[HN Gopher] Skunk Works is all about getting to the prototype st...
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Skunk Works is all about getting to the prototype stage (2018)
Author : CHB0403085482
Score : 51 points
Date : 2023-11-21 09:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| userinanother wrote:
| It's easy to build an airplane. It's hard to build one that lasts
| 30-50 years and to prove that it has an acceptably low failure
| rate.
| fargle wrote:
| It's absolutely _not_ easy to build an airplane.
|
| It's incredibly difficult to build an airplane, especially a
| completely new design.
|
| It's _absolutely impossible_ to do that at the same time as
| making one that will last 30-50 years and have a low failure
| rate.
|
| What is difficult, incredibly expensive, and very time-
| consuming, but possible - barely - is starting with the first
| airplane and eventually getting to the second.
|
| The first is the job of a Skunk Works. The second is the job of
| more traditional aerospace organizations.
| wiz21c wrote:
| I'm not in airplane engineering, so:
|
| > It's incredibly difficult to build an airplane, especially
| a completely new design.
|
| why ?
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Aerodynamics.
|
| Structural design.
|
| Design for manufacturing and assembly.
|
| Power and drivetrain.
|
| Control systems and actuators.
|
| Avionics.
|
| And then get all of these to a reliability level where you
| feel comfortable with a single failure causing high
| likelihood of multiple human deaths.
| intotheabyss wrote:
| As someone who is in airplane engineering, the biggest
| barrier today to building a new aircraft is regulations.
| But if we completely ignored regulations, and you were
| building a mostly aluminum aircraft with analog avionics
| and the goal was just to get it to fly (nevermind things
| like designing for fatigue), then no it wouldn't be that
| difficult conceptually on paper. However, manufacturing
| would still be the bottleneck, and that is still
| challenging today (tolerances, QA, technical expertise).
|
| However, if you were designing and building a new aircraft
| to meet the latest Part 25 regulations for passenger
| transport, it's almost insurmountable. There's a reason why
| there are so few aircraft OEMs.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| And to go along with it for Part 25, you're pretty much
| guaranteed to be doing something "thinking outside the
| box" if you're doing a clean-sheet design, because the
| current models (737 Max8, A320, etc) are all pretty
| darned close to their local optima. No one's going to do
| a clean-sheet design for 5% more pax and 5% less fuel
| burn, they're just going to riff on something that
| already has type approval so that a good chunk of the
| regulatory burden is already mostly taken care of.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| It's not that hard.
|
| Slap a motor and a few servos on a piece of cardboard and
| you've got yourself a model airplane. Sometimes I'm surprised
| how easy it is to get something flying.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| print('Hello world!')
|
| Man, I don't know why anyone says that software development
| is hard.
| intelVISA wrote:
| excuse me where's the semi-colon? Unshippable!!
| opan wrote:
| It's valid python3.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| You're unfortunately getting downvoted but you're totally
| right.
|
| https://store.flitetest.com/park-flyers-swappables/
|
| I work in the UAS industry and we absolutely do use things
| like these cardboard airframes for prototyping. They're
| awesome out of the box and really easy to repair with some
| tape and hot-melt glue if necessary.
| vikramkr wrote:
| I have no idea what point you're trying to make - and also it
| definitely isn't easy to build an airplane. R&D, prototyping,
| and manufacturing are all hard
| whalesalad wrote:
| When you look at what the skunk works were doing back in the
| day with drafting tables and plywood you would also think
| it's easy. These days less so due to electronic/computer
| driven flight surfaces and all the crazy sensing
| shakow wrote:
| > It's hard to build one that lasts 30-50 years
|
| Like the U-2, the SR-71, or the F-117?
| dotancohen wrote:
| The U-2 is still flying, even though it was expected to be
| obsolete quickly. The SR-71 and F-117 are no longer
| operational, I think they both were retired before 30 years
| of service.
|
| Military aircraft lifespans rarely fit their projected
| timeframes.
| _djo_ wrote:
| The F-117s are technically still operational, even after
| their official retirement. https://www.thedrive.com/the-
| war-zone/retired-f-117-nighthaw...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Flying is dofferent from being operational in the
| military sense.
|
| Still impressive that those bird are still airworzhy so.
| _djo_ wrote:
| They're still operational systems in the military sense,
| just no longer front line combat assets. They've been
| relegated to R&D & training.
| hef19898 wrote:
| So they no longer have operational capabilitied for their
| initially intended role.
| _djo_ wrote:
| Yes, but this is splitting hairs a bit.
|
| Are training systems considered operational? It depends.
| In a systems readiness point of view, yes, they're
| operational even if they've been re-roled, as opposed to
| being withdrawn-from-use or having another status.
|
| But if you consider only front-line combat systems
| operational and exclude all other aircraft including
| training aircraft like the USAF's Texan IIs, then these
| wouldn't be included in that category.
| justin66 wrote:
| The SR-71 officially served for about 32 years, although
| the last few years weren't very active - there was a
| retirement followed by a brief comeback IIRC. NASA had one
| that might have flown a few times after that, I'm not sure.
|
| What led you to believe the U-2 "was expected to be
| obsolete quickly?" It would be interesting to know who
| amongst Lockheed and Air Force personnel were right, and
| wrong, about something like that.
| dotancohen wrote:
| The U-2, being subsonic, was not expected to last long
| according to one of the books I read, don't ask me which.
| In addition to being vulnerable to high altitude
| interceptors, it was difficult to fly as the stall speed
| was just knots away from Vne. And landing it was an
| adventure all its own. That said, the airplane found its
| niche and outlived expectations.
| justin66 wrote:
| You can see how certain people would think the SR-71
| would naturally be a permanent replacement for the U-2.
| It'll fly at the same extreme height a lot faster, etc.
| etc. If you're not aware of the enormous operational
| cost, which is what really killed the blackbird, it seems
| obvious which one should succeed. (or if it's not your
| money...)
|
| Every time one of these threads comes up I think I should
| reread Ben Rich's book, which I read over twenty years
| ago and gave to a friend about five years ago. It would
| be interesting to recall his perspective on this. I think
| he had something in there about how proud they were about
| keeping the costs of the reactivation and final flights
| of the SR-71, which were sort of mandated by congress, as
| low as possible. They were still a lot more expensive
| than, for example, recent programs to equip the U-2 fleet
| with more modern avionics.
| LaffertyDev wrote:
| > The U-2, being subsonic, was not expected to last long
| according to one of the books I read, don't ask me which
|
| Probably either Skunkworks or Kelly: More than my share
| of it all. I recall that very soon after shipping the U2,
| they saw the writing on the wall for its operational
| limits and started working on the SR71 very soon after.
| Looking at the timelines, U2 first flight was 1955 and
| the first discussions for the SR71 were done in 1957 with
| work beginning in 1958. Powers was shot down in 1960 in
| his U2.
| whalesalad wrote:
| What? KC-135, C-130, B-1 and notably the B-52
| Stratofortress would like a word with you.
| dotancohen wrote:
| The B-52 is the real star here. It is the primary reason
| that I included the word "rarely". For each of these
| aircraft, though, I could name two dozen types that did
| not last 30 years in service.
| spacecadet wrote:
| How many planes you ship built by you? lol
|
| To this commenters point, my uncle has built several Cessna
| 170's from nothing in his garage... but he also worked in
| aviation.
| janejeon wrote:
| For those interested in this topic, Ben Rich has a book of
| firsthand account called "Skunk Works" (this is mostly _after_
| the Kelly era). I personally found it to be a good read - a mix
| between government politics, the fight for funding, the culture
| of shipping, and what worked and what didn 't.
| brightball wrote:
| It was a great book. Lots of really interesting history in
| there and I highly recommend it to anyone.
| LaffertyDev wrote:
| Likewise, `Kelly: More than my share of it all` is written by
| Kelly Johnson & Maggie Smith. Between the two, Skunk Works is
| better written but I thoroughly enjoyed both.
| analog31 wrote:
| The thing that most people overlook about "skunk works" is that
| they were a manufacturing operation. Their planes were very much
| designed to be used and maintained.
|
| I've worked in teams that were described as "skunk works," though
| I'm not sure the ones using that term had actually read the book.
| But a feature of the teams that were successful, was that the
| people doing the innovative stuff also had a solid understanding
| of manufacturing and service. The engineers may have been more
| conservative than their employers were aware.
| jebarker wrote:
| What teams do people think do great rapid prototyping work in
| computer hardware and software?
| markx2 wrote:
| I wondered was at skunkworks.com
|
| Firefox and Edge showed warnings:
|
| "This server couldn't prove that it's skunkworks.com; its
| security certificate is from www.lockheedmartin.com. This may be
| caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your
| connection."
|
| It does indeed go to lockheedmartin.com but they should fix that?
| globalise83 wrote:
| Technically, yes, but if they are just parking skunkworks.com
| to prevent others from using it, from a business value
| perspective it would be hard to justify.
| LargeTomato wrote:
| SpaceX, fast moving startups, Skunk Works, they all rush to a
| prototype.
|
| Rushing to a PT isn't the key, the key is having a group of
| people who know how to rush to a prototype and then empowering
| them to do so.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| The opposite of the "design by committee" method that resulted in
| the F-35 disaster. A plane so bad in every imaginable way it was
| put (and kept) in production purely and reluctantly as a jobs
| program.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| And to maintain control over European air forces.
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