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Originally Posted by IROC
Oh, whatever. You have your view of reality and I have mine. That scenario has played out in many threads, obviously. I worked side-by-side for years with Boeing engineers starting in 1998 (what is your experience with McDonnell Douglas?) and developed my viewpoints honestly. I'll let it go at that. No pissing contest is necessary.
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Mike, that was in no way meant to be personal. I'm sorry you took it that way.
I have 33 years in this business. I've worked off and on with MD engineers for years, beginning with the "717", just a reworked MD80, which was all MD's commercial end was capable of anymore by then. The lack of configuration control MD held over their own aircraft was astonishing; their suppliers had full configuration authority for their individual contributions. MD didn't even know what they were installing into their own airplane anymore. No one at MD - particularly their "engineers" working as project managers - had any clue on how to bring that one across the finish line. Their engineering expertise was long gone; left behind were "project managers" who were completely helpless. We abandoned that one just as soon as we were contractually able.
Then there was the C17; I helped with several projects on that one. In this I found a whole new level of astonishment - in the late 1990's and early 2000's, MD and some of their suppliers on this program were still releasing board drawings. Yup, hand drafted on vellum, totally old school. At that late date, when the entire rest of the aerospace industry had been on some form of CAD for at least decade (or more), MD was developing at least some of the C17 on the board. They were too damn cheap to buy the CAD equipment necessary to do the job, or to train their "engineers" to use it.
These were the two most incredibly wasteful, mismanaged, poorly engineered airplane programs I have ever seen. No wonder the C17 program initially tried to stiff the U.S. taxpayer for $700 million a pop, in 1990's dollars, no less. Even at that steep price tag, they were reportedly losing money on them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IROC
As always, believe what you want to believe but to blame 787 issues on McDonnell Douglas is naive.
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Well,
as always, your simplistic understanding of what I believe is way off the mark. I was merely commenting on the state of affairs at MD when they collapsed. This is all very well documented history, Mike, not merely what I believe.
I was in no way assigning responsibility for our 787 problems to MD. I was drawing parallels between their failures and our failure. The same management philosophies were in play at both companies. Boeing learned those philosophies from MD. Or, more specifically, Harry Stonecipher. We did not have to go down that path. We had a very visible, very recent example to learn from - a once proud aerospace company that had chosen that path and had failed. We could have (should have) learned from that example. We chose not to. That choice was ours. The blame lies squarely with Boeing. This too is very well documented history - not merely what I believe.