In a message dated 4/5/08 3:24:41 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> No engineering project is EVER on budget.
Yes, they are; I've worked on many that were.
Forget about that one. And no
>
> engineering project is EVER allowed a reasonable development schedule by
> Marketing and Executive Management. Forget about that one too.
I've worked on engineering projects that had reasonable schedules.
What you don't often find is both characteristics (adequate schedule and
reasonable budget) together.
>
> I've heard and read of military contractors in the World War II era like
> Douglas Aircraft and others bringing in a new warplane on spec, ahead of
> schedule, and under budget. They say it's true, and I believe it, I guess.
> But
> whatever they were doing right in those days just doesn't happen any more.
Whole bunch of things were different then.
For one thing, there was a war on, and the nation's resources were completely
dedicated to fighting it. The Army and Navy weren't going to haggle much over
development price of a new aircraft that could give them an advantage in
combat.
There were also lots of projects that went nowhere. For example, the P-47 and
P-51 are well known WW2 fighters. Anyone with an interest in WW2 aircraft
knows them. But there were also the XP-48, XP-49, and XP-50 between them, which
never went into production. Look down the list and the projects that never went
into production far exceed those that did.
There were also lots of versions, variants and modifications. The first
couple of versions of a plane were often quickly superseded. While the P-51
prototype flew less than 6 months from the day the order was placed, the plane
went
all the way to the H model before the war ended. How much was spent developing
all those versions? Imagine if there were K3 models all the way to H......
Finally, there was IMHO a much greater tolerance for odd and even dangerous
characteristicsm as long as the basic specs were met. The P-51 was fast and
powerful, but a pilot had to trim the heck out of it before takeoff to counter
the enormous propeller torque. Forget to do so and the plane would crash. That
sort of thing was accepted as the price of high performance.
Think about how many features there are in any Elecraft rig and how few real
problems.
73 de Jim, N2EY
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