Big Pants's comments are ridiculous. Slide rules and "real world" engineering did get NASA to the moon (or not in the case of Apollo 13), but remember how many Redstone rockets blew up before Alan Sheppard's first flight, how many problems the Mercury missions had and the Apollo 1 disaster caused by the stupidity of having an un-necessary 100% oxygen environment? What about Columbia and Challenger, both designed pre-CAD? And outside of NASA and in commercial aviation, what about the DC10 with its blow-out cargo doors and vulnerable hydraulics, the Comet's square windows, the DC9's stabiliser screw jack and the 737 rudder PCU? What about the corrosion traps in older airframes that caused events like Air Aloha's cabriolet?
There is a world of difference in the capabilities of new aircraft achieved through new technologies, including the use of new materials CAD, which allow structures to be both lighter and stronger. To return to slide rules and all metal airframes is preposterous. What is more correct is Volume's assessment in the disconnect between the mentalities of theoretical and practical engineers. Too many engineering projects are micromanaged by MBA board men and accountants leaning on highly qualified but inexperienced or emasculated engineers designing things for an "ideal world". That's why a modern car's engine bay has to be half-stripped to replace a head light bulb and its body shell removed to replace a clutch, and is why modern aircraft with modern materials are suffering structural cracking and electrical overloads. Let the money men run the accounts books and the engineers the design process. Kneecap the cost-engineers and accountants, not the structural, mechanical and electrical engineers, and for god's sake stop giving new graduates positions without a lot of oversight - get them working the assembly line for a year at least to see how designs really equate to the real world.