What Went Wrong At Boeing

[mikewint]

I highly doubt your information is correct anyhow. Can you provide a link.

Chris for the first case the information I posted came from the Federal Court of Appeals decision. I also noted in my post that the part in question did NOT come from Boeing BUT as the appeals court noted in its decision holding Boeing responsible:
Although the loss of Aircraft 89–0165 occurred after Government acceptance and resulted from the defective Speco gear, it was actually caused by Boeing's initial misrepresentation that the helicopter conformed to contract requirements.
From:
United States Court of Appeals,Sixth Circuit.
UNITED STATES of America ex rel. Brett ROBY, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. BOEING CO., Defendant–Appellant.
No. 00–4157.
Decided: September 12, 2002

The second comes from: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fcmd/docume...ng_-_F-15_Midair_Breakup_DODIG.pdf?1428681803
Which is the Inspector General US DoD Semi-annual Report to the Congress pp. 44-45

 

[GreenKnight121]

I worked on the USAF F-4 and the funny thing about it was where the air conditioning packs were. And it had packs, not a single pack, one on each side of the nose.just aft of the radome.

The correct place for an air conditioning pack on a fighter of that design is just aft of the cockpit, close enough to get bleed air from the engines and ram air from the intake ducts and easily able to blow cool air to the cockpit and avionics. But when they revised the F3H design into the F4H they decided to remove the 20MM guns that were on the F3H and replace them with Sparrow missiles. So they needed a radar operator, Sparrows not being Fire and Forget. That extra crewman took up the space where the air conditioning pack would have gone and they gave the air conditioning guys at AiResearch the place where the cannons would have been placed. So, without enough space for one pack they built two strange looking smaller ones, one for the cockpit and a less powerful one for the avionics. Ram air came in through two scoops where the muzzle for the guns would have been and was exhausted to the rear and downward, where the empty shell casings would have fallen.

Trying to come up with ducts to do tests of repaired heat exchangers was a challenge that I had to accomplish.

Strange - given that the design that went into production as the F-4 Phantom was one of several DIFFERENT clean-sheet designs!
None were "revised F3H designs", they were start-to-finish designed for the new aircraft - they HAD to be, as the F3H was subsonic, and the F4H (F-4) was intended to be a Mach 2 fighter... creating vastly different stresses and heating issues, with significantly different aerodynamics (shapes), requiring a very different internal layout of structural members.

Did some of the basic philosophy of "what is the best place for this" from one bleed over to the other? To some degree - but at that time all aircraft manufacturers placed mission-critical (missiles, in this case) first, in the best positions for those - and secondary equipment went wherever they could stuff it. Yes their general layout was somewhat similar... but so was the Supermarine Scimitar of the RN.

And as for the Sparrow - while the RIO improved the effectiveness of the Sparrow armament (and of almost everything else the F-4 did), it was NOT required for Sparrow capability!

Just over half of all F3H Demons (239 F3H-2 & 80 F3H-2M to be specific, 319 total) had full Sparrow missile capability - as single-seaters! Including the two prototypes, 299 F3H s were built without Sparrow capability.


F3H-2M Demon with four AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles about 1958:

 

[Barrett]

I was fortunate to know Ed Heinemann well, and his ultimate compliment was "He's an aircraftsman." Which he defined as someone who lived, breathed, ate & slept Aviation. He insisted that things started going south about the time that Aviation became Aerospace. "Things went to hell when the accountants and lawyers replaced the Aircraftsmen." And he was not speaking only of Douglas.

 

[MIflyer]

Well, engineers may start with a "clean sheet of paper" but that does not mean they empty their minds. Look at the attached, from the book F3H In Action.

 

[fubar57]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/boeing-737ng-cracks-1.5301397

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Well, engineers may start with a "clean sheet of paper" but that does not mean they empty their minds. Look at the attached, from the book F3H In Action.
View attachment 554380

Wow, they were going to almost bury the RIO back there, near as bad as the Radar Attack Navigator in the A5. But back then most "scope dopes" were enlisted radar operators, just a technical aid to the pilot, not a fully integrated member of a combat team with procedural functions in all phases of flight. And scopes had visibility issues in bright light. At least that's history as related by some old timers in the F4 community back in my day. Some of the Marine squadrons that occaisonaly stood hot pad duty at our station had grey haired 2nd lieutenant RIOs who'd flown for years as sergeants before being commissioned.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[MIflyer]

My thoughts exactly! Barf City! Of course the WWII airborne scopes - even though the ground test Oscope for radars (I have one out in the garage) had rubber cones over them for the operator to seal out the light (Double Barf City!). It's not as bad at the B-58, where they gave everybody but the pilot windows on each side about the size of a pair of sunglasses (but they did give them a printer). Or the B-52, where there are no windows at all. But that GIB would not be of much use in spotting bogies outside of his scope.

Of course, any version of the F3H or F-4 did not even recognize the concept of checking your six!

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Of course, any version of the F3H or F-4 did not even recognize the concept of checking your six!

Of course not, they were only supposed to be interceptors, not fully fledged air superiority fighters. That was the Crusader's job. An interceptor going after Backfires or Kitchens doesn't have six o'clock worries, right?
Cheers,
Wes

 

[MIflyer]

Well, the F-8 did not have the best rear view around, either. In fact, he could not even see his own wing.

Of course the 102 and 106 could not see behind them, for the same reason. Nor was the F-5 all that great in that respect, either. A friend of mine got on the tail of a couple of ROK F-5's at 35,000 ft and stayed there. It took them a bit to figure out he was there and, unable to outturn him, dove for the deck.

Boy were THEY in trouble when they got home! You see, my friend was flying a B-52.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

A friend of mine got on the tail of a couple of ROK F-5's at 35,000 ft and stayed there. It took them a bit to figure out he was there and, unable to outturn him, dove for the deck. Boy were THEY in trouble when they got home! You see, my friend was flying a B-52.

I always wondered what they meant when they said they "gave the plane a good buffing"!

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Well, the F-8 did not have the best rear view around, either. In fact, he could not even see his own wing.

Well, I never saw many F8s when I was in the nav, but the occasional transient that visited our tropical island paradise all had eyebrow mirrors on their canopy bows, and were reputed to have tailcone radars. There was always some interesting conversation when a single seater pilot ventured into Phantom territory.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[davparlr]

I have quite a few comments to make on this very interesting topic. In my younger days, I flew a modern, for the time, aircraft for the Air Force, the C-141 which had full autoland capability. Then I spent about 20 years of my life working on the B-2 bomber from proposal to bombs over Kosovo, mainly as responsible engineering manager for the hardware and software design requirements, specifications, subcontractor selection, suplier test requirements, and installation of about 30 to 40 million 1980 dollars' worth of equipment (about 90% of the equipment shown on my signature pix instrument panel). I also had to work with Boeing quite a bit (Boeing built more of the B-2 than Northrop built). As such I have a lot of opinions but I am going to limit them.

• While there are always hiccups, cheating, and short cutting, I fully believe, for the most part, that American military equipment is the best in the world.
• I also felt that, again by a significant most part, all the people I worked with, Northrop, subcontractors, and government, wanted to provide a quality well tested product for the AF. Yes, subcontractors, and Northrop, wanted to make money, this is capitalism after all, but quality was rarely an issue.
• I never cared much for Boeing, in that they were quite expensive. The government paid much more for an installation in the Boeing portion that for a similar installation in the Northrop portion.
• I think the Boeing's stunning failure with the 737 Max was a problem endemic to the commercial airplane industry. Boeing was not the only aircraft with the problems of uncontrolled perturbations of flight controls. The A3xx also had several problems with uncontrolled pitch commands, which luckily occurred at altitude that allowed the crew to mitigate, but not solve, the problem. Another Airbus was lost because the crew could not correct for an inadvertent initiation of Go Around on final, causing the aircraft to stall and crash. The procedures for cancelling Go Around was complex and not trained for. We had a single button for cancelling autopilot. What happened to that button? Maybe explained by the following paragraph.
• I think there is a danger in the process of aircraft designers and operators as they move towards totally automated aircraft and prematurely depending on the aircraft systems to ensure safety of the aircraft over the admittedly more prevalent pilot error. Already aircrews are encouraged to let the aircraft do the flying. Autopilot functions are probably now embedded in the flight control computers thus making them difficult to override. One of the main factors the Korean Air crash in Korea was, quoted from Wikipedia, "inadequate training on the planning and executing of visual approaches"????! As mention previously, a China Airline A300 was lost when a pilot accidently engaged go-around, they manually overrode the throttles but where incapable of overriding the autopilot pitch up with flight control input. Recognizing the danger, and not knowing how to disengage go-around auto function, they initiated a go around by releasing forward pressure on the controls and pulling back thus additionally adding nose up command to what the autopilot command was already doing and the aircraft stalled and crashed.
• The pathway to the outstanding safety of modern commercial aircraft is littered with many grave sites. I would have hoped with all the simulation and computer technology available today, that the pathway to future safe aircraft would not have those grave sites. Apparently that is not happening.
• Even though the C-141 had full autoland capability, I never operationall flew any type of coupled approach. I always flew manual penetrations, approaches and landings.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Even though the C-141 had full autoland capability, I never operationall flew any type of coupled approach. I always flew manual penetrations, approaches and landings.

Naval Aviators have been avoiding the autoland built into their planes for generations now. When I was in, in the early seventies, the F4 had a highly touted autoland system, but pilots wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. And RIOs would threaten to punch out if a pilot even talked about trying it. And it's real world reliability, according to the maintainers, wasn't anything like its advertising.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[MIflyer]

Talking about mistakes companies have made, both Lockheed and the USAF made a big mistake with the C-141. When C-141 production ended (Lockheed proposed a bomber version as the production wound down), Lockheed asked the Air Force what they wanted to do with the production tooling; after all, it was Air Force property. The Air Force responded that they had no further requirement to build any more C-141's and thus did not need the tooling. Lockheed replied that it needed to be paid to store the tooling and if the Air Force was not going to fund the storage they would destroy the equipment, which they did.

Not many years later the Air Force and Lockheed both rued the day they every let the 141 tooling be destroyed. Needless to say the C-5A turned out to be less of a wonder than had been envisioned and the costs were so high that the Air Force could buy many fewer than they had planned. They would have liked to have bought more C-141's, but that option was gone. Lockheed also realized that a commercial C-141 would have sold well, while their attempts to build commercial C-5A's were a complete failure.

 

[BobB]

Talking about mistakes companies have made, both Lockheed and the USAF made a big mistake with the C-141. When C-141 production ended (Lockheed proposed a bomber version as the production wound down), Lockheed asked the Air Force what they wanted to do with the production tooling; after all, it was Air Force property. The Air Force responded that they had no further requirement to build any more C-141's and thus did not need the tooling. Lockheed replied that it needed to be paid to store the tooling and if the Air Force was not going to fund the storage they would destroy the equipment, which they did.

Not many years later the Air Force and Lockheed both rued the day they every let the 141 tooling be destroyed. Needless to say the C-5A turned out to be less of a wonder than had been envisioned and the costs were so high that the Air Force could buy many fewer than they had planned. They would have liked to have bought more C-141's, but that option was gone. Lockheed also realized that a commercial C-141 would have sold well, while their attempts to build commercial C-5A's were a complete failure.

Running C-5 & C-130 production concurrently didn't leave much room for storing C-141 tooling in place so it would have had to have been disassembled enough to move outside for storage. That's a lot more expensive than storing in place on the shop floor and means more work refurbishing if the tooling is ever put back into use. C-141 received FAA certification as L-300 and was pitched to airlines but nobody bit.

 

[jetcal1]

Running C-5 & C-130 production concurrently didn't leave much room for storing C-141 tooling in place so it would have had to have been disassembled enough to move outside for storage. That's a lot more expensive than storing in place on the shop floor and means more work refurbishing if the tooling is ever put back into use. C-141 received FAA certification as L-300 and was pitched to airlines but nobody bit.

I remember going by the Lockheed Marietta plant in the late 80's and being aghast at the condition of the tooling that was being "stored" outdoors.

 

[fubar57]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/boeing-737-1.5307170

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I remember going by the Lockheed Marietta plant in the late 80's and being aghast at the condition of the tooling that was being "stored" outdoors.

That's common - I worked for Lockheed in Burbank and that was done all the time for superseded and obsolete tooling. Also consider some tooling belongs to the government and the contractor may be directed to store it in such a manner.

 

[davparlr]

Running C-5 & C-130 production concurrently didn't leave much room for storing C-141 tooling in place so it would have had to have been disassembled enough to move outside for storage. That's a lot more expensive than storing in place on the shop floor and means more work refurbishing if the tooling is ever put back into use. C-141 received FAA certification as L-300 and was pitched to airlines but nobody bit.

When I was flying the line in the early 70s, it seemed like we were flying aircraft parts all over the world to support static display C-5s. It quickly picked up the name "Queer Albert", please excuse the language but that is what it was called. I'll let you figure that out (hint, the C-5 could lower the fuselage to assist loading/unloading). Anyway, the AF came around looking for pilots to transfer the the C-5 program. Given the fact that 30 day TDY (temporary duty) rules was waived for C-5 crews, I don't know anyone who bit into that.

The C-141 was a work horse from the beginning. Sometimes it was hard to get off home base due to complexity of equipment, but once the gear was up it was very reliable and, typically, it would flawlessly bring you home (although more good C-141s broke in Athens than any other place. Conversely, More bad C-141s took off from Incerlik, Turkey than any other place!) Complexity include radios, 2 UHF, 2 VHF, 2 HF, nav equipment, 2 VOR, 2 TACAN, 2 ADF, Loran, Doppler radar for ground speed and drift, Doppler nav computer, dead reckoning computer, weather/nav radar, autopilot, flight director computer, yaw dampener for Dutch Roll, and others. Needless to say, we had loads of communications and navigation equipment which is great for flying all over the world. Loved the drift indicator on approaches.

 

[jetcal1]

That's common - I worked for Lockheed in Burbank and that was done all the time for superseded and obsolete tooling. Also consider some tooling belongs to the government and the contractor may be directed to store it in such a manner.

Some of the on base "junkyards" weren't much different. (We found a F-106 nose wheel/tire assembly at NAS Miramar.)