Author: Richard

The Boeing 737 MAX Problem and the Progressive Fallacy


A version of this article first appeared in the April 2019 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here

This is not a comment on the progressive political ideology, although it may be tangentially relevant. It is a comment on human nature and is prevalent on every aircraft development program as well as in the political sphere.

Humans have a great desire to fix stuff. Most intelligent animals do – from beavers to the bees and the birds. The desire to build is a desire to fix.

We try to create order out of chaos. We take things without form, or with chaotic form, and we order them and give them purpose. We change them. We improve them. We fix them. We call this progress.

Throughout human history the result of this instinct has created a net positive. All but the most ardent environmentalists acknowledge the overall benefits of the industrial revolution. Modern medicine, computers, flight and even the less obvious things like affordable clothing, effective detergents and soft toilet paper.

There are two obvious negative behavioural aspects that this instinct creates. These are the desire to fix something that isn’t broken, and, the desire to perfect something that is already as good as it can be.

This article passed across my screen one morning (https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2019/03/29/why-fixing-the-faa-designee-program-is-not-a-matter-of-money/) courtesy of my linked-in feed.

This is a typical human response that derives from the desire to perfect something that is already as good as it can be.

The FAA delegate system is wildly successful as it allows a reactive, cost effective and high quality compliance environment.

The current system does not tie aircraft developers, big and small, into an intimate and invasive partnership directly with a large government bureaucracy. While this can work, it is impossible for the FAA to have full time staff who are familiar with all aspects of every type of aircraft, material combinations, manufacturing processes, etc.

The current system allows for a pool of independent and licensed experts working on behalf of the FAA with a breadth of experience and knowledge that is unmatched.

The current system also provides two levels of justification and advocacy. What usually happens is that the company engineers have to present and justify their approach to the delegate. The delegate then often goes through the same process on behalf of the company with the FAA to get the FAA’s buy-in to the desired compliance approach.

On the face of it, this may sound more inefficient than a single stage process. There are several reasons why this actually has a beneficial effect:

  1.  The company has two levels of review within the compliance function. One from the delegate and secondly from the FAA.
  2.  The FAA, because of the move towards frontline staff with greater academic credentials rather than experience, has become more literal and inflexible in the interpretation of the regulations. Experienced delegates are often required to advocate on behalf of OEMs means of compliance that are not financially ruinous.

It is the current US system that has created an environment that has fostered the most successful private aviation industry in the world.

It is not perfect.

But…..it is very important to separate a failure of the application of the system from a dysfunctional system.

If you have a dripping tap (or faucet) you don’t disconnect the mains water, dig a well and contract a plumber to install a pump and filtration system, rip out all of the water pipes throughout your house and replace from new.

You replace the washer.

To use the 737 MAX problem as a way to start a discussion centered around how to fundamentally change the way a finding of compliance is made is very ill advised.

It is not that the current system cannot be improved, but as all product development engineers know, successful product improvement is brought about by careful iterative change.

Boeing of all people know this – after the consideration of the Boeing 2707 and the Sonic Cruiser and their subsequent cancellations they understand this. 43 years of iterative commercial aircraft design is shown below:

The Boeing 737-200 (1968)

Boeing 787-800 (2011)

The Forbes article does get it right.

“What has made the Designee program strong over the decades has been the stringent requirements to qualify, a focus on safety as an industry priority, and the civil and criminal penalties for those who breach their commitment to oversight.”

To change the system to a centralized body would be a shift away from the American philosophy of personal responsibility towards a more European model of direct federal oversight.

When was the last time any civilian government worker was held civilly or criminally liable for incompetence? I am not saying that people who work for the government are not hardworking or diligent. However, in an environment where the last .01% of careful consideration matters I prefer to trust the diligence and oversight of an individual citizen. An individual who makes a decision conscious of the direct ethical, professional and legal consequences that they face without the protection of the federal government, on average, will make a better decision.

Another aspect of human nature that works at a subconscious level – the knowledge of real life consequences – or the ‘wait until your father gets home’ instinct. You better moderate your behaviour when there is a clear negative consequence linked to that behaviour.

I sign every drawing and document I approve as if my house and my kids college funds depend on it…….

So the desire to remake the system because of a single problem, one problem that overshadows an environment of incredible success, is human nature and a human failure. It is a negative aspect of a positive human trait – which is why it is so hard to resist. 

I meant this article to be about the ethical aspects of the delegate system – the conflict of interest of the commercial and the compliance within a delegate’s responsibility – but there is so much at play in this single issue. I will cover that in the next newsletter.

Revenge of the Sundowners. MMPDS, Data, Revenue and You.

A version of this article first appeared in the March 2019 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here

We are working with an established OEM on a significant aircraft engineering program (how’s that for honoring the NDA we have with our valued client?)

They have been allowed to use MMPDS-06 for their program. For those of you who do not know MMPDS is the commercial publication than follows on from where the now discontinued Mil-Handbook-5 left off.

I will omit my feelings about the removal of data from the public domain and the commercialization of what used to be freely available. You can guess what my feelings are.

The other problem that is becoming more and more pressing is the effect of the ‘sunset review’. For the uninitiated amongst us a sunset review is where the MMPDS consider data that reaches a certain age to be no longer valid with some confirmation.

Details can be found here: https://www.mmpds.org/sunset-review-for-joint-allowables/

In practise this sounds reasonable ish.

But….

The result has been the large scale removal of fastener strength data from MMPDS. It is not clear that this fastener strength data has been shown to be inaccurate or invalid.

There is an in depth analysis of reasons for potential inaccuracies http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.545.9914&rep=rep1&type=pdf

I have no reason to believe the conclusions drawn regarding the potential inaccuracy of data are incorrect.

These are reasons why potential inaccuracies could exist but this is not evidence of inaccuracy.

The process retain to this potentially invalid data is  as follows:

“To maintain a table in MMPDS, additional test data of approximately 25% of the number of specimens originally submitted with the data package, is required in order to perform a sunset review.”

The process is better defined in MMDPS Section 9.2.4.7:

Extract from MMPDS-10, shown under “fair use”

The key passage is “Published tables for which confirmatory data is not provided will be removed from the handbook at the next change notice or revision…….”

Sure – this all sounds reasonable so far. So there is a manual that used to be issued by the US government without charge. This data has been licensed to a commercial (although non profit) entity.

Great, this renowned organization, The Battelle Memorial Institute, who charge $919.00 (https://www.mmpds.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-ISH-Order-Form.pdf) for this formerly public domain document are going to spend some of the revenue generated on providing even better data.

This is what we have been waiting for – it rankled to have formerly free data put behind a paywall (and what a paywall!) but now this makes sense.

Hold on, reading the MMPDS explanation of the process the world renowned Battelle Memorial Institute will not be doing the testing.

“ Confirmatory test data shall be generated by the original data supplier(s), or other interested parties, and reviewed by the Fastener Task Group, (FTG),”

This looks like the Battelle Memorial Institute is relying on industry, the same industry that pays $919 per copy of the MMPDS, to do the testing for them.

Maybe the Battelle Memorial Institute can’t afford to do the testing, being a non-profit must be a fine balance between profit and non-profit.

You can review the latest issues financial statements from The Battelle Memorial Institute here:

http://www.govwiki.info/pdfs/Non-Profit/OH%20Battelle%20Memorial%20Institute%202016.pdf

In 2016, this organization, who need you to buy their MMPDS and do the testing for them managed to struggle by on a revenue of US$4,801,753,000 (Page 5) and have net equity (assets) of SU$1,138,054,000 (Page 4).

Clearly they need my help, how can I expect an organization with that value of revenue and assets, who charge such a high price for data mostly created by an industry and a government before they got ownership to do their own testing?

The question is rhetorical.

So to summarize

  1. There is a concern that some of the fastener data in the MMPDS has the potential to be non-conservative
  2. This is because either the original testing was not adequate or because of a nebulous change in “fabrication methods”

Note that not a single example of inadequate quality fastener strength data from the MMPDS leading to any incident in qualification or service is cited.

  1. Because of this all fastener data will be reviewed every 10 years (It is not clear if ‘review’ means ‘remove’ in this context, reading the latest edition of MMPDS it appears that ‘remove’ is probably the correct interpretation)
  2. Data will be reinstituted in the MMPDS only if testing is done by somebody else

When the Mil-Handbook 5 was cancelled, responsibility for the management of the materials database was assumed by the FAA. The FAA decided that the MMPDS would be created and managed by the Battelle Memorial Institute.

The FAA mission statement (https://www.faa.gov/about/mission/) lets is know that:

“Our continuing mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.”

Considering the recent change to the part 23 regulations and this sunset clause for previously widely used material data, apparently they think the best way to do this is to make the aerospace product qualification and certification process increasingly expensive and absurd.

EASA – boldly going where no cert authority has gone before

A version of this article first appeared in the January 2019 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here

EASA have released a draft set of ‘regulations’ (labelled as a ‘special condition’) for light electric VTOL aircraft.

We at Abbott Aerospace applaud this step forward but note that there are some potential issues with the way this has been done.

Primarily the ‘special conditions’ are modeled on the structure of the new part 23 ‘consensus’ standards, in the verbiage of the document:

“in the spirit of recent CS amendments, such as CS-23 Amdt. 5”, and,

“CS-23 Amdt. 5 is considered to be the state of the art in terms of safety objective based provisions and for this reason it was selected as the basis for this special condition. “

The new CS-23 is state of the art only because it is the latest version. No one has certified to the new consensus regulations and it has not been shown that they will reduce the cost or time to certify. It will take many years and a number of programs to go through the process before a rational assessment of this nature can be made.

The new standards rely on essential specifics of certification to be contained in advisory or policy materials. The regulations have become a framework that the compliance specifics (the old regulations, now mere advisory specifics) are built around. It has to be acknowledged that the devil does reside in the detail and that the regulations now avoid the details and some other body has to devise the details.

Where there is already an established set of compliance specifics, informed by accident and incident history, these specific compliance standards are relatively easy to create. I am, of course, referencing the old part 23 regulations that have been sequestered as the ASTM consensus standards. As a side note, I am not sure who gave their consent for this to occur I know a lot of people who objected. Maybe we should be calling them ‘coercive standards’ or ‘violative standards’?

Where the regulations are addressing a new and unique aircraft configuration these compliance specifics and the supporting historical data does not exist.

In using the ‘state of the art’ part 23 regulations as a template for these proposed ‘special conditions’ the regulatory authority has sidestepped the hard work of thinking through the details

So who is going to come up with the details? The individual applicants?

What are the applicants going to base their individual ‘compliance standards’ on?

Fundamentally the regulatory authority has abdicated the responsibility for defining the critical details and pushed this onto the applicant. There is no point waiting for the ASTM to soak a little more money out of you for the privilege of accessing their compliance standards – there is no schedule for when these may be available or if they are ever likely to be released. Although if there is money in it I am sure the folks at ASTM will eventually come up with something.

So what is a poor little applicant to do? Well, get ready for a very large amount of paperwork, careful consideration and probably some redesign.

If you are developing an unusual VTOL aircraft we recommend the following approach.

1. Review all of the existing relevant regulatory material LSA, VLA, Light Rotorcraft, Part 23 and Part 27
2. Create 3 categories of ‘rules’ Considering your vehicle specification (assuming you have a specification that is not likely to change)

  • (a) Rule out all of the paragraphs from each of these regulations which are clearly not applicable.
  • (b) Create a list of all of the paragraphs that may be applicable
  • (c) Create a list of the paragraphs that will definitely be applicable

If you have done your research well you can disregard all of the paragraphs that fall into category (a)

Consider each paragraph is category (b), can you find or develop data that would rule each one out or in, what is the impact on safety? What is the impact on your design? What is the impact on cost?

You then write a set of detailed regulations based on your development of category (b) and (c) that you assess would apply to your aircraft.

Create a basic compliance plan based on these self created regulations

At this stage you should assess if the compliance activities that you foresee are necessary, are practical, and affordable. If your cost is too great (and be conservative! Compliance activities usually cost more than you think) then you have to go back and see if you can change your vehicle specification to reduce the cost while keeping your essential functionality

When you have got to this stage and you have all of your supporting data and evidence that supports your chosen approach, start a conversation with the regulator.

We believe that the approach taken by EASA with the issue of this proposed special condition indicates that the applicant will bear the burden of developing their own detailed compliance standards.

EASA is boldly going where no compliance authority have gone before by largely abdicating responsibility for developing the detailed standards necessary for certification programs to succeed.

Applicants will have to get themselves up to speed with the complex details of multiple sets of current and legacy regulations. The regulator, rather than providing a road map through certification has left you in a library full of maps and is waiting for you to show them how to get home.

This can be done, but companies need help – and companies need to know they need help. If you were to listen to the regulator we have state of the art regulations with a new set of proposed standards – the future is bright.

And for them the future is bright. No government agency has ever gone into insolvency because they failed to allow projects to certify within a reasonable budget. They will get their pensions and benefits whether or not any new aircraft project makes it through the certification process.

Those of us in the industry side of things need to be a little more mindful of reality. 

Contact us if you have any comments or if you think we can help you.

ITAR and The Cost of Compliance


A version of this article first appeared in the December 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here

I have many friends who run businesses in the US. They offer technical services to the aerospace development just like we do. Because they are US based businesses staffed by US citizens they can (in theory) carryout out defense related work.


As Abbott Aerospace is a Non-US corporation staffed by non-US people we do not even try to chase US defense related work. This is not a bad thing. While my US friends are chasing the ‘Defense Dollar’ we can concentrate on the civil sector.

One of my very good friends has seen the effort required to maintain compliance with the clients security policies balloon over the last couple of years. Being a small supplier to any project that requires ITAR compliance requires such a high level of effort they are finding that they will have to increase their charge rates significantly or drop out of that type of work.

Not only are there the measures that you have to take in terms of data integrity, transfer and security, companies procedures and policies and vetting of the people who work for you, there are also the audits you have to take part in and the reporting on your procedures.

Small businesses who do not have a dedicated ITAR compliance office or person have to bear the significant burden of this effort.

Small business offer a more efficient service because they do not carry the fixed cost overheads of larger corporations. This doesn’t mean that they have a larger margin and often make less money per head than much larger corporations. It does mean that they can operate at a higher commercial risk because of smaller fixed costs and their reaction time in shedding variable costs to match their revenues.

Smaller companies are often less efficient but offer greater value.

If any national defense procurement agency are looking to reduce costs they should be looking to smaller companies who offer greater value.

Current US defense security regulations force small companies to take on additional costs (fixed and variable), reduce their efficiency further and force them to raise their charges to reduce their overall value to the client.

It reduces a small companies competitive advantage and favours larger companies. 

So the question is – is this an effective way to increase the security of the design and development process of the defense industry?

The quick answer is no.

Most small contracting companies do not work on very sensitive aspects of defense projects and the information that they handle is not of great interest to foreign bodies/governments. 

Quite often the security protocols and standards are applied to what are essentially retail items. I have been barred from seeing the product specifications on US projects for the Canadian products that I helped develop in Canada. Anyone can buy them and get hold of the product and the specifications.
When all you have is a giant catch-all piece of badly written legislation everything looks like a nail.

Any foreign power knows where the good stuff is kept – it is kept inside the military and the high level large subcontractors. Going after thousands of small subcontractors, hacking their systems and trying to parse out the almost non existent useful technical information is a flagrant misuse of their espionage resources.

This type of action may be a significant threat if the higher level espionage targets were impossible to crack. This is not the case as the ITAR regulations do not address the corruptibility of the individuals working at the higher level organizations.

It is similar level of effort and result to the kabuki theater of airport security. It looks good, it adds a significant amount of expense, it is applied without thought or any level of discernment and does not address the main security weak points or solutions…….that is a different conversation.

As the implementation of ITAR does not address the actual critical security issues of the US defense development and every new Chinese military product looks eerily like their US counterparts it’s effectiveness in preventing espionage is debatable.

To Summarize:

  • ITAR is applied indiscriminately and illogically
  • ITAR does makes smaller contractors less attractive as they cannot operate at the same level of value that they used to.
  • ITAR therefore favors larger organizations by disproportionately impacting the relative efficiency of smaller competitors.
  • ITAR does create a market need for consultants and compliance experts as the policies and regulations that surround the legislation are complex and the penalty for failure to comply are excessive.
  • ITAR does not seem to have an effect on the amount of and quality of classified information that is available to non-US bodies.

Comparison of F-35 to the Chinese J31

ITAR in action.

So what does ITAR do? What is the benefit? Is it largely invisible and we can never know the critical aspects of US defense technology that are kept secret by ITAR that otherwise would be vulnerable to foreign agents.

The visible effects are to favor large companies over small and to significantly increase the overall cost of development in a way that does not appear to increase security in a meaningful way.

What do you think?

How Safe is Too Safe?

A version of this article first appeared in the November 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here

 We have technical input into many aircraft development programs that are flying or intending to fly prototypes of new aircraft or major modifications of existing aircraft.

These aircraft fly under experimental flight certificates and as such the development team have some leeway when it comes to the standards that should be met to demonstrate safety of flight.

Of course, everyone is working towards aircraft that safeguards the life and well being of the pilot and the life and wellbeing of people on the ground.
However, there is a trade off between safety and cost – and the budget is always limited.

So how do you spend your budget to achieve an adequate level of safety? What is an adequate level of safety? What level of documentation is appropriate?

Initial flights of new or modified aircraft always carry an elevated risk. This is why you use a professional test pilot who is critical in helping manage those risks. But how much risk is appropriate? How do assess the risks? How do you mitigate the risks? What about the risks you don’t know about?

Aspects of a program that affect the level of Risk:

    • The uniqueness of the modification – the unique aspects of the configuration of the aircraft or modification?
      • How similar is your design/configuration to other aircraft. Are you developing a multi propeller, canard, Quadraplane?
    • The maturity of the technology utilized
      • Are you using a new design of engine? Trim servo motors? Glass cockpit? New design of Seat? New composite material? New anything?
    • The complexity of the technology utilized
      • Chaining together tried and tested technology is only as reliable as the compounded reliability of the individual components. How carefully have you looked at the reliability of the aircraft critical systems?
    • The experience and competence of the team
      • Aviation history is full of very smart people doing very dumb things. Intelligence is not a guarantee nor an excuse nor is it a substitute for competence.
    • The maturity of the infrastructure and company systems the team is working within
      • Are you working within a set of company systems that guide you through the process of product development and flight safety?
      • Are you developing these systems as you go along?
      • Have you missed anything?
      • How would you know?
    • The experience and competence of the pilot
      • The test pilot is the final gatekeeper of flight safety risk in the input they give at the flight safety reviews, during high speed taxi and flight. They are responsible for making real time risk assessments – real life and death decisions. You need the best possible pilot and you have to give them the best possible information.
    • The reliability of the predictive tools used by the development team
      • What kind of analytical assessments are flight safety based on? Estimates? Empirical analysis? Software simulation? Lab or ground testing? Did you fly a scale model? How does the likely accuracy of the results of the design process affect safety of flight?
      • The flight envelope of the aircraft
  • How do you plan to conduct your flight testing?
    • What test points are you planning to fly?
    • How cautious are you with regard to expectations for first flight and how aggressive are your plans for envelope expansion?
    • How will you communicate the appropriate level of concern to the pilot?
    • How will this level of risk be reflected in the flight test program?
    • Even the best test pilots get into a warm and fuzzy state as their confidence increases with each successful test flight. Are the risks being reiterated on a regular basis? Is the pilot being reminded of the margins of safety of the flight envelope?

I have just spent a week with a well known part 23 OEM and their approach to flying prototypes reminded me of the difference between composite and metal aircraft. This informs the level of confidence in the structure of each.

Composite aircraft are thought to be sized to withstand ultimate load with maximum undetectable damage at 180F when saturated with humidity. In reality the structure is sized to conservative strain limits that prohibit damage growth at maximum barely visible damage at the hot wet condition and so the ultimate strength of the pristine structure at nominal service conditions usually has very high residual strength (buckling notwithstanding).

Metal aircraft are typically sized to real static failure modes at ultimate level – you have the forgiveness of yielding and plastic redistribution but in general metal aircraft have lower overall static residual strength than composite aircraft at the start of their service life.

Note that the systems are generally the same for both metal and composite aircraft and require the same level of caution and anxiety…..

With composite structure there is always the specter of process control, especially of bonded structure. While this field is now relatively mature it is still the victim of a far greater sensitivity and variability than metal sub assembly processes. Careful process development backed up by some testing and simple shop guidelines have a far greater effect on the final aircraft strength than tweaking the material selection or increasing the bond width by 10%.

To Summarize:

  • Engineers should not forget that there can be large differences between the CAD model & analysis and the actual aircraft that is built and flown. Not only does the engineering have to be rational and correct but the build process also has to be rational and correct.
  • Many incidents occur because of simple errors in the implementation of a good system design or insufficient pre-flight checking and testing of those simple systems.
  • You need a team of people and everyone needs to keep on top of their game.

And finally:

  • You need leadership capable of understanding all the issues and making the most difficult decision of all: Not to fly.

Abbott Aerospace and Patreon

We have permanently disabled our Patreon page and have no plans to return to Patreon or use their service in the future.

We have made this assessment and are taking this action based on the integrity of the Pateron organization and their inability to formulate, communicate and adhere to their own company policies. Patreon has failed to achieve the level of integrity we require from a partner organization.

If you wish to support us we appreciate your help and you can make a one off payment using PayPal

Competence, Authority and how to get it wrong……

A version of this article first appeared in the October 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here

I would like to thank a trusted contact for asking me to review some paperwork as it provided a great teachable moment for myself and my class – and a good subject for the newsletter. I can’t mention them by name but you know who you are. Thanks.

As part of the course that I teach at UCCI we have just covered some engineering ‘disasters’. Events caused by insufficient understanding, inadequate assessment or generally bad engineering.

It is important for an engineer to understand that things do go wrong. Not often, but they do. Understanding the root cause of failure is the only way to consciously avoid the same situation.

Sometimes even the understanding and knowledge of what you should do cannot overcome the general sunny optimism that both bless and curse humans. The week that I was teaching this important element of engineering reality I was sent a perfect example of optimism overcoming common sense.

Over the years I have ended up with a large network of aircraft developers and operators. One of them called me because of a concern they had with an aircraft that was flown in to their facility to have some work done.

The small composite aircraft had a major change to one of the wing spars at the root (for those of you who are not in the know the spar is the element of the wing that carries the bending load created by the wing lift and the root of the spar – where it meets the fuselage- carries the highest bending load.)

This major modification (or repair, it was not clear what the reason for the change was) carried with it a one page qualification.

To put that in perspective, we are doing a small amount of work for a famous part 23 OEM – writing substantiation reports for equipment going into their flight test aircraft. The oxygen bottle installation report runs to 30 pages.

The one page qualification consisted of 3 paragraphs of prose and a diagram.

  • The first paragraph was a description of the level of competence of the author. He is a professor emeritus at a university, he has written textbooks, he is a lifetime member of an industry body (I never understood that, was he inducted as he passed out of the birth canal?). In his own words he is experienced, competent and respected by his peers.
  • The second paragraph was a verbal description of the change, it contained some vague terms but overall was ‘okay’ as far as it went.
  • There was a diagram of the change.
  • Then there came the all Important qualification: “I have done no analysis of this change but it is many times the strength of the original design. In my opinion this is adequate”. That was the start and the end of the substantive component of the qualification, and marked the end of the document apart from the signature of the author.

Even if it is your opinion that the change was adequate, you still do the analysis, even a simple one. You might even add some qualifications to your assessment. How about “assuming that good practice was followed with regard to material choice, material handling, surface preparation and curing during the implementation of change by the manufacturing team…….”.

There are several problems here:

  1. There is no numerical demonstration that the change is adequate and therefore there is no evidence that the aircraft is safe to fly
  2. The description of the change is inadequate, there is some geometric definition and some generic materials mentioned but nothing specific enough and it is incomplete.
  3. The engineer has used an argumentum ad verecundiam (an appeal to authority without evidence) in order to convince somebody else that the aircraft is safe to fly
  4. The engineer has exposed the occupants of the aircraft to unnecessary risk
  5. The language that the engineer has used demonstrates his own negligence and creates clear liability for the engineer.

Engineers have to be aware that not only are they responsible for the safety of others, but they also have a responsibility to give clear evidence that the appropriate level of safety has been achieved.

This is necessary to safeguard the public – even if the design appears to be strong enough, some level of analysis has to be done especially if the structure is one of the most critical components of the aircraft. The engineer has to be more than sure and has to prove to himself or herself (xerself?) that safety is proven.

It is also necessary to maintain your ethical standards as an engineer. Are you really that clever? Are you really that sure? Is your opinion so valuable that a quick calculation would somehow degrade your authority?

This is also necessary to achieve a level of personal protection against future claims of liability. You work hard for your money and your family. Do you really want to put all of that on the line because you can’t be bothered to spend an extra 15 minutes getting it right?

This was a particularly poor example and is similar in nature to the Hyatt Regency disaster of the mid 1980’s when over 100 people were killed because of a change in the design of a walkway that the engineer thought was strong enough and failed to do any analysis for.

The irony is, the engineering professor who wrote and signed the substantiation for the wing spar has probably used the Hyatt Regency incident as a subject in one of his classes.

It is also worth noting that on the sketchy substantiation of the wing spar, there was no checking signature. An engineer (or a good engineer) does not trust his own assessment without a second pair of qualified eyes to review, spot errors and validate the work.

Every step of the engineering has to be specific, accurate, comprehensive and clear. Failure to meet these minimum standards endangers people, your own well being and the well being of the organization you work for.

Do it right, do it once and get it checked.

Space Center Houston – The Elephant’s Graveyard

A version of this article first appeared in the October 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here

For our sons sixteenth birthday, we paid a visit to the Houston Space Center. None of us had ever been to any of the NASA sites before so we were really looking forward to it.

The Houston Space Center has one of the decommissioned shuttles (Endeavor) mounted on the converted 747 carrier aircraft, which was super cool.

They have a full, unused (of course) Saturn 5 rocket and many smaller exhibits.

You can also take a guided tour of the Johnson space center and Houston’s famous ‘mission control’.

We saw all of these things and took the tour and it was all large and impressive and slightly sad.

In the spring of 1981 I was a 10 year old in primary school in a small yorkshire village in England. The head teacher (there were only two teachers in the whole school) cancelled classes for the day as we spent the day watching the first space shuttle launch on live broadcast from Florida.

I remember that this took pretty much the whole day as the launch was delayed multiple times and we spent a lot of the waiting looking out of the windows at the unseasonably warm and sunny weather wanting to get out there and play.

That was 37 years ago. The engineering for the shuttle started in 1968 – before I was born.

The Saturn 5 rocket – which is even more physically impressive, originates in a design formulated in 1962 – 56 years ago.

You could buy models of the Northrop T-38’s that NASA use for……well, I’m not sure what, probably training the astronauts but probably more for just hot-dogging and having fun. The first flight of the T-38 (F5) was 1959 – 59 years ago.

These things are very impressive. They are also very old.

To put that in context – when my 10 year old self went to a museum in 1981, exhibits that were 59 years old would have dated from 1922.

The Houston Space Center is a museum and it is full of old artefacts and exhibits. I loved it – this is the technology that inspired me when I was a child and seeing it up close was just great.

The space shuttle and the 747 carrier aircraft were too sanitized and cleaned up to the point where the interiors looked like mock-ups . I had more fun looking up into the landing gear bay of the 747 because is was real – greasy and grimy and full of exposed systems, hydraulics, P-clamps, sheet metal and rivets…….but it was all great.

It is also evident that NASA has much more to say about their past than their future.

If you go the the NASA website it is difficult to find out what they think their mission is. I am not a fan of corporate mission statements but they are useful in providing clarity of purpose when nothing else does.

The front page of the website (https://www.nasa.gov/) has some things they are doing – but no clue as to what the purpose of the organization is.

The ‘about’ page (https://www.nasa.gov/about/index.html) is also unclear on why NASA exists. There is this phrase “NASA’s Vision: We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.” but you could use this same phrase for a Pentecostal church organization and it would probably be more relevant.

How about “Exploring Space” or “Colonizing the Solar System” or “Making Manned Spaceflight an Everyday Event”. How about something….anything?

The sidebar of the ‘about’ page lists the further web pages you can spend your time visiting that show how compliant they are with US federal requirements and standards: Privacy Program, National Aeronautics and Space Act, Open Government, Plain Writing, Information Quality, Communications Policy.

Experienced university graduates (probably with doctorates) writing web pages filled with prose about internal NASA policies and procedures that demonstrate compliance with federal policies that give an acceptable method of compliance with federal regulations that ensure that NASA are fulfilling their important federal statutory obligations.

Wow – I wonder how we ever got into space before we had all this.

So, NASA has lost their way – their budget is not what it used to be and so their role cannot be what it once was. But, what is their role?

NASA has done some great work in recent years – the mars rovers are phenomenal and the data they have sent back from Mars is incredibly exciting and important. To put that in context the mars rover programs have cost $2.5Bn and have been running since 1994. Since 1994 Nasa has received (in 2018 dollars) $460Bn.

The rovers have cost around 0.5% of the total NASA budget.

You can get more information on the NASA budget breakdown here:

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasa_fy_2019_budget_overview.pdf

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy19_nasa_budget_estimates.pdf

Examination of all the goals defined in these documents that the organization is trying to achieve gives clear evidence of diffusion of effort and dilution of achievement.

So what should NASA do?

Should they exist as a research and artefact curating organization and slowly settle back into the role of maintaining the infrastructure from a time when they were funded and focused on their mission?

Should they close down their museums, rationalize their budget and focus solely on getting people into space again?

The Houston Space Center is worth a visit, we had a great day – it is a great reminder of what we can achieve – but not of what we are, or should be, achieving now.

Interview with Sam Bousfield, CEO of Samson Sky

A version of this article first appeared in the September 2018 edition of our free newsletter, to subscribe click here

At the end of August I spent a couple of hours with Sam Bousfield and Senior Engineer Dana Beebe at their Prineville hangar. We had a wide ranging technical conversation and I was impressed with the level of detail and attention to the engineering specifics of the technical challenge they are grappling with.

Sam was kind enough to agree to an interview.

Can you describe what makes the Samson sky different to other roadable aircraft of the past and the present?
The Switchblade was designed to answer the question: “What is the best layout for a driving/flying vehicle?”, rather than “How do you make a car fly?“. Answering that question is what I feel was the most important aspect of the design that sets us apart.

The second was our decision to have a design that was high performance in both modes, and not compromise on that premise. With the power to weight of a Corvette on the ground, and the ability to achieve 200 mph in flight with reasonable range, the Switchblade has a high performance pedigree. Okay, it looks pretty cool, too!

What was the moment when you knew you would go forward with this program?
When the marketing surveys came in, we realized that we had a potential winner. We found solid support at a price point where we could survive as a company, and that made the future bright for us.

In the process from concept to customer, what has been the greatest challenge you’ve faced?
Financing has been the biggest challenge by far. Technically there have been challenges, but they have been spotted and tackled mostly in advance. While we are gaining investment traction now, earlier it took some creative thinking and running a tight financial ship to survive and make progress.

Which aspects have been more difficult to deal with? The aircraft aspects or the automobile aspects?
There are probably more aircraft related engineering issues that we have dealt with than driving related issues. I think the level of performance in the air, and the added safety required of that, tend to make it more difficult than anything on the ground.

The truth about this question is that there are lots of ways to deal with individual aspects of flight or drive. But, to make solutions for one work out well for the other is a worthy goal, and one we have worked hard to achieve.

How have you reconciled the difference between catering for the driver and the pilot with a single control system?
With the wings located between the front and rear wheels under the belly of the vehicle, we knew the rear wheels would be too far aft to rotate as one would typically in a tri-gear.

That meant the front wheels could not be held up to bleed off airspeed on landing, and that the front wheel would drop almost immediately upon touchdown. So that told us that the front wheel would always have to be connected to the control wheel, and that the pilot would not have time to change from a flying control mechanism to a driving control mechanism at touchdown.

The aero engineers did not feel that having a front wheel ‘steering’ while in flight would be problematic other than increase tail efficiency requirement slightly. The change of front tire direction was not great in flight. We looked at joystick controls for driving and flying, as well as other less conventional means. The simplest, we felt, was to use a steering wheel/control wheel that could be used for either. People are used to driving with a wheel, and a wheel can be used for flight as well. Our control wheel is oblong rather than round, as we have certain control features built into it for flying that aren’t related to the ground and it was easier to accomplish this with an oblong control wheel. You can still hand-over-hand it for cornering or controlling a fishtail maneuver if needed on the ground.

What involvement has the FAA had and what was their reaction to the concept?
All of my contact with the FAA has been positive, and all I have heard is ‘How can we help?’.  I have many supporters in the FAA who would like to see us succeed.

Who would you like to thank and give a name check to?
Our lead engineer, Alexander Bondar, and his team have been very helpful. Composite Approach in Redmond, Oregon also has been very helpful in the carbon fiber realm. Kevin Risse of Risse Racing in Redmond has been awesome at delivering machined parts, as has ISCO of Bend, Oregon. Composite Universal Group of Warren, Oregon, has given us some really nice carbon parts. Willem Anemaat and the guys at DAR Corp for their aero design, plus Rob Bulaga at Trek Aerospace for the ducted fan design. We have a lot of really good consultants and suppliers that deserve mention, but I know you may be limited in space here.

How do I reserve my Samson sky?
A Switchblade can be reserved at the SamsonSky.com web site. Until we fly, reservations have no commitment and no finances required. After we fly, we will ask for a $2,000 deposit which will be mostly refundable (less $500 for administrative costs) until we are in production.

Once we are in production, we will ask that people make their deposit hard, so we know how many engines, transmissions, and propellers to make.

When will you start customer deliveries?
Samson will begin initial production within six months of first flight, but will be ramping up production for almost 22 months before we really get the production machine in high gear.

We have to have a building built, assembly line established, supply chain established, production molds made, and assembly jigs built. Not an overnight operation! We also figure that we will need to remain agile in our business, so are taking that into account in the equipment we choose, and the way we lay out our spaces. Technology changes very quickly, so it pays to maintain as much ability to change as possible, even in manufacturing.

Any final words?
At Samson, we feel that we can have a positive impact on transportation. Knowing that you are working towards a worthwhile goal, and can make money doing that, is a really exciting way to spend your time. I don’t think there are too many days that staff in our shop come to work thinking “gee, only two more days until Friday”. People here are pretty pumped up, as are our suppliers and consultants.

We are accomplishing something that has not been done before on Planet Earth, and everybody who helps is thanked for doing so. When we succeed, it will be because the group pushed hard to make it happen. I can point the way, but with the help of the whole team, we can actually make it happen. That will be our legacy, and I hope many people can benefit as a result and drive/fly their way into the future.

To find out more about Samson Sky: www.samsonsky.com

New Analysis Spreadsheets – Combined Compression and Flexure of Beams

We have been working our way through the beam analysis methods of in the NASA-TM-73305. analysis manual. This last set of spreadsheets is for combined compression and flexure of simple beams and have been authored by my talented daughter who is an engineering student at Ryerson University in Toronto. I have checked than so any remaining mistakes are mine alone.

Enjoy!

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-111

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-112

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-113

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-114

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-115

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-116

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-117

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-118

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-119

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-120

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-121

https://www.abbottaerospace.com/wpdm-package/aa-sm-026-122