Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:00 am
Inspector
I understand what you're saying but let me ask, do you think the problem is the geographical distribution of the part makers or because they are not part of the same organization (they are no Boeing)? Those are different problems... and how is the problem tackled? Tighter tolerances?
A significant number of Spitfires were built, during the war, in a crazy distributed fashion. They had no computers and they made it. AIrbus is building aeroplanes in UK, Germany and France and they make it happen. I don't know the Boeing distribution but I'm sure they have different parts coming from different geographical locations... well, what I mean is that it is possible. A true engineering and management challenge, probably an headache until everything runs smooth but it's possible.
The 787 is a child being delivered. I would be in complete stupor if Boeing managed to drive the nail down in just one swift blow...
Anyway, I think, if I read you right, to build a warbird in this distributed fashion, the complexity of the number of suppliers would increase everyone headache...
And many thanks for the insight on your work.
I understand what you're saying but let me ask, do you think the problem is the geographical distribution of the part makers or because they are not part of the same organization (they are no Boeing)? Those are different problems... and how is the problem tackled? Tighter tolerances?
A significant number of Spitfires were built, during the war, in a crazy distributed fashion. They had no computers and they made it. AIrbus is building aeroplanes in UK, Germany and France and they make it happen. I don't know the Boeing distribution but I'm sure they have different parts coming from different geographical locations... well, what I mean is that it is possible. A true engineering and management challenge, probably an headache until everything runs smooth but it's possible.
The 787 is a child being delivered. I would be in complete stupor if Boeing managed to drive the nail down in just one swift blow...
Anyway, I think, if I read you right, to build a warbird in this distributed fashion, the complexity of the number of suppliers would increase everyone headache...
And many thanks for the insight on your work.
Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:53 am
I think it would work fine if you didn't have to fly the aircraft. However, pulling together people on this forum to build an individual part to then assemble as a whole aircraft would be a mind-numbingly difficult task. It is doable, to be sure, but getting everything to line up would be nigh on impossible. That's even assuming that each person had the same technical skills, CAD packages, jigs etc.
I can see it being possible for a static, but I sure wouldn't want to fly in it if it were to be an airworthy aircraft.
Then, even if you do finish it, you have the awkward connundrum of ownership? Who owns what? Or do you just donate it to a museum? The latter is probably the only feasible side.
Interesting question though.
Cheers,
Richard
PS. Inspector... thanks for the insight into Boeing's situation. Fascinating stuff!
I can see it being possible for a static, but I sure wouldn't want to fly in it if it were to be an airworthy aircraft.
Then, even if you do finish it, you have the awkward connundrum of ownership? Who owns what? Or do you just donate it to a museum? The latter is probably the only feasible side.
Interesting question though.
Cheers,
Richard
PS. Inspector... thanks for the insight into Boeing's situation. Fascinating stuff!
Thu Oct 29, 2009 8:00 am
http://www.wagaero.com/sportrain.html ANYBODY can do this one...make an L-4 out of it...and its bloody cheap.
jim
jim
Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:10 am
RMAllnutt wrote:Then, even if you do finish it, you have the awkward connundrum of ownership? Who owns what? Or do you just donate it to a museum? The latter is probably the only feasible side.
Interesting question though.
Cheers,
Richard
Simple! Everyone involved could make the same quantity (shipsets) of their assigned part as the number of people involved; that way everyone gets a whole airplane when they're done!
If you're going to tool up to manufacture a part, the hard part is done. Why stop after producing just one part? I assume that we're talking about unique airframe parts only; each individual assembling such an aircraft would have to provide his own hardware and standard equipment (engines, instruments, wiring, switches, & circuit breakers, wheels & tires, etc.)
Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:18 am
Rajay wrote:RMAllnutt wrote:Then, even if you do finish it, you have the awkward connundrum of ownership? Who owns what? Or do you just donate it to a museum? The latter is probably the only feasible side.
Interesting question though.
Cheers,
Richard
Simple! Everyone involved could make the same quantity (shipsets) of their assigned part as the number of people involved; that way everyone gets a whole airplane when they're done!
If you're going to tool up to manufacture a part, the hard part is done. Why stop after producing just one part? I assume that we're talking about unique airframe parts only; each individual assembling such an aircraft would have to provide his own hardware and standard equipment (engines, instruments, wiring, switches, & circuit breakers, wheels & tires, etc.)
Good point Rajay. The one big problem I think we'd have here is quality control... not to mention certification. It's definitely doable with the right people involved though.
Cheers,
Richard
Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:37 am
There was a group in the midwest that build 10 sub-scale WW1 Neiport replicas as I recall. I think they wrote a book or had a video about it. Obviously not the same as say building a Bf-109, but it certainly would be a useful template for how to/not to do some aspects of the process.
I think they all worked out of the same large hangar though, so you would have to address the coordination/tooling issues since you couldn't just walk across the room to take a measurement.
The big problem in my mind is making sure everyone lives up to their commitments. There are a lot of dreamers, me included, who might bite off more than they could chew or don't have the skills they imagine they do. All it takes is one out of the hundreds of suppliers to queer the whole deal. In business you have contracts and penalties, but if I am 4 weeks behind on assembling an aileron, that puts everyone an additional 4 weeks behind. Of course if the guy forming the ribs is 8 weeks behind, all that stuff adds up eventually to infinity. Life often gets in the way of a hobby, so you just can't count on everyone coming through all the time.
In business you have enforceable contracts, but even that doesn't always go per plan as discussed with the Boeing/Vought 787 situation in South Carolina. If you have a guy working out of a garage at the apartment he rents I'm not sure there is much recourse. All you could do is to sue, which won't get you much unless you have a defendant with deep pockets. A lawsuit doesn't get the job of building airplane parts done either though, in fact it just makes the process take even longer.
I think they all worked out of the same large hangar though, so you would have to address the coordination/tooling issues since you couldn't just walk across the room to take a measurement.
The big problem in my mind is making sure everyone lives up to their commitments. There are a lot of dreamers, me included, who might bite off more than they could chew or don't have the skills they imagine they do. All it takes is one out of the hundreds of suppliers to queer the whole deal. In business you have contracts and penalties, but if I am 4 weeks behind on assembling an aileron, that puts everyone an additional 4 weeks behind. Of course if the guy forming the ribs is 8 weeks behind, all that stuff adds up eventually to infinity. Life often gets in the way of a hobby, so you just can't count on everyone coming through all the time.
In business you have enforceable contracts, but even that doesn't always go per plan as discussed with the Boeing/Vought 787 situation in South Carolina. If you have a guy working out of a garage at the apartment he rents I'm not sure there is much recourse. All you could do is to sue, which won't get you much unless you have a defendant with deep pockets. A lawsuit doesn't get the job of building airplane parts done either though, in fact it just makes the process take even longer.
Thu Oct 29, 2009 5:27 pm
The Inspector wrote:rreiss,
One of the classes I teach to Boeing 787 folks is shimming and shop measurement. Engineers set three criterias for dimensioning a part, minimum, nominal, and maximum and when the parts are all brought together any gapping is adjusted with shimming as the max allowable 'pull up' is .005 gap at least on Boeing jets.
Years ago I took a welding blueprint class & there were more than a couple of people in that class who still couldn't read a frigging tape measure EIGHT weeks in....
How big is that part?
"Errrr 6inches & some of those little things"
WHAT????
Fri Oct 30, 2009 10:31 am
ZRX61 wrote:Years ago I took a welding blueprint class & there were more than a couple of people in that class who still couldn't read a frigging tape measure EIGHT weeks in....
How big is that part?
"Errrr 6inches & some of those little things"
WHAT????
In some of my first AMT classes at ERAU, there was a guy who said that he didn't even know what a DC-3 was. The instructor suggested that he should drop out and go home.
On the other hand, my turbines overhaul instructor still did a lot of consulting on the side for the military. He wasn't, however, as adept with military aircraft designations as I was, so he was often asking me to identify aircraft for him. One in particular that I remember him asking about was a TA-7C.
Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:38 pm
In re-reading this thread, another example of timing popped back into my memory.
Many years ago the MoF set about restoring a Boeing 247. The story behind it's 29+ year restoration would fill a hefty volume. However, one person volunteered to rebuild the 10 wicker cabin seats for the project.
He loaded up the seats into his pickup and away he went, no one heard from or saw the guy for over 10 years, he didn't return calls or answer mailed letters. Then one day he drives up, turns his truck around @ the restoration facility here @ KPAE and unloads the refurbished seats, never utters syllable-gets back in his truck and drives off.
Many years ago the MoF set about restoring a Boeing 247. The story behind it's 29+ year restoration would fill a hefty volume. However, one person volunteered to rebuild the 10 wicker cabin seats for the project.
He loaded up the seats into his pickup and away he went, no one heard from or saw the guy for over 10 years, he didn't return calls or answer mailed letters. Then one day he drives up, turns his truck around @ the restoration facility here @ KPAE and unloads the refurbished seats, never utters syllable-gets back in his truck and drives off.
Fri Oct 30, 2009 2:08 pm
For humor's sake. I have a F-84F fuselage sitting on a trailer in my back yard needing a tail section and wings. I have the full manufacturer's technical drawings on microfilm. You guys really wanna do a project? 
Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:23 pm
Try a mini-project. Take an aileron or something that has sufficient number of parts to get a dozen players involved, set a schedule and have at it. That would sure put some real world credence to the idea on the level you are talking. 
Sat Oct 31, 2009 8:09 pm
It is part of what is causing the 787 problems. That is making parts and sub assemblys in other countrys.
I remember my brother talking about 757 sections that had to be jacked 2 inches to fit. You would think Boeing would have learned by that experience. I remember other such things myself in shops I was in.
Yeah it can work just fine, if everybody can hold tolerances and the measuring instruments are properly calibrated. And another thing, the employee doing the work also has to care a bit too. I would think that would be hard to find in a low paying sweat shop in say China.
I remember my brother talking about 757 sections that had to be jacked 2 inches to fit. You would think Boeing would have learned by that experience. I remember other such things myself in shops I was in.
Yeah it can work just fine, if everybody can hold tolerances and the measuring instruments are properly calibrated. And another thing, the employee doing the work also has to care a bit too. I would think that would be hard to find in a low paying sweat shop in say China.
Sat Oct 31, 2009 8:18 pm
787 production is spread out all over the place. India, China, Russia, US, etc... Not sure it plays into it any but there is metric/imperial measurement standards to take into account and related tolerances allowed with that. While the aircraft might be all designed in imperial mesaurements within CATIA, you've got foreign subcontrators machining those parts in metric machine shops. Makes me wonder what the scrap and rework rates internal to those places are for the metric subcontractors vs the imperial subcontractors are. Conversion errors are bound to occur. I bet most of which are costs eaten internally to those subcontractors and Boeing probably only sees very few of those issues. Anymore Boing is mostly a design or fit and finish setup. They farm out all the sub-assemblies anymore.