Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: United State Air Force Bars Boeing From Future Rocket Work

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Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 07-24-2003, 07:25 PM:

Sounds like Boeing got caught with their fingers in the cookie jar.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=Boeing%20Contract

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 07-24-2003, 07:46 PM:

"Peter Teets" That's hilarious.... [beer]

>>> Phil

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-24-2003, 07:55 PM:

Boeing is stupid. As punishment they should give me $100,000,000. Maybe Lockheed can start hiring people again... something no one in the US has done in the last few years thanks to the economy.

PS - My mom knows Peter Teets. He used to be president of Lockheed Martin where she still works. He kicks all sorts of ass.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-24-2003, 09:54 PM:

I guess if you grew up with a name like "Peter Teets" you'd have to learn how to kick some ass pretty early.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 07-24-2003, 10:21 PM:

Since I know I will never work for Boeing I feel I can write my thoughts here without fear of retribution. In this case Boeing got what they earned and deserved. "What goes around comes around" or what the Japanese call "bachi".

I used to be a big fan of Boeing (mostly because of their airliners) but after seeing how they operate in what was my end of the space business, I'm now glad I wasn't interviewed or hired by them a few years ago. The former Hughes Space & Communications Group was a great company to work for and put out a quality product until it was bought out, first by GM, and then by Boeing to become the present Boeing Satellite Systems (BSS). They also bought out the former McDonnell Douglas space operation in Huntington Beach, which became the launch vehicle group involved in this suspension. Both companies cut experienced (and therefore expensive) staff to save money--they cut back so far that there is no longer much depth to their engineering or manufacturing knowledge base. And it shows in their in-orbit failure rate, which has greatly increased over the last few years. The guys designing and building spacecraft now are given to re-inventing the wheel, and making dumb newbie mistakes all over again. And the guys that have to sell, support, and launch these spacecraft are terribly overloaded due to the "lean and mean" staffing levels.

I used to work for an exclusive customer of theirs, and often heard about their management exhortations about work weeks. The attitude over there was "if you're not putting in 65-80 hours a week, we don't consider you to be very serious about your job." Nice way to maintain high quality standards, right? My old company eventually became dissatisfied enough with the Boeing attitude and service record that they signed with Orbital to build their next three spacecraft, and outright cancelled a previous Boeing spacecraft order due to continual cost and schedule overruns.

Will Boeing learn anything from this? We'll see. The word is this suspension won't last too long, mostly because the Air Force gets nervous if they have only one contractor bidding in a given area. I predict Boeing should be able to bid on Air Force contracts again before the year is out. Boeing bought their way into the space business, but they haven't done what it takes to maintain the high standards that had been in place before. Indeed they've done the opposite with all their cost cutting. And yet they still don't seem to be very happy with the financial results. Maybe they should spin their space businesses off to entities that will be happy with the margins available in the space business.

As a pilot I still like and admire the engineering work that has gone into the airliners made by the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, but a lot of that is due to the fact that I strongly disagree with the Airbus view of the role of the pilot in aircraft control matters, as well as their views on redundancy of primary flight control systems. If I was an airline looking to buy transport-catagory jets I'd still buy Boeing, but it's not like I have much of a choice.

[ 07-25-2003, 10:33 PM: Message edited by: Paul Mayer ]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-25-2003, 10:23 AM:

quote:
As a pilot I still like and admire the engineering work that has gone into the airliners made by the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, but a lot of that is due to the fact that I strongly disagree with the Airbus view of the role of the pilot in aircraft control matters, as well as their views on redundancy of primary flight control systems.

Once on a USAirways flight to Los Angeles, I sat next to a pilot "deadheading" back to the west coast. He gave me a two hour dissertation on why he preferred Boeing aircraft.

http://www.aviationhumour.co.uk/aviation/deadhead.htm

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 07-25-2003, 09:13 PM:

According to today's Seattle PI website, Boeing lost 7 Delta launchs worth $1 billion because of the shady deals with more than 25,000 pages of proprietary documents from Lockheed Martin. This doesn't include three more forthcoming launch contracts.

I think Boeing has slipped in credibility. That is a little depressing since we were so proud to have that company located in Washington State.

A little on the lighter side...

Posted by Travis Hubrig (Member # 1745) on 07-25-2003, 09:37 PM:

Paul, to your picture...

I have extensively researched various methods to get the C-17 off the carrier...

But now I am trying to figure out how to get it out of the water!

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-25-2003, 09:38 PM:

Maybe this is a way for the USAF to deflect criticism from that stupid 767 tanker lease deal that they're trying to do with Boeing?

It's too bad to see formerly good companies doing stuff like this out of desperation. I'm not a pilot, but I've taken countless flights (and spoken with pilots) on 727s,737s,747s,757s, and 767s. Although I don't have any real basis for saying this, my impression is that all of these are extremely well built, safe, and reliable aircraft (if anyone disagrees, I'd be curious to know why).

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 07-25-2003, 10:14 PM:

Travis, that's funny. There is an old story about the SPAD aircraft. It was the same propeller aircraft you may have seen in the movie "Flight Of The Intruder". The SPAD was manufactured by Douglas Aircraft, and basically it was an airframe bulted to an R-3350 18-cyl recip engine swinging a 4-bladed 16 foot propeller.

As the story goes at an airshow on board a carrier years ago, the AD was taxing to the catapult for "cat shot." The bullhorn was relaying specifications to the spectators, and said something to the effect that; "The Douglas Skyraider was capable of carrying more of a payload than the B-25 in WW II."

When the cat stroke initiated, it was a "cold cat" and it fired the Skyraider into the drink.

The anouncement continued over the bullhorn: "But not quite as far." [Big Grin]

Travis, did you work at the multiplex on the south side of Mindrot in the early '80s? If so, I serviced that theatre a couple of times. That was the theatre that when the roof hatch of the booth was open on a bright sunny day around noon the sunshine found its way into the control module of an AW-3 and drove it nuts. A couple of other techs never found that trouble, I was just there at the right time to make an assessment and saw it happen. There was a screw left out that holds the module in.

If not, where is your theatre? There is a good possibility I might have to travel to Wisconsin next week. If road time permits, I just might drop in and say hello if it is OK with you. Also, as I drive through West Fargo, I plan on stopping there to harass Josh for a few hours.

Scott, the Boeing aircraft are among the world's best. I hope they don't cheapen them up in the name of profits.

Posted by Travis Hubrig (Member # 1745) on 07-25-2003, 11:34 PM:

I haven't been working here quite that long, actually I was probably a sixth grader at that time... I've been here since '96.

I do work at the theatre. It is a Seven now, it would have probably been a Five back then. It is located in Dakota Square Mall. We also have a second theatre on the other end of the mall. That's funny that they had problems with the platter because the hatch was open. It's hard to imagine that they would run shows with it open. It actually lets quite a bit of light into the auditoriums throught the port windows. The manager of a recently opened discount house in town actually worked at this theatre in the early-mid eighties, I don't talk to him much. If you do get some time you should stop in...
Travis

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-29-2003, 08:38 PM:

I've always thought that the Air Force should can everyone except the Lockheeds "Skunk Works". They certainly do know how to crank out really neato stuff!!
Mark

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-29-2003, 09:35 PM:

The Boeing fiasco is just one example of the widespread corporate greed happening in American companies today. Sure, the greed has always been there to some extent but the levels we see now haven't existed for many decades.

Basically you have a very small group of executives and shareholder board members colluding with each other to cut away as much of a company as possible to manufacture false profits. Ship jobs overseas. Downsize fulltime workers to part timers with no benefits. Eliminate things like health care coverage. Pull corporate accounting scams to rob workers of their pensions. It's all done so those few scumbags can build ever larger castle-sized homes.

The stock market took a bit of an unexpected dive today. Turns out consumer confidence is waayy in the shitter. Not the report they were expecting. But we happen to be in the worst job market in over 10 years. Most corporations are not spending dick on internal improvements, R&D or anything like that. So how is anyone going to expect something such as a pay raise anytime soon?

Alan Greenspan can keep cutting the Fed rate lower and lower, but all that is really doing is putting off a really bad recession like someone carrying over a credit card balance. The average American's wallet is getting more empty. Some of it is partly due to the doctors, lawyers and insurance companies that are allowing the Medical Industrial Complex to strip-mine the American economy. So it doesn't really matter what the hell the borrowing rate is if you have less and less of a way to pay back something like a home loan or car loan.

So with all that crap in mind, I really hope Boeing gets crucified good for their scams. But the thing that really needs to happen is criminal indictments against the executives responsible. I'm afraid all the rocket contract suspension will do is put lots of "little guys" working at Boeing out on the streets. The scumbag executives will likely not face any punishment at all. But that's our Good-Ol-Boy political-corporate network for you. None of the assholes can seem to make a buck honestly anymore. I'm certainly not in favor of communism, socialism, fascism or any other cartoony form of public revolt against this kind of bourgeous thing. But I certainly understand how the fanaticism gets started.