To: Jiff
I have been in the aircraft and aerospace industry for 46 years and I have been involved in Reliability, Maintainability and Systems Safety for the last 33 years. I was fired from Hughes Helicopters because I confronted a design supervisor over the likes of a shear pin in the control system. The mode of failure was for the pin not to shear resulting in the loss of control in one of the control systems. All I asked was that the pin be listed as reliability sensitive which meant that a x be placed in a box on the drawing. I brought it up three times and each time he became more belligerent. I left the meeting and returned to my desk. In the time it took me to walk from the meeting room to my office the decision was made by the chief engineer to have me fired. The management of the product assurance department sucked and besides, they were too weak to fight engineering. Three months later the Army requested the same change and it was done in a flash.
On the V-22 I told the management of the product assurance department that the design of the Prop Rotor was such that it would place a very high demand on the flight control hydraulic system making it less reliable than predicted. After bringing it up three times and being told that it was a Bell problem they cancelled my contract.
Engineers look down on assurance engineers as being numbers crunchers and most of them are. They look at mechanical and electronic systems as mathematical entities that must fit some preconceived equation. Most of them never lifted a wrench or a soldering iron in anger. Many of them have no knowledge of how a piece of equipment is employed or what effects its’ reliability or how things are maintained. Armed with that lack of knowledge and understanding they approach an engineer and tell him that his system is unreliable or unsafe. When asked for proof, the assurance engineer will show the designer his calculations. It is no wonder why assurance engineering is looked upon as a barnacle on the ass of progress.
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The Cat