My old uncle was an elec engineer for WSTNGHSE/GE (dynamo’s/cmcl power) back in the 40’s - 70’s and, my-o-my, the stories, some hilarious, he used to tell about the “bean counters” v/v best engineering. Now, this latest discussion takes me back to his old words as well as reminiscences of my own revolving around an old axiom I sometimes used to hear in mx about aircraft returning to revenue just out of D Check.
Strange how they’d often suffer one or a half-dozen (sometimes big) grounding squawks right out of the box on their first revenue flight. They’d sometimes wind up at some God forsaken downline station where you’d have to send a half dozen guys, fix it or not, or get a waiver and crew together to ferry the thing to a place where it can be repaired.
The moral was something like, “There’s never enough time or money to put it back together and test it right the first time, but, OH, YEAH, there was always plenty of both later on!” Seems this sarcastic rule might be equally at home today within the hallowed halls of RR (or GE/Pratt/Snecma, etc) as well? I like to think not, at least not of the major safety compromising type... but then I think of my old uncle angrily grousing about “beaner” rule in the land of dynamo's.
Why I think maybe even Boeing corporate might be just a little upset with their own beaners now that we’ve witnessed all the "save a buck" international fiascos that have gone on in development and construction of that neat new airplane of theirs. So glad I’m retired! LOL