> Twenty-one years after the last Spirit was delivered...
Isn't this just the Air Force not wanting to pay full-price for replacement parts from Northrop Grumman now that the patents have expired?
The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
141–150 of 265 posts
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#142Earlier 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…
It's also possible it was "Hey! The foam injection machine isn't working, I've tried everything", "There's this string trick I used once, try that", "Great, that fixed it, we should document that", "Sure, once we get all parts made that have backed up" Or, maybe I'm reading bad practices in my industry to everywhere else.
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
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#143Reverse 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…
> 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 parts were made and machine replicas if needed? I suppose they could always call the engineers at Boeing or Lockheed who designed it in the first place. Like getting tech support for your Huawei networking equipment, just use the Cisco guide! [0] [0] https://blogs.cisco.com/news/huawei…
For anyone unaware Lockheed was hacked in 2007 and the hackers got away with technical documentation related to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The hack was attributed to hackers in China. So it is thought that the development of the Chinese J-20 was at least helped along by information from the hack.
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"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."
In my early 20's this 'discovery' shocked me
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#145Earlier 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?
China doesn't have to deal with a lot of the "complications" that the Western governments have to deal with, like human rights, etc. This gives those in power the potential to achieve their goals more efficiently.
Not saying this is how it actually ends up, but they certainly are prepared to use a lot of leverage tools that are not available to more free countries.
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#146Sort of related: in UK an entire skyscraper went up in flames, and it was obvious there were multiple breaches of fire safety. Over 100 people died.
The inquery was told that the plans for the building were lost, and it was the intern's fault that he deleted them off his pc.
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2020-09-14/grenfell-files-lo...
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#147Earlier 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?
The F35 seems like a project management issue more than engineering. No one stopped the scope from creeping out of control as new tech and capabilities were added.
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 years ago?
Where are modern infrastructure?
Who works in water treatment plants, providing clean drinking water for millions of people? What happens when all these guys retire in few years?
Tik Tok is all fun and games, and no one wants to do the hard messy work of treating water for consumption.
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
The F35 seems like a project management issue more than engineering. No one stopped the scope from creeping out of control as new tech and capabilities were added.
> No one stopped the scope from creeping out of control as new tech and capabilities were added.
The problem with F-35 wasn't scope creep, it was the initial premise which operated under a mistaken belief that getting a single “do everything” airframe to maximize commonality would drive down unit cost, rather than driving it up through the conflicting needs of distinct missions.
Re: The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think we need the tinfoil hat. This sort of thing happens sometimes. Like the time we forgot how to may part of our thermonuclear weapons and had to reverse engineer that [0]. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOGBANK
I was going to comment about fogbank as well, this article explains the efforts the Govt. tried to reverse engineer the substance - https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-fog-o... Also it is no longer known how to make the Saturn V rocket which flew to the moon - https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/26/science/hunt-is-on-for-sc...
Thank you. Very interesting article. I love nuclear history stuff.