Forum: F-16 Design & Construction

ATFS_Crash wrote:

johnwill wrote:

As ATFS Crash says, "greenhorn bookworms" are sometimes a hinderance. Forty five years ago I was one of them and well remember all the screw-ups I made while gaining experience. But on the other side, all the technicians and pilots went through the same seasoning process early in their careers. So it is unfair to pick on greenhorn bookworms. Communication is a two-way deal. Engineers, pilots, and techs all need to listen and learn from the experience of others, no matter where it comes from. Cheers

Agreed, that’s why I say it takes all types. I feel a diversity of types and styles of minds can be beneficial to problem solving and can reduce the odds of cronyism. Today’s “greenhorn bookworm” can be tomorrow’s respected expert. We all start as greenhorns; those that are smart tend to be bookworms.

As you said a history of screw ups doesn’t necessarily mean a person is incompetent. A person that make stupid screw ups is not good. No one is perfect everyone does something stupid. A person that learns from their screw ups is a smarter person.

Thomas Edison I think spilled some chemicals and set a box car on fire. Thomas Edison substituted as a railroad engineer and accidentally put oil in the boiler; the passengers were boiling because they were covered in soot. The majority of Edison’s experiments were failures; but his failures were scientifically methodical (smart) and helped him make many discoveries and inventions; thusly led to success. Einstein failed math and made many blunders and was somewhat absent-minded; yet he was clearly a genius.

Like Rush Limbaugh says; “the Road to success is paved with failures”.

I’ve seen some research and development teams fail because management and the personnel department essentially hired clones; people with the same education and background that were all part of a clique. As a result they were bad at problem solving because they all looked at problems in the same way. A reasonable amount of diversity can be helpful in problem solving.

That last paragraph is the key, both poor judgement by HR selection and a well as poor management and struggle for power throughout the managment levels in the companies. Colleges should have each engineer take the professional PE exam in each specific field of studies and this should be one of the key qualifiers to work in that area. BS/MS/or PhD does not mean that the individual has the capabilities. I worked on one program during the F-16 days that had a PhD trying to manage it and didn't understand how and airplane could stall in any attitude, poor fellow thought that air was always horizontal w.r.t. to the aircraft.

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I remember a Blue Two visit in the eighties at Shaw. All the shops were asked to provide two tasks that the engineers could try to do while dressed in full chem gear. We had them pull the EFCC (relatively easy) and the DEEU behind the seat. These guys couldn't even get any of the mount bolts loose, and all abandoned the chem gear after about 30 minutes.

God knows what the Crew Chiefs dreamed up for them...something nasty I bet.

Best Regards,

F16JOAT wrote:

Colleges should have each engineer take the professional PE exam in each specific field of studies and this should be one of the key qualifiers to work in that area.

That would have disqualified me immmediately, since my degrees are in ME so the PE test I took had nothing to do with airplanes. GD hired me anyway and after a few years I knew as much Aero as anyone else in the group. What a student engineer learns in college is nowhere near enough to qualify as a practicing engineer. What they learn at work after just a few years is at least ten times what they learned in school. My field (structural flight test) isn't even mentioned in school, so there is no way it could be covered by a qualifying test.

Student engineers learn the language of engineering and some basic principles. They learn real engineering on the job.

How are the greenhorn bookworm engineers going to get their "Flt Line" experience when they go straight to a desk/lab? I can't say I have ever seen an engineer here try to R&R a LRU on an acft to even get a perspective of the maintainers.

Along similar lines of johnwill's comment, my degrees are in AE and no exam for AE exists. Additionally, I went to school in one state and have worked in two different states. Should LM have required me to take the TX test (and, which test?) when they hired me? I agree that I learned everything I know about aircraft from working in the industry, civil and military aircraft. The basic engineering knowledge and vocabulary help, but the majority of what I have learned to do my job was learned after school.

As far as Lurch's comment goes, I will admit that I have never R2'd a LRU, but I work with technicians every day on repairs to new and old F-16's. My job is to help them make things work, and the repairs are most successful when I ask their opinions. I don't think I have to had the wrench-turning experience to do my job, but I to think that you should at least know what is involved in an installation before you release engineering. The best way to do that is to actually talk with the people that do the work.

Glad LM does use the ex-maintainers for feedback. Hence LM winning contacts. I just wish my company would get a clue. My company let an engineer become the CFO, then we watched him go to prison. Maybe we should let people with finace backgrounds do their work and engineers can do theirs. Novel idea!!!!! Smile

At least one thing we are all pointing at and it's true to the statement "We learned more on the job than we did in college" but when HR hires an MS right out of college and places him in a management position sends him to all this management training and he comes out having the signature authority for technical conduct and he isn't even working the technical details ( that's why he interviewed someone smarter than him that knew what to do) that's where management goes wrong. Young un-experience management that makes decisions that don't show up as a bad call until it's to late in the program. Fortunately there is usually a senior experienced person that comes along and corrects the problem at the request of management then after that's done back to the old ball game he came from. Seen this too many times, Boeing, GD, Lockheed and NASA. Sad

Especially if that new hire manager just out of college has the same last name as a VP. Mad

One thing about engineers R&R an LRU, he better be very sure the union won't file a grievance against him.

Forum: F-16 Design & Construction

Engineers using technician feedback in aircraft design