I was in the Air Force in early 90s, and we chuckled at one guy in training who got assigned to B-52 maintenance. "Ha that old thing? How long will that job last?"
The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
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Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#12The B-52 design proposal was done in a hotel room over one weekend, the actual engineering took at least 3 years, including "670 days in the wind tunnel". That is not to say the weekend hotel proposal was not an impressive accomplishment in itself, it was. But there's a difference between laying out a software architecture and writing code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Des... > On Thursday…
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Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#13The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). Another HN commenter mentioned GPS being designed over a holiday. But we spent years and years in the military debugging GPS and making it functional. Claiming that some…
> The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model).
The plane was only ever produced for a decade and the H model was last produced in 1963.
Obviously it has been retrofitted with new engines, avionics, armaments, etc, but it's not a fundamentally different plane.
Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#14I was in the Air Force in early 90s, and we chuckled at one guy in training who got assigned to B-52 maintenance. "Ha that old thing? How long will that job last?"
His grandson will be saying the same thing.
Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#15I knew it wasn’t. I’ve seen the engineering plat drawings. Surely was not overnight but a cumulative effort of many engineers of many disciplines over many decades. Most notably the airframe framework which makes its longevity more than possible. Will not stoop to a simplistic clickbait.
We love to gloss over the implementation phase of design and valorize the concept phase.
I theorize it’s because implementation is a lot more work, and usually lacks a singular hero figure. We make exceptions when there is; see Woz.
Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#16In this context, "design" means working out the key parameters of the airplane: takeoff weight, length, wing span, wing sweep, engine thrust, etc. Even today aerospace engineers learn how to do this first cut analysis using various approximations and rules of thumb. Still impressive, especially before computers, but the article isn't referring to a build-ready blueprint.
Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#17Great article, despite the painful spelling of "bona fide" as "bonified". I guess they don't have a copy editor.
A spellchecker checker.
Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#18Great article, despite the painful spelling of "bona fide" as "bonified". I guess they don't have a copy editor.
bone apple tea
Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#19Great article, despite the painful spelling of "bona fide" as "bonified". I guess they don't have a copy editor.
Wiktionary claims that this form is recognised in Webster's since 1913. Probably a misspelling looking at the context though.
Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend
#20Related, a must read, Ben Rich's adventures at Skunk Works: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101438.Skunk_Works
Supremely entertaining and just totally wild. It is written by the engineer that led F-117 Nighhawk program, "What do you mean it appears the size of a bee on the radar?"
As they say, if it doesn't make you question the metrology, it isn't a breakthrough. They thought the radar was faulty.