Originally Posted by
SASless
Then there was the Bell Short Shaft on the Huey....that could be installed wrong way around.......
Lots of Murphy issues have cropped up over the years.
I have worked on a few military aircraft programs over the years, and one thing I've noted is that the military leadership takes the safety of their pilots and crews very seriously. On one hand, they are usually forgiving of problems that were hard to foresee. But on the other hand, they have zero tolerance for problems that should have been obvious and preventable, or due to simple carelessness.
The US DoD does a good job of documenting "lessons learned" from every accident, and they make the reports readily available, so there is no excuse for anyone making the same mistake again. One very important factor in preventing problems is an engineering staff with lots of relevant experience. But there was a long period where relatively few new rotorcraft gearboxes were designed in the US, so much of the collective experience was lost.