Quote:
Originally posted by tobster1911
I work with German engineers almost every day. They are not SO much smarter than US engineers.
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I agree with your statement. In fact, as far as ingenuity goes, I would put American engineers up against those from any other country.
I had the pleasure of working on a NASA program for years (Spacelab) where all of the hardware (flight and ground support equipment) was designed and fabricated by different European countries for ESA and then given to NASA to fly on the Shuttle. We (McDonnell Douglas at the time) "owned" this hardware from a design standpoint once it was delivered, so I got to know alot of it very well.
While I was impressed with all of it, here are some general observations on hardware from different countries:
German (ERNO/Dornier): Overly complex, but brilliantly designed. Some of the neatest stuff I've ever seen.
British (British Aerospace, mostly): Excellent designs and extremely efficient structures for how lightweight they were. Impressive.
Italians (Aeritalia): Worst drawings I've ever seen (except for the Japanese), but their hardware was very functional and worked great. Not real big on tolerancing or repeatability.
Spanish (Sener): Seemed to make everything from scratch (even structural members, but very elegant design solutions. Basically iron-mongery, but each piece was a work of art.
Ah...the good ol' days when Shuttles actually flew...
Mike