O/T 60's Aircraft Injuneers

[Müřlıń®]

I have been engineering alot of tooling from prints that were made back in the 60's from various Aircraft manufacturers.

 

 

Is it just me, or are all of these guys totally insane?

 

I would like to go back in time and slap the hell out of the Bell Hellicopter Ijuneer in particular.....

 

It's obvious, all these guys thought about was job security.......

 

Thank God its not plus cost anymore and strictly bid.......

 

I was just wondering if anyone else besides me has noticed this....

 

 

Murlin

[Finecut]

yep,

 

Finecut

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

You're just preachin' to the choir around here.

[cadcam]

AMEN!!!!!!!!

[Phil Orenstein]

Gov't jobs with prints from the 50's with missing dimensions and vellum overlays to scale up!!!

[MetalMarvels]

Yep - I keep getting prints from a manufacturer back east with 4 decimal place callouts, features that are darn near impossible to make, and loooooooooong holes with back-counterbores (and a little itteey bitteeey window to reach in through to put on a back-counterbore twist-lock head). I talked to their chief engineer and asked what the heck was this stuff. You really want to pay for that kind of tolerance and features? He said that the engineer was a helicopter designer. Never liked helos before - now I will be doggoned if I will get in one if this is the sort of engineering that went into it......

[crazy^millman]

Such is life nice to get a drawing though. Did alot of stuff for Paper mills where all we got was an old wore out part or broke in half casting and they were like make this and we need it tonight. Done stuff for air brakes on Trains, Beer producing, Hydralics Can fillers, Pipe bending equipment, and even Medical equipment and tools for surgey and not even have a print just a sketch or here I want it like this but not like this with these changes and oh yeah can you make it for 5 dollars and get it to me tommmorow and no I do not want to pay for overtime and for you to figure out what I am thinking that is what your mind reading skills are for.

[Matthew]

quote:

---

all we got was an old wore out part or broke in half casting and they were like make this and we need it tonight

---

That is all we get a lot of the time. Customer spends $15mil on custom SPM's and don't get any spare parts.

[RickG]

I think my worst one was a cardboard cutout that the customer told us needed to be exactly this size cause he cut it to press into the area he needed it... like how do you figure the steel to cardboard crush difference?

 

and like always the customer is always right so we spent way to many hours on running back a forth fitting the piece in place.

[Müřlıń®]

It is no wonder it took so many people to build aircraft....

 

If at least 10 guys didnt review all the data....something would be missed....freaking booby traps all over....

 

Whew...OK I feel better...

[Die Sinker]

These problems didn't just occur in the 60's. I have been in the die sinking trade since 1964. In the early 90's we got a job from Cessna Aircraft-a print with SIX datum planes and three were canted in different angles! I had to draw this part from the ugliest prints you ever saw. There were double dimensions, absolute dimensions (but only reference dimensions). A real nightmare-took about 2 and a half weeks to complete. Anyway I completed the job and we machined the die. We turned the cast in for inspection and we had some areas that were excess stock by .300. A lot of the problem was the rule of dimensioning and which dimension took precedence over the other. Remember, I am OLD school. I explained to the inspection department what I had done and they agreed I was correct. We sent the cast back to Cessna in Kansas and I got a call from their chief engineer asking me to change the dimensions on the print to match what I had done. He told me they had always had problems with the part but because the print had been drawn by hand, they were not able to catch the error- MasterCAM did!! This happens quite often. We have a little six man job correcting work for a hundred man engineering department. And, of course we don't get paid for all the corrective drawing and engineering we have to do. Just my vent.

[SLJ]

Did a part for the nose wheel assy. on the new Cessna single engine plane. Got the prints and old drill fixture from Cessna. The holes called out in the print in no way matched the fixture. Called them on it and was told that the prints had been in storage in the Hutchinson salt mines for years and the changes were probably in someones spiral notebook that had retired years ago. Finally got word to just make it like the fixture. Then after the first shipment they made changes, but by e-mail only, no print changes.

[Philcott]

As I understand it, on the old aircraft stuff (50's and 60's) you cant simply change a print. Everything would need to be retested and put throught the hoops for the faa to approve the changes. On the other hand addendums to the print are a whole different story.

 

This is what the QA guy ay DeHavallen told me. Truth or fiction I don't know, but we could never get a single drawing revised.

 

Phil

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

You're right Phil. Once a part is FAA tested, you're married to it as-is. I'm in the Aerospace biz and something benign as a seat... the same rules apply.