737 Door Plug and Atlas Shrugged
So, we have a bright young engineering student working in our office as an intern. Real nice kid. We were talking literature the other day and I mentioned how much Atlas Shrugged impacted my life. So, he is listening to the audio version now and keeping me updated on where he is in the book, and how much he's enjoying it. He asked me today for current examples of major screwups like the examples from the book. Didn't take me long to respond.
The latest is this door plug flying out of the 737 fuselage. My first job out of college was at Boeing, as a structures engineer. I explained to my young colleague that, first, the engineering staff is tasked with producing a good design and at Boeing they've been doing worse and worse. Second, there is a federally regulated QC structure at Boeing to ensure the aircraft are built correctly. That failed. This isn't like the old British Comet scattering itself across the Atlantic. That was due to industry lack of knowledge on aluminum (Brits say "aluminium") and stress concentration factors. Now we all know better. This is just a matter of either basic stress analysis or untightened parts making their way into service with full occupancy of paying customers. No excuse. After I left Boeing I received regular updates from my fellow engineer there who, ironically, had worked his way into the marketing office. I remember when he sent me a note that when they were testing the Dreamliner on the famous wing bend test the fuselage above the wing started to buckle around 2 gs. Boeing had already started its transition from an engineer-lead company to one lead by bean counters. Now we have this. I also added that we’ve had some airline pilots increasingly making really dumb errors lately. Much of this is the result of poor government along with the cultural shift I mention toward bean counters. Today he got to the train explosion in the tunnel…
The other example that came to mind is the Pfizer executive admitting that they never really had any knowledge about the C19 vaccine’s effectiveness before they rolled it out to the public. The government and cultural issues on that are multi-layered. But, it’s an example of Atlas Shrugged-like problems….”You can be sure that when their sick little comforts are threatened, science is the first then men will abandon.”
The latest is this door plug flying out of the 737 fuselage. My first job out of college was at Boeing, as a structures engineer. I explained to my young colleague that, first, the engineering staff is tasked with producing a good design and at Boeing they've been doing worse and worse. Second, there is a federally regulated QC structure at Boeing to ensure the aircraft are built correctly. That failed. This isn't like the old British Comet scattering itself across the Atlantic. That was due to industry lack of knowledge on aluminum (Brits say "aluminium") and stress concentration factors. Now we all know better. This is just a matter of either basic stress analysis or untightened parts making their way into service with full occupancy of paying customers. No excuse. After I left Boeing I received regular updates from my fellow engineer there who, ironically, had worked his way into the marketing office. I remember when he sent me a note that when they were testing the Dreamliner on the famous wing bend test the fuselage above the wing started to buckle around 2 gs. Boeing had already started its transition from an engineer-lead company to one lead by bean counters. Now we have this. I also added that we’ve had some airline pilots increasingly making really dumb errors lately. Much of this is the result of poor government along with the cultural shift I mention toward bean counters. Today he got to the train explosion in the tunnel…
The other example that came to mind is the Pfizer executive admitting that they never really had any knowledge about the C19 vaccine’s effectiveness before they rolled it out to the public. The government and cultural issues on that are multi-layered. But, it’s an example of Atlas Shrugged-like problems….”You can be sure that when their sick little comforts are threatened, science is the first then men will abandon.”
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