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"B2431" wrote in message ... From: (WaltBJ) Date: 12/29/2003 10:54 PM Central Standard Time Message-id: If you want a new airplane fast you find another Kelly Johnson and give him the keys and the money and leave him alone. (P80/F104/U2/A11/SR71) Nowadays there's too many cooks and too many beancounters and too many can'tc--ts, as Hack would say. Where's Kelly's DNA? Walt BJ I bet there are a few real Kelly Johnsons out there who can't get a fair start the way he did. He got his start when there just wasn't as much red tape to fight. I wonder how another one could get started when people actually think Moller can make his project work and send money his way instead of backing the real talent. I would hate to think there's no current version of Kelly Johnson. It doesn't take a "Kelly Johnson". Look at the list of great (and not so great) combat aircraft that went from contract award to service in five years or less in the fifties: _All_the Century series, F8U, B-52, A-3, A-4, A-5... For that matter, I believe that the Polaris system went from scratching heads to George Washington at sea in under five years. What it takes is risk assumption rather than risk aversion. The keystone for the endless development schedules are those GAO reports that claim that the sky will fall if production is approved before the system is *perfect*. During the fifties, it was assumed that the "A" model would enter production quickly, get into the hands of users who would identify shortcoming that would be fixed in the "B" model and the "C" model would be the volume production item. Some aircraft suffered major design failures (F-100, B-52) that required serious redesign and fleet rework but no one was given the Chinese Refrigerator Factory Quality Incentive Program. In the long run, it saves money. |
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WaltBJ wrote:
If you want a new airplane fast you find another Kelly Johnson and give him the keys and the money and leave him alone. (P80/F104/U2/A11/SR71) Nowadays there's too many cooks and too many beancounters and too many can'tc--ts, as Hack would say. Where's Kelly's DNA? Walt BJ For further on this, read Ben Rich's (memory failing here) "Skunk Works". It talks about all the levels of red tape added during the F-117 project compared to the SR-71. MAH |
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"Paul F Austin" wrote in message ...
It doesn't take a "Kelly Johnson". Look at the list of great (and not so great) combat aircraft that went from contract award to service in five years or less in the fifties: _All_the Century series, F8U, B-52, A-3, A-4, A-5... For that matter, I believe that the Polaris system went from scratching heads to George Washington at sea in under five years. Well, part of that was the prevailing Cold War arms race "holy crap we gotta stay ahead of the Russians" mentality, too. Not wanting to be caught with your technological pants down when the balloon went up served as a hell of a motivator for driving development as fast as it could go, and also assuming a lot more risk and letting lives be more at stake as long as the aircraft were being fielded and were ready to fly when the call came. We just flat-out don't have a fear factor like that now. If anything, the scariest thing that we're facing is airframes fatiguing to pieces in flight. |
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Quite often the blank sheet of paper that a design starts with will get redrawn thousands of times as technology advances, software develops, concepts emerge, etc. Raptor is going to water a lot of eyes when it finally goes operational and the fact that it's taken fifteen years will soon be overlooked. I worked on the ATF (soon to become F-22/F-23) engines in 1983! Therein lies the catch. A lot of parts on the F-22 were obsolete 8 yrars ago, like processors. The DoD used to be the largest source for electronics and the biggest employer of software developers. Now it is just a drop in the bucket and all the latest technology in both hardware and software goes to the entertainment industry. We couldn't even get software peiople for the B-2 because Hollywpod was hiring them all at ten times teh salary DoD was paying. More reasons why the development cycle is as long as it is.. |
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In article ,
(B2431) wrote: From: (WaltBJ) Date: 12/29/2003 10:54 PM Central Standard Time Message-id: If you want a new airplane fast you find another Kelly Johnson and give him the keys and the money and leave him alone. (P80/F104/U2/A11/SR71) Nowadays there's too many cooks and too many beancounters and too many can'tc--ts, as Hack would say. Where's Kelly's DNA? Walt BJ I bet there are a few real Kelly Johnsons out there who can't get a fair start the way he did. He got his start when there just wasn't as much red tape to fight. I wonder how another one could get started when people actually think Moller can make his project work and send money his way instead of backing the real talent. I would hate to think there's no current version of Kelly Johnson. Burt Rutan? |
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Smartace11 wrote:
Quite often the blank sheet of paper that a design starts with will get redrawn thousands of times as technology advances, software develops, concepts emerge, etc. Raptor is going to water a lot of eyes when it finally goes operational and the fact that it's taken fifteen years will soon be overlooked. I worked on the ATF (soon to become F-22/F-23) engines in 1983! Therein lies the catch. A lot of parts on the F-22 were obsolete 8 yrars ago, like processors. The DoD used to be the largest source for electronics and the biggest employer of software developers. Now it is just a drop in the bucket and all the latest technology in both hardware and software goes to the entertainment industry. We couldn't even get software peiople for the B-2 because Hollywpod was hiring them all at ten times teh salary DoD was paying. More reasons why the development cycle is as long as it is.. With all the programming jobs going to India and Russia, the defense jobs may be the only ones left for US programmers. Or have they figured out how to offshore them also? Joe -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =----- |
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