comparing russian and US jet engines OH times

"The Enlightenment" wrote

The Russian literacy is probably much better than US literacy.

Right.

In 20 yrs in the USAF, I came across 1 (and only one) guy who was
functionally illiterate. Reasonably smart, but the poor guy could not read.

How does this contrast with Russian conscripts who may be drawn from a wide
range of native languages?

Pete

"The Enlightenment" wrote in message
m...
There is a big difference in philosophy and you aren't comparing
apples with apples but rather apples with oranges.

I've never quite got that metaphor. Oranges are much superior.

"Pete" wrote in message
...
"The Enlightenment" wrote

The Russian literacy is probably much better than US literacy.

Right.

In 20 yrs in the USAF, I came across 1 (and only one) guy who was
functionally illiterate. Reasonably smart, but the poor guy could not
read.

How does this contrast with Russian conscripts who may be drawn from a
wide
range of native languages?

In theory, school standards were same across the USSR, so all were taught to
read. Whether in practice this meant that everyone really could read
Russian, I don't know.

On average, conscript armies probably have "smarter" personnel as you get to
draft all the truly smart ones. On the down side, you get all the dumb ones
too (and there were some _really_ dumb ones, I can tell...).

There is a big difference in philosophy and you aren't comparing
apples with apples but rather apples with oranges.

It probably would require some scoreboarding on a spreadsheet.


The benefits and disadvantages of two vs three level maintenance (flightline
-depot, flightlne-intermediate ship-depot has been studied to death and
scorecarded). As an analyst and engineer in an overhaul depot and propulsion
systemprogram office, I gathered data and did the analysis myself.
For most of the world, the most efficient means of maintaing jet engines has
proven to be three level. Even in Israel where the battle front is not more
than one hundred miles away fro the bases, three level is employed.

I misspoke on Russian literacy. I should have said Soviet/Russian enlisted
ranks, the people who do the maintenance. This has been a point made in
numerous publications and always considered to be a weakness of the Soviet
military. I am not prepared to say how much of a problem it is in the Russian
military but I suspect it is still a problem considering where the men are
drawn from.

I can understand the Russian reasoning: the USAs military and
procuremewnt philosophy is based on the assumption that CONUS and its
depos and factories will not come under air attack, and the US
airfields overseas will also be free due to US air superiority. The
Russians don't have that luxury becuase they are or were withing close
distance of lots of hostile nations in Eruope, Near East and Far East.
They have thus have to develop more autonomy andf built to lower
levels of skills and field equipement.

The Russian literacy is probably much better than US literacy.

In theory, school standards were same across the USSR, so all were taught to
read. Whether in practice this meant that everyone really could read
Russian, I don't know.

On average, conscript armies probably have "smarter" personnel as you get to
draft all the truly smart ones. On the down side, you get all the dumb ones
too (and there were some _really_ dumb ones, I can tell...).



You are assuming the smarter ones want to be there and are motivated, something
that wasn't the case before the all volunteer military in the US

I misspoke on Russian literacy. I should have said Soviet/Russian
enlisted
ranks, the people who do the maintenance. This has been a point made in
numerous publications and always considered to be a weakness of the Soviet
military. I am not prepared to say how much of a problem it is in the
Russian
military but I suspect it is still a problem considering where the men are
drawn from.

I doubt that Soviets used unreliable and worst educated people of southern
SU in more important places (nukes, air force). They had large enough pool
to draw literate men to more demanding jobs.

My understanding is that SU used southeners and such in low grade infantry
units.
I'm not claiming that their mechanics were highly trained professionals, but
illiterate might not be the right description either.

Don't know a hell of a lot about Russian enlisted men except that
until they develop career NCOs no two-year enlistee/draftee is going
to become much of an expert on any sphere of maintenance (roads &
grounds?). That leaves officers and warrant officers as the career
technicians.
As for airliner engines - they run 'on-condition' with a very clsoe
watch on operating parameters. I used to keep tabs on CF6s and RB211s
and the crew entered steady-state operating parameters for each
flight. This was hand-massaged with a special whiz-wheel to normalize
the readings to STP and then graphed. The trend graphs plus oil
spectrometric analysis afforded a pretty good assurance that an
adverse trend would allow detect of trouble well before it got
serious. Nowadays all this is recorded and fed into computers which
avoids a lot of hand work. BTW 15,000 hours in continuous service on
the airframe is not a record for RB 211s. One reason is that they are
babied and operated at something like 80% of maximum rated thrust. For
instance, where I worked the engines were idled 5 minutes after start
to normalize temps before adding power. And also idled 5 minutes prior
to shutdown, also to normalize the temperatures. It paid off big-time.
Walt BJ

"Pete" wrote in message
...

"The Enlightenment" wrote

The Russian literacy is probably much better than US literacy.

Right.

In 20 yrs in the USAF, I came across 1 (and only one) guy who was
functionally illiterate. Reasonably smart, but the poor guy could not
read.

Likewise, I came across only one in the US Navy. They discharged him
after 4 weeks of boot camp.

Vaughn

"Vaughn" wrote


In 20 yrs in the USAF, I came across 1 (and only one) guy who was
functionally illiterate. Reasonably smart, but the poor guy could not
read.

Likewise, I came across only one in the US Navy. They discharged him
after 4 weeks of boot camp.


hehe. This guy was a motorpool type E-5. Maybe 13 yrs in. We sent him to
reading classes.

Pete

On 15 Dec 2003 13:51:32 GMT, (Smartace11) wrote:



There is a big difference in philosophy and you aren't comparing
apples with apples but rather apples with oranges.

It probably would require some scoreboarding on a spreadsheet.


The benefits and disadvantages of two vs three level maintenance (flightline
-depot, flightlne-intermediate ship-depot has been studied to death and
scorecarded). As an analyst and engineer in an overhaul depot and propulsion
systemprogram office, I gathered data and did the analysis myself.
For most of the world, the most efficient means of maintaing jet engines has
proven to be three level. Even in Israel where the battle front is not more
than one hundred miles away fro the bases, three level is employed.

Interesting, since the USN decommissioned all of its afloat IMA s and most
(if not all) of its shore based IMA s. This despite the fact that the vast
majority of ships now have "aircraft" engines, the LM2500 and derivatives.

Al Minyard