The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber • Hacker News Board

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#71

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #59

nullserver wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad was talking to an engineer at one of the major airlines manufactures apparently some critical part was foam injection or some such. Anyway the process as such did not work as documented. You had to add strings to the inside of the mold to get it to set correctly. This was not written down anywhere. Part of it may have been job protection. The union was bad about that. New hires would not be able to complete th…

Conversely, a lot of management have zero interest in knowing this kind of detail. It may not be possible to get the info fed back. People may be punished for not following the process, even if it's impossible to get the job done by following it exactly ( this is a very common dysfunction!)

Yeah this sort of "why didn't the lowest-paid employee do more work without permission so her boss's boss's boss wouldn't have to think too hard" suggestion surprises me a lot more often than it should surprise me. Sure, it would benefit shareholders, but companies are run by executives.

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#72

Post by hinkley » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

nullserver wrote: post #23

jandrese wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works with the government a fair bit, this kind of forward thinking is extremely unlikely to be the case. This is the kind of government competence that only exists in the most wild conspiracy theories. The idea that it was made by some long defunct subcontractor and nobody knows what happened to their blueprints and production notes is far more likely. Also, even if you had the blueprints you still ne…

My dad was talking to an engineer at one of the major airlines manufactures apparently some critical part was foam injection or some such. Anyway the process as such did not work as documented. You had to add strings to the inside of the mold to get it to set correctly. This was not written down anywhere. Part of it may have been job protection. The union was bad about that. New hires would not be able to complete th…

The return of guilds.

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#73

Post by feralimal » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

Yes, as the US cedes the economy to China, they will also surely become stronger militarily. And with the US (and other Western countries) in a perpetual lockdown in the coming years, which will accelerate the transition - we had better make sure we are able to copy the tech!

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#74

Post by Pet_Ant » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

nullserver wrote: post #23

jandrese wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works with the government a fair bit, this kind of forward thinking is extremely unlikely to be the case. This is the kind of government competence that only exists in the most wild conspiracy theories. The idea that it was made by some long defunct subcontractor and nobody knows what happened to their blueprints and production notes is far more likely. Also, even if you had the blueprints you still ne…

My dad was talking to an engineer at one of the major airlines manufactures apparently some critical part was foam injection or some such. Anyway the process as such did not work as documented. You had to add strings to the inside of the mold to get it to set correctly. This was not written down anywhere. Part of it may have been job protection. The union was bad about that. New hires would not be able to complete th…

> Always stuck with me that at some point the ability to make that part would be los-tech.

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Lostech

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#75

Post by robotnikman » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #18

> ... Air Force’s Rapid Sustainment Office (RSO) was looking to industry for a “cutting-edge, automated 3D scanning system,” specifically intended to replicate aircraft parts that are no longer in production, including at maintenance depots. You see the real issue? Even if they have the blueprints, it will be difficult to even manufacture the parts here. There's so many more problems like this coming down the pipelin…

IIRC military hardware (ships, tanks, aircraft, etc) is required by law to be manufactured within the country, for obvious reasons.

Its some of the little manufacturing the country has left

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#76

Post by subsubzero » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:22 PM UTC

time0ut wrote: post #17

dmurray wrote: post #3

Reverse engineering seems like a good skillset for the DoD to nurture, anyway. Yes, the US is going to be at the cutting edge of weapons design at least through the medium term, but the leadership isn't arrogant enough to think that all engineering innovations will come domestically. If the US acquired a next-generation Chinese fighter, wouldn't it be handy if someone had the expertise to tell you exactly how its par…

I don't think we need the tinfoil hat. This sort of thing happens sometimes. Like the time we forgot how to may part of our thermonuclear weapons and had to reverse engineer that [0]. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOGBANK

I was going to comment about fogbank as well, this article explains the efforts the Govt. tried to reverse engineer the substance - https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-fog-o...

Also it is no longer known how to make the Saturn V rocket which flew to the moon - https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/26/science/hunt-is-on-for-sc...

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#77

Post by dylan604 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:22 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #14

dmurray wrote: post #3

Reverse engineering seems like a good skillset for the DoD to nurture, anyway. Yes, the US is going to be at the cutting edge of weapons design at least through the medium term, but the leadership isn't arrogant enough to think that all engineering innovations will come domestically. If the US acquired a next-generation Chinese fighter, wouldn't it be handy if someone had the expertise to tell you exactly how its par…

As someone who works with the government a fair bit, this kind of forward thinking is extremely unlikely to be the case. This is the kind of government competence that only exists in the most wild conspiracy theories. The idea that it was made by some long defunct subcontractor and nobody knows what happened to their blueprints and production notes is far more likely. Also, even if you had the blueprints you still ne…

>As someone who works with the government a fair bit, this kind of forward thinking is extremely unlikely to be the case. This is the kind of government competence that only exists in the most wild conspiracy theories.

No, but we'll totally sponsor/fund research into things like mind control and astral projection. Funding something totally useful like reverse engineering skills is totally anathema. Just really sad commentary

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#78

Post by jaxx75 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #56

banana_giraffe wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also possible it was "Hey! The foam injection machine isn't working, I've tried everything", "There's this string trick I used once, try that", "Great, that fixed it, we should document that", "Sure, once we get all parts made that have backed up" Or, maybe I'm reading bad practices in my industry to everywhere else.

I would be very interested in reading case studies where a company both does documentation well and does not get bogged down in vast amounts of paperwork. As yes, plenty of fixes for things are not written down anywhere.

If you haven't read it, you'd probably enjoy (and anyone interested in process) The Toyota Way by Liker.

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#79

Post by enkid » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #3

Reverse engineering seems like a good skillset for the DoD to nurture, anyway. Yes, the US is going to be at the cutting edge of weapons design at least through the medium term, but the leadership isn't arrogant enough to think that all engineering innovations will come domestically. If the US acquired a next-generation Chinese fighter, wouldn't it be handy if someone had the expertise to tell you exactly how its par…

Read about the history of NASIC and the other service intelligence centers [0]. Understanding foreign technology is one of their core missions. I'm pretty sure they have already been reverse engineering stuff for a long time.

[0]https://www.nasic.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Article/611728...

Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber

#80

Post by wwww4alll » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

lambda2001 wrote: post #64

wwww4alll wrote: post #34

Unfortunately, this will result in failure. This country simply does not have enough skilled engineers to design and produce original parts to requirements. Let alone reverse engineer a worn out part. B2 is product of its time and the amount of engineering resources that went into design and development simply can not be replicated with current society. Tik Tok stars make multi millions of dollars, so why would any s…

I would disagree on this point. I work in aerospace with a a lot of smart folks. Boeing's 737 issues are a product of many years of poor management choices, but I don't think represent the talent of the industry as a whole.

737 Max is just the poster child for issues in aerospace. There are many other examples, F35, 787, F22, are just recent examples.

The flow of smart folks in the pipeline are dwindling. You may be working with smart folks, but how many are going to retire in few years? Who are going to replace them? Does the current education system produce the number and quality of candidates needed?