Forum: General F-35 Forum

Andel and Handling: How Top Guns Survive 08 May 2012 Tom Andel

http://mhlnews.com/technology-amp-autom ... ns-survive

"It would have been great to interview Tom Cruise for our cover story featuring the F-35 jet fighter. After all, he and that aircraft have a lot in common. First, they’ll co-star in “Top Gun 2” together—26 years after the first "Top Gun" movie. Second, and more germane to this discussion, they’re both throwbacks to different eras....

...The F-35 is a throwback to when jet fighters co-starred with pilots. It will be the last manned fighter jet produced in the U.S. Unmanned drones are the new state of the warring art.

Like Tom, the F-35 is a versatile actor....

...Lockheed-Martin engineer Peter Neumeier told me that without AGVs they would have had to assign several people to move tooling from station to station manually. In its newer but smaller Marietta, Ga., plant, that would have taken longer and it wouldn’t have been safe. In fact with the likely injuries and the time required to move the tooling, they would never meet their jet-a-day production quota.

“In this case the aerospace industry has benefited from the experience of the automotive industry because the automotive industry, due to its high production rates, has pushed AGV technology to the point that allows us to have this solution now,” Neumeier says.

In fact Lockheed’s competitor, Brown Aerospace, took the technology for a different spin on its jet production line. While, like Lockheed, Brown wanted the precise positioning AGVs could offer, unlike Lockheed, Brown mounted its tooling to the AGVs which then move to each station and then lock into the floor. Although the tool is attached to the AGV they believe they can get the accuracy they need to achieve the exact tolerances that Lockheed achieves with stationary tooling....

...So like Tom Cruise, AGVs have come a long way in the last few decades and both have adapted to industry’s needs for their services. That’s a good lesson for all of us 50-somethings to remember when faced with impossible missions."

Best to read entire post at URL above.

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And now for something completely different...

Stealth Jet’s Starring Role Nixed as Top Gun 2 Stalls November 9, 2012 by David Axe

http://www.offiziere.ch/?p=10216

"It turns out we probably won’t get to see Tom Cruise pilot an F-35 stealth fighter in deadly air combat. The long-awaited sequel to the 1986 action flick Top Gun — or long-dreaded, depending on your taste for shirtless sailors and Kenny Loggins — has been shelved following the recent suicide of series director Tony Scott.

According to The New York Times, executives at film studio Paramount “quietly debat[ed]” what to do with Top Gun 2 after Scott threw himself off the Vincent Thomas suspension bridge in Los Angeles in August. “But now the sequel has fallen apart,” the Times reported....

...In the sequel, Maverick would reportedly be a Lockheed test pilot. It’s not clear how the filmmakers intended to write Maverick into a combat situation, although we’re sure it would have been cringe-inducingly contrived...."

For more cynicism from the AXEman go to URL above but I say - doanbother. Very Happy

Thank God. I think audiences today would be too sophisticated to buy into a Top Gun style movie that supposedly features the actual Navy. One can still get away with a lot of that dumb $hit in the sci-fi or fantasy genres (GI Joe, Transformers, Green Lantern, Avengers, etc...), but 11 years of war live on the internet has changed expectations somewhat since 1986.

"Tom Cruise and the F-35 have a lot in common"? I love getting my analysis of advanced technology from "Entertainment Tonight".

For those that don't know what AGV means. From Wikipedia.

Quote:

An automated guided vehicle or automatic guided vehicle (AGV) is a mobile robot that follows markers or wires in the floor, or uses vision or lasers. They are most often used in industrial applications to move materials around a manufacturing facility or a warehouse. Application of the automatic guided vehicle has broadened during the late 20th century.

The "making off" documentary for Top Gun is floating around YouTube.
I hadn't realized how inaccurate the movie was until I watched it.

Detail about AGVs:

AGVs Help Jet Fighters Fly Off the Line May 8, 2012 Tom Andel
Lockheed Martin recruited a special breed of guided vehicle to enable precision assembly of a fighter plane a day. The right stuff means not only being automated, but autonomous

http://mhlnews.com/lockheed-martin-innovation

"...No Tolerance for Variance
Precision is the key word here, since the components of the center wing section have extremely tight tolerances. Many AGVs guided by a magnetic stripe wander left or right while following the path. Fori developed a 12-inch-wide precision magnetic measuring device that gauges the intensity of the magnetic field, enabling a vehicle to position itself at an assembly station to an accuracy within 4-5 mm.

Each AGV measures 67” wide, 181” long and 28” high, and supports tooling that, combined with the center wing section, weighs about 12,000 pounds. The tooling is transported to 14 different process stations and each AGV must hold that tolerance every time it’s moved.

“We have these six pillars at each station that hold the tool in place and the tool doesn’t just sit on them, it mechanically clamps to the tool,” Neumeier explains. “So the station and the tool become one once the tool is deposited at the station. These tools also have to interact with automatic drilling machines that drill somewhere between 2000-3000 holes every time they sit in a station.”...

Much more detail at the URL above if interested.

If they're going to make a Top Gun 2,

Tom Cruise should be a instructor / mentor, and have some new young actor be the pilot / main character.

spazsinbad wrote:

Detail about AGVs:

AGVs Help Jet Fighters Fly Off the Line May 8, 2012 Tom Andel
Lockheed Martin recruited a special breed of guided vehicle to enable precision assembly of a fighter plane a day. The right stuff means not only being automated, but autonomous

http://mhlnews.com/lockheed-martin-innovation

"...No Tolerance for Variance
Precision is the key word here, since the components of the center wing section have extremely tight tolerances. Many AGVs guided by a magnetic stripe wander left or right while following the path. Fori developed a 12-inch-wide precision magnetic measuring device that gauges the intensity of the magnetic field, enabling a vehicle to position itself at an assembly station to an accuracy within 4-5 mm.

Each AGV measures 67” wide, 181” long and 28” high, and supports tooling that, combined with the center wing section, weighs about 12,000 pounds. The tooling is transported to 14 different process stations and each AGV must hold that tolerance every time it’s moved.

“We have these six pillars at each station that hold the tool in place and the tool doesn’t just sit on them, it mechanically clamps to the tool,” Neumeier explains. “So the station and the tool become one once the tool is deposited at the station. These tools also have to interact with automatic drilling machines that drill somewhere between 2000-3000 holes every time they sit in a station.”...

Much more detail at the URL above if interested.

Interesting as the high precision achieved has a direct impact on the jet's stealthiness and ease of maintainability which leads to higher availability rates, not to mention lower maintenance costs. What would be interesting is if we could have an idea how other countries' manufacturing technology and processes compare.

You don't need mag strip locating systems to get that sort of accuracy. We were doing better than that in the mid-80's with other systems which were less complex. Most recently I have been involved with systems that use laser distance measurng coupled to a variable frequency drive to get that or better on a similar piece of equipment. It's common place around the world and unfortunately it isn't to my knowledge covered by ITAR.

Edit: FWIW the 5mm is only the coarse locating tolerance for this type of operation. The tooling and fixtures usually set on a X-Y table of sorts that can be automatically located to with a few thousandths of an inch once the AGV is in the stop station.

The Pontiac Fiero was one of the first vehicles that used Mill & Drill systems to place precision locate the holes and pads used to place the plastic panels on the steel bird cage.