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

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

#151

Post by Bedon292 »

azernik wrote: post #94
lambda2001 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last part is extremely true. I have known many engineers that worked on the B-2 and have since retired. There's very little chance many of them would come out of retirement and honestly I don't think the government would pay for that.

And even if they did, no one remembers that well the things they did decades ago.

And even if they did, would that knowledge help reproduce it on modern equipment? Going to have to rebuild all of the tooling and processes anyways.

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

#152

Post by brokenmachine »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #83
Daho0n wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet just landed on Mars, bringing a helicopter. Please don't spread FUD.

How much of the spacecraft was manufactured in the USA? Are we able to create another one without our trading partners?

Isn't that a good thing? Trading partners are unlikely to attack each other.

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

#153

Post by ReedJessen »

dwheeler wrote: post #116

I can't be certain, but I suspect the real problem was that the original contract was signed without requiring the technical data rights and/or delivery of the technical data. This is a common mistake made by the DoD, and can lead to extraordinarily high costs later. Just look at the notice: "The deliverables will include all technical data related to the heat exchanger disassembly, all technical data related to the…

I very much suspect this is the case in this instance.

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

#154

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

h0l0cube wrote: post #136
dwheeler wrote: post #116

I can't be certain, but I suspect the real problem was that the original contract was signed without requiring the technical data rights and/or delivery of the technical data. This is a common mistake made by the DoD, and can lead to extraordinarily high costs later. Just look at the notice: "The deliverables will include all technical data related to the heat exchanger disassembly, all technical data related to the…

> The government program manager (PM) is under a lot of pressure to "get it cheaper" And let me guess, the 'pressure' comes from government decision makers that live in a perpetual revolving door with industry? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)

Mostly the CEOs who want to get their third home.

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

#155

Post by HenryKissinger »

geomark wrote: post #129
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…

As some siblings have commented, it's probably the failure to get back and document it. But the desire for job protection is not uncommon. I saw it when I worked on testing satellite power converters at a large aerospace company. There were procedures and paperwork for everything, but the test procedure for one series of power converters did not work. Only one technician knew how to actually test them. He led me thro…

So many problems could be solved by giving every adult $1,000,000 in a one-time, tax-free, no strings attached, lump sum.

The technician refused to document the procedure because he was afraid of becoming replaceable. He was afraid of becoming replaceable because he was afraid of losing his job. He was afraid of losing his job because he would lose his sole source of income.

Let's just give people free money already.

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

#156

Post by tehjoker »

wwww4alll wrote: post #148
tehjoker wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s an industry failure, society failure, not just a single project failure. This country can not build a new reliable airplane, like it did decades ago. It’s failed project after project. Ask yourself why this is the case? What has changed in this country? What has changed in the industry. What has changed in society? It’s not just aircraft. Where are US high speed rail systems, that other countries built 30, 40 ye…

My working hypothesis is that the business class and politicians are looting the country until the empire crumbles.

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

b-mmxx wrote: post #122
dwheeler wrote: post #116

I can't be certain, but I suspect the real problem was that the original contract was signed without requiring the technical data rights and/or delivery of the technical data. This is a common mistake made by the DoD, and can lead to extraordinarily high costs later. Just look at the notice: "The deliverables will include all technical data related to the heat exchanger disassembly, all technical data related to the…

This reminds me of the following: “In my view, shared by many blue-suiters, this marvelous airplane should still be operational but, alas, that was not to be. One of the most depressing moments in the history of the Skunk Works occurred on February 5, 1970, when we received a telegram from the Pentagon ordering us to destroy all the tooling for the Blackbird. All the molds, jigs, and forty thousand detail tools were…

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#159

Post by robotresearcher »

wwww4alll wrote: post #51
austinshea wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a confident proclamation that is backed up by nothing, aside from your limited perspective.

Name a successful plane developed recently by US military or commercial enterprises?

Boeing 787 series. Young in plane years. Best airliner in the sky.

SpaceX makes working spacecraft.

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

#160

Post by adolph »

mgarfias wrote: post #32

Somethign I haven't seen mentioned here is that the technology used to design this thing is waaaaaaaaaaaay old. I know for a fact it was designed on an IBM mainframe (dad ran the one that the YF-22 was designed on). I can't remember what CAD package they used there, but its definitely conceivable that the software doesn't even exist anymore. How would you go about building a new one if you can't read the CAD files, i…

Your story reminds me of what I read about the McLaren F1, that it had a particular 90s Compaq that had to be kept running in order to service them. As it turns out, this is recently no longer true.

He also has "the laptop"—a mid-1990s Compaq running custom DOS software created by McLaren when the F1 was new. This gray brick was, for many years, required to access the car's engine control and body control modules. Today, McLaren uses a modern Windows computer running a software emulator for day-to-day computer maintenance. Hines keeps the vintage Compaq around just in case.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a14453...

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