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

#101

Post by ericmay » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:59 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…

Why does it seem to be that we always assume that our own government is incompetent and unable of forward thinking, but all other governments (China, etc.) are?

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

#102

Post by Aeronwen » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

smhinsey wrote: post #35

projektfu wrote: post #5

I read once that if you tried to build WWII-era aircraft according to specs and mechanical drawings, they wouldn't fly. The real design was found in the dies and jigs that were adapted after many iterations and test flights.

If you find this stuff interesting, pick up a book aimed at hobbyist metal lathes. Just reading a little about how you set up a tiny home version can give you a whole new level of understanding and respect for this kind of stuff. Structural components are different but in that era and even to some extent today, most precision parts were machined with two primary tools: the lathe and mill. Today both would be CNC and…

It's because the designs weren't made for mass production. The given tolerances were nominal and you were supposed to hand-fit parts together.

For mass production, they had to be re-tooled with larger tolerances which also allowed for interchangeable parts.

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

#103

Post by hcrisp » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:00 PM UTC

goatinaboat wrote: post #84

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…

Part of it may have been job protection. Management gets exactly the behaviours from employees that it rewards and incentivises.

Apparently that is a Russian proverb: "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work."

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

#104

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:01 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…

> Reverse engineering seems like a good skillset for the DoD to nurture, anyway.

I though they already had enough practice reverse engineering the alien tech at Area 51?

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

#105

Post by tehjoker » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:04 PM UTC

wwww4alll wrote: post #80

lambda2001 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Project failures cannot be simply attributed to a workforce problem without a detailed analysis especially when the top example is a widely reported management failure.

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

#106

Post by tobylane » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:06 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…

It sounds like it could be they have the original blueprints of the first ordered plane but by the time you received the 100th they were different and then it’s had overhauls and other modifications since. About as useful as a ten year old X-ray for a 25 year old.

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

#107

Post by GuB-42 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:06 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…

Nah, I think the one guy who knows the thing is gone, the data was on a hard drive that crashed and the backup system didn't work, and the papers copies are probably somewhere except no one knows where and it is faster to reverse engineer the damn thing.

I have no reason to believe that defense projects are not plagued by bureaucracy, office politics and incompetence like in a lot of government entities and large companies. If anything, it is worse because secrecy is a convenient way to hide incompetence. And when information is shared on a "need to know" basis and we realize that no one "needs to know", then it gets lost.

I have touched a bit on defense projects (not in the US) and generally, compared to civilian, open projects, if feels slow and primitive. I didn't get to the super-secret stuff but I have a feeling that the only parts where civilians don't do much better are the ones that only the army is interested in.

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

#108

Post by jandrese » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #101

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…

Why does it seem to be that we always assume that our own government is incompetent and unable of forward thinking, but all other governments (China, etc.) are?

People assuming the worst mostly. US intelligence used to always overestimate Soviet capabilities too. Usually by a large margin.

It’s a bit terrifying when you realize that the people at the top don’t know what they are doing either. Much of the world runs on guesswork and inertia. This is also true of most companies.

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

#109

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:08 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…

>but they're asking way too much money to reconstitute an old production line so a scrappy startup like this could prove themselves valuable.

The air force is currently going on an in-housing and "agile all the things" binge because they're sick of 30yr of getting screwed by contractors.

My money is on Northrop giving them a sky high but not without precedent price and someone saying "screw it, this is the perfect thing to learn how to do"

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

#110

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 11:11 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #101

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…

Why does it seem to be that we always assume that our own government is incompetent and unable of forward thinking, but all other governments (China, etc.) are?

Because we can't see what's going on inside the Chinese government so they get benefit of the doubt. In contrast we know exactly how the local sausage is made.