How do we cut through the PR Cheese?
 

One lesson to take from the "Traction drive transmission research" thread is captured in EESDL's post, where the vast predictions of the past fell apart. Like NOTAR and (dare I say?) Tilt Rotor, the PR machines cannot make history, only the actual products can. Our means of publicizing technology (newspapers, video reports and such) are shackled by the fact that reporters are poorly equipped to judge bull from real breakthroughs, mostly because so few reporters have any engineering or science training. As a result, they are easily convinced to report mundane marketing pushes as stunning technological changes.

I wonder how we can get a square assessment of the technical advantages and disadvantages of possible change, recognizing true disagreements can exist, but also that the underlying physics contain elemental truths that should be part of the initial debate?

Examples abound. The entire engineering world knew that NOTAR would cost a very significant payload and range penalty, yet not one breath of it was ever part of the NOTAR PR. I still see the smiling face of the test pilots who hawked it on TV, because that video tape will not wear out, even though the NOTAR is now a proven, but side-show configuration, due to its limitations.

Similarly, Tilt Rotors are still publicized as the replacement for everything except shaving cream, while the only customer of them struggles to bring the one existing one into reality, a reality that includes the ability to carry less than half the payload of a helicopter, awesome flight limits that are a fraction of the promises that spun its development, and per-aircraft costs that would shrivel the budgets of most countries.

I am certainly not talking about stopping hope for better ways to do our business, but I am talking about the ability for us in the trenches to find honest assessments, shorn of most of the PR hype, that allow us to see and understand the real questions at play.

I have found sometimes the experts make claims and print fancy graphs that simply are not correct. The reason could be they need to publish something to get paid. They cant publish a study that concludes the project is flawed.
For instance, I have a fancy paper from some engineering society that concluded ducted fans are better for small aircraft. But they never made a real test. The Wright brothers were aware of this problem so they built a wind tunnel to verify the claims of top experts about airfoil lift. They found the airfoil data to be overly optimistic.
NASA has been studying the "unducted fan" for years with claims of 20% fuel savings. Study after study.... But nobody wants to go back to props and NASA cant see the obvious sometimes. Thats why I asked for an objective opinion from the pprune readers. This is a pretty good way to get some varied opinions.
Then sorting through the opinions requires a basic understanding of physics. I work at learning the aerodynamic details. Only then can something new and "better" be created.

slowrotor

Mr. Lappos, I must admit that I was expecting a bit more "technical fallout" from the Comanche program.
From the press releases at HeliExpo, it seems that part of the rotor technology may eventually make it into the S-76D (or what has been quoted as such).
I was a supporter of the Sikorsky "fan-in-fin" and it seemed to work nicely (that's an understatement) in those videos shot for the S-76 demostrator.
Has Sikorsky though about introducing it in the civilian field?
I think that the American helicopter industry needs a "technology" champion and Bell really fails to fit the role at this time (or has it ever).

Nick, the job of PR is to tell what is good about the product. I believe it's the test pilot (or team) that discovers what's wrong with it. The fact that PR is so strong strengthens the need for test pilots. That can't be completely bad can it? ;)

Nick, you know what? If there would not be someone out there who truly believes, that some technologies are worth it, we would not have a lot of progress. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort and a lot of stuborness to continue. Frank Robinson would never have created the R22 if he had listened to the experts. Hughes or MD would never have developed NOTAR, if they had listened to the experts. They never tell about the problem with the power penalty, because you do not sell a lot of helicopters by telling the negativ points. But there are some positiv aspects of NOTAR, no doubt. It is just normal behavior of sales people. "Never lie to the customer, but don't tell the whole story either." I am sure, that all of your products have some problems or disadvantages, but you too are very proud of the positiv aspects of them.
You will not find a real honest opinion about anything, because we are human. Take me for example, I think that Enstrom helicopters are ugly. Very ugly. Even if would take all the informations I can get to do a fair assessment, I would have the tendency to juge more negative then a MD Explorer, which look I like (Yes, I know, it would be stupid to compare the two, it is just an example).
Because you can not get a truly independent opinion, lobbing works. As a sales person, you try to develop a good feeling for your product.
I am just in the process to evaluate a new software. And I can tell you as somebody who also develops software, that the first look is extremly important. And I am some kind of an expert. I look at the functions, and still, I can not juge without beeing influenced by the first look. But I know it.
I my view, the fact, that we can not have an assessment that is truly fair and completely based on facts, is an advantage. Otherwise the world would be very boring. Cope with it, it makes life interesting. You are not objectiv either. The Bell/Agusta guys believe in their product and you will not tell us, that you are the only person in the world that can see that it is a complete failure. You to not have as many informations as the bell guys do.
I think that most of the ppruners will agree, that your posts after the decision about the presidential helicopter showed a bit of a disappointment. See, you got feelings. You are never truly objectiv. And that is why we can have pprune. Otherwise we would just agree all the time.

A Philosophical Perspective.
 

"How do we cut through the PR Cheese? "

'We' can't!

The NightLine program on ABC television yesterday covered an associated topic. It stated that 1.1 billion dollars a year is spent on a new type of company whose job is to protect the image of celebrity clients.

Marketing, in all its forms, may well have become America's largest industry.

IMHO, the two alternate future scenarios are;
The current Neo-Con administration will be able to use this 'marketing' along with capitalism and armed aggression, to establish world dominance and their espoused American-Century.
The alternative is that they fail. If this scenario comes about, then we are currently witnessing an analogy to the 'super nova' of a star, just before its demise and the rise of another.


Life, be it a human, a company, a country, or a galaxy, consists of birth, development, maturity, decline and death; whether we like it or not.

Rotorbee,
You are absolutely right on a number of your ponts. I guess I am not looking for complete objectiveness, but rather some popular press capability to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I disagree with you that "You will not find a real honest opinion about anything" because there is no black or white, but how do we get the "other side" of a position properly dissemnated by someone? When press reports are allowed to be manipulated so easily, it can be hard for the public to know the basic answers to the questions:

What is the real challenge to the (new technology inserted here)?

What does it cost in payload, range, speed, maintainability, etc?

What is the real percent liklihood that it will succeed? What is the key problem that must be overcome to make this new thing work? Etc, etc.

A central problem is that we all think that opinions count, but they don't. It is not opinion that lifts a Kg of payload, it is simple physics. All the best wishes and eyes-screwed-tightly-shut best wishes won't let a NOTAR pick up one more pound of cargo, nor will they allow a tilt rotor to beat a helicopter in payload at any range. I guess I am lamenting that we have so few knowledgable people in the press. It might be that simple!

This post has nothing to do with VXX, BTW, which had no kind of technology dissemination issue, I think.

I don't know of anybody who thought Frank Robinson would fail, because Frank did not say he would invent a car that flew the Atlantic powered by water, did he?

Mr. Lappos, I believe the issue with the NOTAR concept has never been one of efficiency, rather one of SAFETY.
The design was spurred in response to the NOE manouvering which several times puts the tail rotor in the trees and tail rotor vulnerability to light arms fire.
The Sikorsky "proprietary" fan-in-fin design was to be a supposedly more efficient answer (still not as efficient as a conventional TR in terms of absorbed power).
Where are the compromises in term of costs to adapt it to the S-76 airframe and effective performance gains?

Nick, you said:
That is your best answer really.

All businesses of all types, constantly perform competitive analysis in their markets, and try to find some way to differentiate themselves from their competitors. This is what drives the Marketing machine that Dave Jackson mentioned.

Do it right (with excellent product development behind it), and you can genuinely differentiate yourself and win loyal customers. Do it wrong (as so often happens), and everyone's marketing credibility goes out the window.

So how do you cut through the PR cheese, separating the wheat from the chaff? In an environment where everybody's marketing is suspect, product demonstration is the only real answer. But even here, there is short term and long term product demonstration.

To illustrate, my wife and I were looking at mattresses the other day. We went to the stores to try the short term product demonstration, laying on the mattresses in the store. We found a few really comfortable mattresses in the $2000-$3000 range that we liked. However this is quite an investment for bedding, and I got concerned about the long term "demonstration" of these products.

So I went online and read some customer reviews of the mattresses we liked, and virtually every one had problems 6 months to 3 years into using them, with poor customer service appearing to be the norm. Nearly all of these complaints went unheeded by the manufacturer. I don't want to spend $2000 for a mattress that has 2 sink holes in it within 2 years. The long term demonstration seemed so bad, we gave up on this for now.

My point is that short term and long term product demonstration of various features is the best way to cut through the PR cheese. Anything that can be proved by a test or demonstration, should be. Nothing cuts through the PR like seeing something work right in front of you, especially the way it was advertised to work. I know that when comparing your product to a competitor's, you're not likely to get cooperation from your competitor, but sometimes even that can be worked around with imagination. In service data (such as aircraft in service data) can be a type of demonstration, and customer testimonials are other types of demonstration (especially the long term type).

If you know your product can do better, show the people that it can (you can even use the press here), and keep the demonstrations credible.

Nick, lets take the NOTAR as an example. It does not matter, if it carries more payload, that was not the objectiv. More safety and less noise is a good selling point too, if paylod is not your first problem. Therefore I would seek another customer segement. Bingo - NOTAR sells good in flat contries for EMS and Police (UK, Holland and Germany. Not black and white, payload or not. No, grey areas, and that is the problem. Even if we try to be objectiv, I would be probably a bit more on the black side, you on the white side.
In engineering, or in my case programing, sometimes you have to make compromises to make another element work. You know that. Therefore it would be very difficult to define the challenge. Sometimes there are several solutions and sometimes it does not work at all.
If you take your three questions and ask 10 experts you get 45 honest oppinons and they are all valuable. Sure, if you read the National Inquirer or the Sun in the UK, I do not get a very good opinion, but we know that. You and I are not that stupid. If I read an aviation magazin I expect the opinon of an expert and also they can fail and we know that too. Even physics are not objectiv, otherwise I would not torture my brain with schroeders cat.
Opinions count, where there is no absolute proof that it can not be done. And there are not many absolute proofs around. Or peoble do not believe them. You can not go faster then the speed of light. But there is serious research going on, to do it anyway. Somebody has an idea and he has the opinion, that it can be done. Why not giving it a try?

I mentioned the VXX only to show that you got feelings about it, not just a clear, sobber technical view of it. I can not juge the S92, but I believe that you are proud of it and you got all the reasons in the world to be proud. I would be sad if you wouldn't.

Good night.

Difficult to get a word in edgewise. I am to slow.

Nick,

I would hope that you are not putting all of us media in this catergory.

I may not be an engineer or science major but have been involved in this industry for the past 15 years I think I have an idea of what is a major event and what isnt.

Just my two cents worth, from an uneducated publisher.

PR

Nick,

Since everyone is picking on you, I'd like to take a shot. (friendly fire of course). :ok:

From the chapter ' Building and Testing the Prototype' in Prouty's book 'Military Helicopter Design Technology';
"Following the first flight, the aircraft will be thoroughly inspected while the pilot makes an encouraging report for the benefit of the press and a detailed list of deficiencies for the design team." :oh:

Dave

I am certain Sikorskys PR team didn't advertise that the 76A would have a maddening electrical system, fuel control systems that constantly require matching to balance together, gutless engines with a heavy airframe, kevlar that is coated in layers of bondo (bog, filler, goop...) to make it actually look straight, a VNE you can never achieve without overtorquing.

It shows that the C+ models are quite the better aircraft. I am sure the Tiltrotors and NOTAR will be the same. A few more generations and they will be all they advertise. I relish the thought of a tiltrotor. Sounds better than flogging along at 150kts.

I like Chairman's point - often summed up as "Never fly the Mk1/ A-model version of any aircraft".

As for stopping PR hype from hitting the streets, perhaps corporate comms should only be allowed when members of ALL specialisations are in the same press conference, with complete freedom to chip in when necessary. When the Sales team make some over-optimistic pitch, or the Engineers overdo their doom-and-gloom, the balancing opinion will be there on hand to sort things out. I bet MDHI wish there'd been a few engineers in the room when the marketing team sold a version of the Explorer that didn't exist to the Dutch police.

I read somewhere that 10 year old boys are the group of society most likely to correctly remember and report the truth about observations made.

I propose that an independent team of scientists and engineeers not connected with selling helicopters brief a group of ten year old boys and let them write the PR reports.

Leave out the newpaper reporters altogether as they are only interested in selling newpapers. And leave out Sun readers as they don't care who built the helicopter they fly in or who flies it as long as she has big t!ts. ;)

Tilt rotor? Pah! Bring back the Fairey Rotodyne's technology instead.