Get Rid of Jim Weir at Oshkosh

"Bret Ludwig" wrote in news:1155295315.442651.160860
@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:

"Driven one rivet, driven them all" is in fact the single goddamned
dumbest thing I have ever heard. And dangerous

I didnt say it was a good idea, all I said is, that is the rule....

--
-- ET :-)

"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."---- Douglas Adams

Bret Ludwig wrote:
Scott wrote:

From your other post to this thread, if you've got all that experience
building production planes, why don't you start your own business and
become a "hired gun" and build homebuilts planes for others who don't
really want to build...




Let RVG get a type certificate, hire experienced aircraft workers and
crank a few thousand out. He'd probably make a lot of money, but it
would interfere with his hobbies, so he won't.


So to sum it up you hate RVG because he builds a great kit that is more
popular than the factory built planes built at the places you worked at.
This caused financial resources to be siphoned away from the factories
which caused you to lose your job.
Just because you are not talented enough to keep a job or learn how to
set a rivet does not mean the rest of us can't. I can teach anyone to
set rivets in a short time. WEll I take that back I probably could not
teach you to rivet.
Jerry

Bret Ludwig wrote:
Scott wrote:

From your other post to this thread, if you've got all that experience
building production planes, why don't you start your own business and
become a "hired gun" and build homebuilts planes for others who don't
really want to build...



Then I would be running an aircraft factory....albeit a lousy one.

Good aircraft factories build good factory built airplanes, ones
designed for the strengths and such as they are, weaknesses of factory
production, with consistent tooling and the use of people with the
skills earned only in a factory setting. Most homebuilts would be lousy
factory built airplanes and vice versa. T

From what I've seen, most factory built airplanes are lousy factory
built airplanes. Lots of odd shaped, multiple component parts, that must
be assembled by hand.


"Driven one rivet, driven them all" is in fact the single goddamned
dumbest thing I have ever heard. And dangerous. You are not an aircraft
worker until you have driven ten or twenty thousand rivets, each
checked by an inspector and the failures flagged (and there will be
some) and you have to stand there hands in pockets watching the other
guy centerpunch, drill out and replace your bad rivet while half the
damn plant is watching you. (Been there done that!)

This sounds like childish hazing that you'd find in the factories of the
50's. An airplane properly designed to be built in a modern factory
wouldn't have you setting rivets. It would be done by a machine that
will set the rivet the same way every time, so that quality can be
measured and adjusted. Just cause you set some bad rivets in a factory
and got hazed for it, doesn't mean a typical builder can't set one,
check it, and cuss to high heaven all by his lonesome as he drills it
out and replaces it himself. The results will be the same. The factory
environment changes nothing.



--
This is by far the hardest lesson about freedom. It goes against
instinct, and morality, to just sit back and watch people make
mistakes. We want to help them, which means control them and their
decisions, but in doing so we actually hurt them (and ourselves)."

Bret Ludwig wrote:

Jerry Springer wrote:


Once again you show the world how amazingly stupid you are Butwig.
99% of RV's are built by average guys that are by no means rich Yuppies
myself included.


Where do you get your statistics, you assmunch?

If hired guns all went away Van's would lose half or more their
business overnight and RVG admitted as much a few years ago.


Well well Ludwig seem like you have misstated your facts once again.
I had breakfast with Van this morning he is not sure, as expected, how
many are built using hired guns but figured around 25%. You need to
define "hired gun" does that include someone doing the seats, or
painting etc.?

On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 19:41:09 GMT, Jerry Springer
wrote:

Bret Ludwig wrote:

Jerry Springer wrote:


Once again you show the world how amazingly stupid you are Butwig.
99% of RV's are built by average guys that are by no means rich Yuppies
myself included.


Where do you get your statistics, you assmunch?

If hired guns all went away Van's would lose half or more their
business overnight and RVG admitted as much a few years ago.


Well well Ludwig seem like you have misstated your facts once again.
I had breakfast with Van this morning he is not sure, as expected, how
many are built using hired guns but figured around 25%. You need to

For Vans I seriously doubt it'd be that high. For *some* of the
Lancairs and AirComps it might be. I really don't even have a guess
for the new Glasair models.

define "hired gun" does that include someone doing the seats, or
painting etc.?

I think Richard has it pretty well pegged.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Ernest Christley wrote:
snip


From what I've seen, most factory built airplanes are lousy factory
built airplanes. Lots of odd shaped, multiple component parts, that must
be assembled by hand.

To some extent this is true. But the most successful ones had the most
fixturing and were the most consistent. Consider: a J-3/PA-18 is
probably representative of a tube and rag design one might homebuild, a
little more detailed than most perhaps. Well, Piper openly stated that
labor costs on a Cherokee were maybe a sixth of what they were on a Cub
in terms of the basic airframe. This tells us several things, one
being direct labor on a Cherokee is probably about that of a production
automobile. You could set up in some country somewhere and crank out
Cherokees very cheaply indeed, not counting instruments and engines,
which you could also crank out pretty cheaply in the right places if
you got some volume going. Product liability???? NONE. Do it overseas
and DO NOT purchase liability insurance and you won't get sued. Product
Liability is a crock of **** they brought on themselves as you well
know. Certification? Let's say a million dollars. Build ten thousand
and it's a hundred each, triple that on sale for entrepreneurial
profit. I bet you could sell ten thousand.




"Driven one rivet, driven them all" is in fact the single goddamned
dumbest thing I have ever heard. And dangerous. You are not an aircraft
worker until you have driven ten or twenty thousand rivets, each
checked by an inspector and the failures flagged (and there will be
some) and you have to stand there hands in pockets watching the other
guy centerpunch, drill out and replace your bad rivet while half the
damn plant is watching you. (Been there done that!)

This sounds like childish hazing that you'd find in the factories of the
50's.


The 1950s were the zenith of manufacturing _that worked_ in the US.
Part of the decline has been the blind adoption of Japanese/pnone
company monopoly tactics that work well over there because of
conditions very different from those here and now.

An airplane properly designed to be built in a modern factory
wouldn't have you setting rivets. It would be done by a machine that
will set the rivet the same way every time, so that quality can be
measured and adjusted. Just cause you set some bad rivets in a factory
and got hazed for it, doesn't mean a typical builder can't set one,
check it, and cuss to high heaven all by his lonesome as he drills it
out and replaces it himself. The results will be the same. The factory
environment changes nothing.

What changes is the experience, age, adaptibility of the workforce as
well as the fact they do it every day and in an environment where you
learn and maintain the skills quickly and efficiently. Most people who
want to fly should not be building their own airplane any more than
most car or boat owners should build their own. Certainly, a few
should. But if even one percent of cars on the road were homebuilt it
would be pretty bizarre, wouldn't it?

Bret Ludwig wrote:
Scott wrote:
From your other post to this thread, if you've got all that experience
building production planes, why don't you start your own business and
become a "hired gun" and build homebuilts planes for others who don't
really want to build...


Then I would be running an aircraft factory....albeit a lousy one.

Good aircraft factories build good factory built airplanes, ones
designed for the strengths and such as they are, weaknesses of factory
production, with consistent tooling and the use of people with the
skills earned only in a factory setting. Most homebuilts would be lousy
factory built airplanes and vice versa. That's particularly true of the
Falco, designed to be built in a nation and time of skilled artisans
earning meager pay-most not owning a car-not wealthy rank beginners.

"Driven one rivet, driven them all" is in fact the single goddamned
dumbest thing I have ever heard. And dangerous. You are not an aircraft
worker until you have driven ten or twenty thousand rivets, each
checked by an inspector and the failures flagged (and there will be
some) and you have to stand there hands in pockets watching the other
guy centerpunch, drill out and replace your bad rivet while half the
damn plant is watching you. (Been there done that!) It's better you
drive NO rivets than think you are a riveter with a couple of dozen, or
hundred, under your belt.

I have driven about enough rivets to be dangerous. In a factory
setting I'd be okay after a couple training sessions, but you wouldn't
want me doing and signing off my own work. That's why despite having
the requisite experience I never went for my A&P-I did the written but
not the O&P- I knew some day that damn paper would burn a hole in my
pocket and it would be my ass.

Let RVG get a type certificate, hire experienced aircraft workers and
crank a few thousand out. He'd probably make a lot of money, but it
would interfere with his hobbies, so he won't.


In Rec.aviation.military you say women can't be pilots as good as
men, do you feel the same way about women building aircraft?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired