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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

#171

Post by oconnor663 »

suifbwish wrote: post #161
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…

Why is it legal to do this? I don’t pay taxes so a bunch of morons can waste it on a consulting company trick

There are lots of different types of projects. Sometimes you're asking people to invent things for you, and you're the only conceivable customer for that thing, and (like here) it would be weird and perverse not to require all the data/specs/whatever for that thing. Other times you're buying something that's already been invented, with many existing customers, and the data/specs/whatever for that product line are worth much more than the units you actually want to buy, and it wouldn't make any sense to have to buy out that entire product line just to use the product. It might be hard to make simple rules that distinguish between these cases, and all the gray areas in between.

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

#173

Post by wwww4alll »

robotresearcher wrote: post #159
wwww4alll wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

787 should have been a straight forward simple twin engine jet. Yet, it had Billions of dollars in cost overruns and still has major manufacturing safety issues. https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/09/09/boeings-woes-mount...

This country built Saturn 5 rocket, 50 years ago. Landed astronauts on the moon, with moon buggy and golf clubs.

Now we can barely launch basic satellites. How is this progress?

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

#174

Post by mjevans »

prox wrote: post #62
mattnewton wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish my tax dollars were going to some galaxy-brain forward thinking group of men and women capable of making such reverse engineering challenges for itself; but it almost certainly is the case that what looks like sheer incompetence is just that.

Most of the companies are Initech ;)

Office Space (the movie) If you don't get the reference.

Similar: See Dilbert, the cartoon version had a funny episode about company names through acquisitions.

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

#176

Post by totalZero »

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)

It's also the fact that they are likely to retire before any possible consequences arise.

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

#177

Post by dkarl »

ecpottinger wrote: post #167
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is genuinely impossible to document every lityle nuance that makes everything work. Every time i am dealing in new hires, i realise how much we just take for granted

No, the problem is that while you are writing documentation you are not making money for the company. I remember when I and Dave as the senior tech told our boss that we should put the most common repairs into a database so new hires would not have to ask us questions all the time. He asked how long the job would take, and we answered about a week for all the common stuff. And his answer was, "That is a week you will…

I think the best way to think of this part of a wiki is as a cache for everybody's help. No need to pre-populate the cache, just start using it, and the most frequently used information will tend to be there.

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

#178

Post by nradov »

h0l0cube wrote: post #166
dwheeler wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the revolving door is always a potential issue, and I'm sure it happens, I don't think that's a key problem for the DoD. When government officials leave office they're required to not do work, for a period of time, on things they controlled, and the penalties can be steep. That reduces incentives for the worst of abuses. Also: a US government employee who retires after 20+ years has a guaranteed pension; it's n…

Seems like if the US govt. can have a policy that disrupts the revolving door, they could also institute a policy that all tenders require the perpetual rights to technical data? Especially if this is a problem that even outsiders are aware of. So I wonder what's stopping such obvious and sensible policy from being enacted? Edit: I'll answer my own rhetorical question: because budget forecast time periods are aligned…

Just having the technical data doesn't ensure that another contractor can actually build compatible parts.

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

#180

Post by mixologic »

nradov wrote: post #178
h0l0cube wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like if the US govt. can have a policy that disrupts the revolving door, they could also institute a policy that all tenders require the perpetual rights to technical data? Especially if this is a problem that even outsiders are aware of. So I wonder what's stopping such obvious and sensible policy from being enacted? Edit: I'll answer my own rhetorical question: because budget forecast time periods are aligned…

Just having the technical data doesn't ensure that another contractor can actually build compatible parts.

It's probably a whole lot better than getting a contractor to reverse engineer the technical data and then building the compatible parts.
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