Challenger

by Bryan

9 comments

1 Badtux { 01.28.16 at 2:46 pm }

19 years apart, but no lessons learned about how bad it was to take shortcuts and ignore the engineers. 🙁

2 Bryan { 01.28.16 at 10:04 pm }

The O-ring low temperature problem was know and instead of fixing the O-rings they guessed about the go-no go temperature … and were wrong. Too much PR, not enough engineering.

3 Badtux { 01.28.16 at 11:26 pm }

Both Apollo 1 and Challenger happened because the engineers were ignored.

4 Kryten42 { 01.29.16 at 10:27 am }

I was there as a guest of GD when the tragedy occurred. I will never forget, or forgive.

Yes. The experts warned the powers that be. But photo op’s & expedience overcame common sense & expertese once again.

5 Bryan { 01.29.16 at 9:04 pm }

The corporations that build these vehicles are controlled by MBAs who think marketing is a valid form of R&D. I still get nervous when Ospreys or F-35s fly over my house, proving they haven’t really learned much.

The Columbia is up next.

6 Badtux { 01.31.16 at 1:49 am }

The Osprey and F-35 and the Shuttle share a lot in common. All are based on a high concept idea that had never been proven workable before. All were placed into service with known serious issues that should have been resolved in a small set of test artifacts before actual production lines were set up for mass production (actually, mass production never happened for the Shuttle, all they ever flew was the test artifacts — test artifacts that were flown as if they were production vehicles, madness!). All busted the budgets of their respective agencies and continued (will continue) to do so for decades, wiping out any other acquisitions those agencies could make under a sea of red ink.

The F-35, in particular, looks like it’s going to suck the life out of not one, not two, but *three* organizations — the Air Force, Navy, and Marines. The cost of this golden albatross, created to fight a threat that doesn’t exist and which will be obsolete within ten years because its stealth technology is vulnerable to advanced radar technology that the Chinese and Russians are experimenting with as we speak (in much the same way that the F-117 was rendered obsolete by Russian radar advances based on the Serbians’ experience shooting one down) and which isn’t even as good at being a fighter as the F-16 that costs 1/5th as much, will be sucking the guts out of their budgets for the next twenty years. No advances in missiles, or avionics, or radars, or anything are going to happen because every dime is going to be going into these flying albatrosses.

But that’s how things swing now in the modern kleptocracy. It’s always been like this, to an extent — look up the story of the Brewster Buccaneer for a perfect example (this is a bomber that was created by a company that had never built bombers before, that didn’t even have their own factory, that sucked up a ton of taxpayer money to build not only the bomber but the factory to build it, and in the end the bomber sucked so much that the whole investment had to be wiped out and the dive bomber contract given to Curtiss). But in the past, these scams weren’t so expensive as to wipe out the whole budget of an entire military service. The Buccaneer situation was an annoyance, but Curtiss was already working on their Helldiver so it wasn’t as if there weren’t any alternatives. But today’s scam artists learned from the Brewster experienced and make sure that any alternatives are destroyed before they’re allowed to compete with their scam. Thus all heavy lift and manned space capability at NASA that wasn’t the Space Shuttle was destroyed, and all possible modifications to the F-16 and F-18 that could have kept them competitive in modern warfare were destroyed as a threat to the profits that could come from LockMart’s flying boxcar.

So it goes. These vultures are going to suck us dry in the end. Maybe they’re right to think only of the short term, though. I know I’m sure not seeing much long term for the USA, at least not as it’s currently comprised. Too many stupid people, too little investment in education and infrastructure, too many ideological idiocies. Donald Trump, for example, reminds me of late-era Roman senators who led anti-immigrant riots… against the same immigrants whose men were the armies that were keeping barbarians from conquering the last vestiges of the Western Empire. Oops!

7 Bryan { 01.31.16 at 9:48 pm }

The Osprey are annoying because of their sound, a cross between a Blackhawk and a C-130 – the turbine whine of the the 130 with the prop thump of the ‘Hawk. The F-35s are even worse because they are so damn loud. If you have to pay Rolls Royce prices you should get RR refinement.

I remember seeing that Canada’s new PM is talking seriously about dumping the F-35, and I feel sure others will follow suit, making it even more expensive for the US. You can’t convince the Pentagon or Congress that specific aircraft for specific missions, like the A-10 for ground support, makes sense. They keep trying for one system fits all uses. There is an old saying about that: jack of all trades and master of none.

8 Badtux { 02.02.16 at 12:39 am }

Bryan, the Ospreys are one giant oil leak. They use an ultra-high-pressure hydraulic system to do that whole tiltrotor thing, a hydraulic system that has proven impossible to make completely leak-proof. Marines who get out of an Osprey look like they’ve been riding in a coal car, they’re black all over from oil spray. It’s also a maintenance nightmare, it breaks down all the time due to the inherent stress that comes with having a wing that must tilt the way it does. And there’s a fine line between landing an Osprey and crashing an Osprey, it’s inherently unstable when transitioning from flight to hover and even with computer assist there’s been plenty of crashes, though not many fatal ones since you’re inherently at fairly low speeds at that point. Bluntly, I’ve not heard anything good about the Osprey as exists. A tiltrotor that actually worked would have been great, allowing the Marines to self-deploy without needing Air Force resources like they need for helicopters, but nobody’s ever made one that worked and the Osprey isn’t the exception to that rule.

You’ll notice that when President Obama boards Marine One to fly to Camp David, he never boards an Osprey. Just sayin’. 🙂

The reality is that nobody needs the F-35. The F-16 is more than enough fighter for virtually anybody on the planet, and it’s 1/5th the price of a F-35. If the F-16 isn’t enough, the F-18 Super Hornet will haul more ordinance a longer distance. The F-35 won’t haul as much ordinance as far as either of those planes, and dogfights like a dog too, all for 3 times the price of even the Super Bug. Yay, what a bargain.

9 Bryan { 02.02.16 at 8:42 pm }

Special Ops had three types of Blackhawks for three separate missions and they preformed well. The extractions mission for downed aircrew can’t really be performed effectively by an Osprey because of the landing/take off procedure. The Osprey presents a huge radar target and halts before landing. The Blackhawks zip in and out, often without ever stopping completely. If that wing can’t tilt, you have to bail out, because you can’t land it. A nice but impractical concept that they actually built [wander away shaking my head…]

The Navy and Marines want two engines like every other current fighter/attack aircraft they currently have. The squadron that is doing the F-35 training here grab a couple of F-16s so their pilot could maintain enough flight time while waiting for F-35s to be fixed. There is a reason the Air Force flight demonstration team flies F-16s.

I wouldn’t be so upset if these aircraft didn’t fly right over my house several times a week at low level going to ranges.