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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

#61

Post by hef19898 »

ofrzeta wrote: post #32
yabones wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's honestly a fantastic case for incremental improvements over time. There's practically no single part on a modern B-52 that's original to the 1960s since everything has been overhauled and modernized decade by decade. Every attempt to replace it has been (or will be) retired before its EOL.

Platonic question: is it still a B-52 then? cf. the Ship of Theseus

Yes, it is. The current H generation has very little to do with the first build airframes so. Including certification.

EDIT: Those upgrade programs, e.g. the F-15 is currently at "X", are complete development programs and involve a certain amount of certification and re-certification. That in the case of the B-52 those upgrades have been applied to existing, tremendously old, airframes, doesn't change that. It does make it quite impressive so, the B-52 turned out to be a very flexible and upgradeable design.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#62

Post by daveslash »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #53
daveslash wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say something similar. My comment being "The word 'designed' is being used very generously here. I would suggest 'conceptualized' as a better word"

“I want all my music to fit in the palm of my hand.” Steve Jobs created the iPod in just one day

Heh, exactly. Succinctly put. Here's a longer-winded version: I'm an R&D Software Engineer. In a workplace setting years ago we had a Software Architect who would advise management and the implementation engineers. Me and my team were really struggling with a difficult implementation problem relating to some federated identity stuff. Management told us to go to the architect. We explained our problems and he waved them off as "that's implementation stuff, I don't do that, but the solution is very easy. Just get server X to communicate whatever token you need to server Y". It was off putting. He also told our management that our problem was an "easy one", without offering any helpful insight.

It's like saying "Traveling to The Moon is easy. You simply need enough thrust to overcome Earth's gravity well. Simple!"

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#64

Post by selectodude »

hef19898 wrote: post #36
mikece wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His grandson will be saying the same thing.

In a post appocalyptic world great-great-grandsons of B-52 pilots will inherit those planes, the same airframes their ancestors flew in the 50s. Impressive service life time, especially that since then nobody came up with something better then the B-52.

Necessity is the mother of invention and the US Military hasn’t had the necessity for anything newer.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#65

Post by paganel »

p_l wrote: post #39
justsomehnguy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the new plane is not Tu-144 or Buran. Then it's not a new plane, but a stolen one. /s

Buran was made to look like Shuttle (despite opposition of engineers on the project), but was completely local design.

I’ve not read too much on the Soviet space program, but whenever I read about Buran (a wonderful accomplishment per se) my thought process goes something like this: “The Soviets must have seen the Americans working on the shuttle thing -> the Soviets must have thought that that shuttle thing was great mostly on account of the Americans working on it -> the Soviets built a shuttle system for themselves -> the Soviets threw away lots of resources for almost nothing”.

Also, as it became apparent in the meantime, even the Americans didn’t get it right when it came to the reasons behind building the shuttle system. As far as I understood there were other, less expensive ways, that they could have taken in order to “improve” their space program.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#66

Post by 6stringmerc »

…and I designed a viable personal flight device that with modern 3d printing (hollow like bird bones) techniques and really upgraded power (LiPo and beyond) and posted it on Medium a couple years ago…and people are still talking about VTOL stuff. Eww.

Granted, I probably need to design a catapult to get it up to speed without big battery drain…but there are really great innovations yet to even make it to prototype IMHO.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#67

Post by p_l »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #55
p_l wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buran was made to look like Shuttle (despite opposition of engineers on the project), but was completely local design.

> despite opposition of engineers on the project Huh? Despite 'opposition'? Can you elaborate? (also make sure not to miss /s in my previous comment)

I didn't miss the /s, but I feared others might think different ;)

From what I've read, the decisions to make Buran look externally like STS orbiter was a political one, and the engineers at MiG OKB weren't happy about it - they have been working on a bunch of space planes for some time, including the infamous suborbital fighter. However the similarity was found to have political benefits in the weird opposite of kremlinology and the decision stood.

Not having USAF's annoying requirements though, they were able to design a better system anyway. (Pre-USAF involvement STS was also better, but congress cost cutting made a necessity of begging DoD for funds)

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#68

Post by sidewndr46 »

hef19898 wrote: post #5
mikece wrote: post #2

Some of the most successful programs are designed either by one person or a small group of designers who were given the autonomy to do their job. This story reminds me of the origin story of the American GPS system which was designed over a holiday weekend by three engineers. If you want projects to work then give a small, qualified group the room to make decisions and turn them loose. If you want to give the appeara…

More like the initial design concept was defined over a weekend. The actual detailed design, even for highly successful programs like the F-117, took much longer. Nobody ever designed an aircraft for serial production over a weekend, not even back when planes were build out of canvas and wood. EDIT: After reading the article, what Boeing did back then was the same thing as Boom coming up with a rendering and a high l…

I think the point being made is that many projects start as an idea that is then brought into the prototype phase, iterated upon, and then is complete whenever the project delivers a significant increase in current capabilities compared to the current systems.

This in contrast to the F-35 project which apparently decided all the capabilities up front and then has went about designing an aircraft to somehow reach all those goals. Whether or not it will is a subject of ongoing debate. It also somehow has wound up making 3 different airframes.

A good example of this would be Soviet copies of the B-29 & the V-2. In both cases there was pressure to "build our own that is better". Apparently Stalin got involved in both cases and demanded that a way be found to produce a domestic copy first, then learn from that, & produce a domestic design next. Not sure how accurate that is, but it seems to have worked out. Soviet long range bombers & Soviet missile systems are certainly nothing to scoff at.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#69

Post by bell-cot »

hef19898 wrote: post #22
closewith wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If every thing except the overall form of the fuselage is changed it is a new plane.

What if most major structural elements of the plane, the skin, the control surfaces, etc. are ~1960 original? Multiple rounds of upgrading avionics, weapons, engines, etc. are extremely common in military planes.

Re: The B-52 was designed in a hotel room over one weekend

#70

Post by sebastianconcpt »

runjake wrote: post #3

The 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…

I don't see anything wrong or less deserving of merit in designing something remarkable in a short time.

How much does it take to have a life-changing insight? or the moment of solving a challenge to resolve a theorem demonstration? An instant or your whole life up to that point?

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