Do any of you have an idea how Boeing managed to mess up such a central element of their tanker? After all, it's not the first one they've done, you'd think they knew a thing or two about fuel handling systems. No bashing intended, there ought to be something to be learned here.
Rengineer, repeating myself here (post 301), but...
BEagle, I know more than I can (or should) reveal about the fuel system problems. However I am amazed they were able to
it up that bad.
I appreciate melmoth's concern but I'm not too worried about repercussions because I criticized 'dumbass management' (I'm at a point in my career where they basically need me more than I need them). But if I start revealing details of what's wrong with the fuel systems, I could easily run afoul of proprietary information (or worse, ITAR, which means the government might come after me
).
Perfect world engineering is when you have such a good team that management simply needs to point them in the right direction and get out of the way. Aside from periodic status updates, the only thing we need management for is if we run into a problem that requires outside help. I've been on teams like that, and they can be a real joy. But if the team isn't good and/or experienced enough, applying that lack of management oversight can be disastrous. That's a big part of happened to the fuel system - and the original designs didn't work. Massive redesigns and rework on aircraft that had already been built and that's really, really expensive (there was also some really crappy luck thrown in - I don't know if that story has been made public - if it has I'll elaborate on a future post).
It's also the primary reason the program has now gone so far the other direction, with multiple levels of micromanagement of every detail, to the point were you can't get anything done because you spend all your time in meetings and giving status briefs to different levels of management.
The good news is that I was part of the "Gauntlet" testing a few days ago (Gauntlet testing is SOP before first flight of a new model). This aircraft is in far better shape than the 767-2C that first flew back in late December.