that some of them are actually envious. Besides, it brought us some decent publicity!

Are you a football fan? What's your favorite team? Did you ever play football?

I swear every year that I will avoid watching football, but I usually succumb to it, and spend a lot of time wondering why I should care about a team called the Bills. I was a third-stringer in high school-hardly what you'd call a first-draft choice.

The aerospace industry has seen a lot of negative change in recent years, especially with all the plant closings on the West Coast. How's the job outlook for recently graduated aerospace engineers?

The job market for aerospace engineers is quite good right now, and has been for about a year. It does tend to be more cyclic than in other fields, however.

Traditionally, engineering has been a "man's" field. Are more women entering the discipline, and how are we encouraging them to do so?

Unfortunately, women still make up only one in nine or 10 of our undergraduate population in engineering, despite a number of programs and incentives offered by the university.

Other than flying an airplane, what everyday activity is more affected or dependent on the laws of aerodynamics?

That's a tough one. Wind and weather, certainly, jet propulsion for aircraft, and all ventilation systems. If I had more hair, I'd probably include a blow dryer in the list.

Whatever happened to the hypersonic airplane you were working on with Calspan engineers?

Research on the hypersonic airplane was cut back significantly, only one year after it started. That effort is continuing at several NASA centers, but with somewhat less-ambitious goals.

What do you think about the situation on the Russian space lab Mir? Should we continue sending astronauts there?

My information about Mir is no more extensive than that of anyone else, but based on what I read in the newspapers, I'm persuaded that much more maintenance needs to be done on Mir. As to the advisability of sending astronauts there, my inclination is to give strong weight to the opinion of veteran astronauts (like Thomas Stafford) who have concluded that we can continue using Mir with an acceptable risk.

What's something people don't know about you and should?

Twice in my career I've been the beneficiary of initiatives taken by Clifford Furnas. In 1955, the late great Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, which he had founded, awarded me a series of fellowships to do my Ph.D. And 40 years later, I have the privilege of being a faculty member in a great university that he helped to establish.

What question do you wish I had asked and how would you have answered it?

What's it like being a professor at UB, and how do you compare what you're doing now with your earlier experience?

It's the greatest job in the world! Sure, it has its financial problems, a few prima donnas, some politics, and a lot of institutional inertia. But at the end of each day I say a prayer of thanks-thank God- for having had the chance to join with wonderful colleagues and wonderful students in searching for new knowledge and sharing it with others. It's a pleasure to come here every day.