Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Hire back the guys who built the BUFF, which is neither Fat nor Ugly.
I just don't like disparaging remarks about the Stratofortress.
I think it was in the 1990's that there was talk about eliminating safety wire because it could damage the NBC(nuclear biological chemical) suits that might have to be worn by mechanics. Since I was working on supporting old aircraft it didn't affect me as it never got to be a requirement for us.I wonder about some aspects of the F-22. In a procurement class I was taking a representative of the F-22 SPO said that the SPO chief and his deputy decided to see what mechanics have to put up with and changed the engine on an F-15. As a result they vowed there would be NO use of safety wire on the F-22. Now, I am no good at safety wiring and I never had class on how to do it properly. I can't even make it look good with being ineffective. But I am quite sure that I know more about safety wiring on an aircraft than those guys did. True, getting holes stuck in your hands is no fun but it is an inexpensive practice, even though it sometimes takes me three times to get it even close to being right. So how much did the taxpayers have to pay for an alternative method just because some guys who did not know what they were doing got their fingers stuck?
Hire back the guys who built the BUFF, which is neither Fat nor Ugly.
I have one of those and still use them on my airplane and recently for other things as well. I have them here at home right now because I have gotten so irritated at trying to find the right size spring clips that secure the fuel hose on lawnmowers that I have started using safety wire instead. And on the airplane there are spots where those screw clamps for hoses will not fit but the safety wire does just fine.I've still got a pair of safety pliers - the ones that locked onto the wire and spun themselves as you pulled out the center rod.
Fortunately for me, I'm on the right end. Go Boeing!It wasn't fat, you're right, pretty slender -- but if you were on the wrong end, there was nothing pretty about it. A three-ship flight carrying 51 750-lb bombs apiece could put a piece of shrapnel into every square yard of a space one mile wide and three miles long, so our aircrew told us.
Fortunately for me, I'm on the right end. Go Boeing!
In my USC Masters program in the mid-80's, one particularly interesting professor (who had flown P-51's in WW2 and worked a great deal with the US automotive industry after the war) pointed out that some court cases indicated that companies were going to have to designate a position he described as "The Vice President In Charge of Going to Jail."In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to commit fraud
Its not about the people hired, its about the pressure put on the people to deliver.
The industry has become so competitive, and the airlines want their aircraft built fast.
Anyone who thinks this is a "Boeing" problem, well I've got a Bridge to sell you.