Boeing’s troubled KC-46 tanker program now must fix a Category 1 deficiency for leaks in the fueling system, the Air Force has announced. That means the problem could cause death, loss of the aircraft, render the aircraft incapable of performing its mission or stop the aircraft from completing testing. Boeing, per its contract, must use its own money to fix this problem.I suspect that this is just another symptom of what happens when you put business guys in charge of a manufacturing process. Those birds don't think there is anything different between making paper clips and making airplanes; it's all a process of some kind. They believe that they really don't have to know anything about the product or how it's made in order to manage it.
The Air Force provided few details about the latest problem bedeviling the airborne tanker in its terse statement last night, saying only that it had “upgraded an existing deficiency of its KC-46 Pegasus fuel system to Category I. The Service’s KC-46 Program Office first identified excessive fuel leaks in July of 2019 after an air refueling test.”
Boeing offered a few more tidbits in a statement provided by a spokesman: “The U.S. Air Force discovered several KC-46 aircraft requiring fuel system repairs. The KC-46 fuel system is equipped with redundant protection for fuel containment. In some cases with this issue, aircraft maintenance crews are finding fuel between the primary and secondary fuel protection barriers within the system.”
This is the fifth Category 1 deficiency finding the supposedly low-risk KC-46 program has racked up. ... Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee in testimony earlier this month that because of continuing “profound problems,” he would not put the KC-46 tanker into service unless it was needed in a “high-end fight” with peer competitors — basically, war with Russia or China.
Which is just insanity. That's why McDonnell-Douglas went down the tubes and, when Boeing bought McD-D, the transplants from McD-D brought their business virus to Boeing and infected them.
Would trust buying a car from a company run by people who had no idea how to drive a car, let alone how to make them? Then why would anyone with a functioning cortex think that it is a good idea to buy airplanes from a company run by such people?
I don't know if riding an airplane that Boeing built in the last twenty years is more dangerous than riding in one of those deathtraps operated by Aeroflot, but it's no longer a rediculous question.
9 comments:
The KC-45/MRTT was, and is, a better aircraft and platform for aerial tanking, but Bowing pulled out all the stops and powered their way to the contract. In competitions around the world, the MRTT continues to win. It’s nice to reward your own company, but when a better product is available and will be mostly built here too (think Honda Accord and Toyota Camry), it is insanely short-sighted to do what we did. We no longer have the best military money can buy, but the best military industrial complex that money can buy...and they are focused on profit, bit protecting the U.S.
CP88, as we were warned by Dwight Eisenhower.
G'da used to say if takes four wheel drive to get there, you don't want to be there.
If I can't get there in my old Chevy fourby, I don't want to go.
Used to work for MacDac eons ago. We bloated the MOL program so badly it upped and died.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Have a friend that worked at a really big Dfence contractor. He worked on the MRTT program and their decision was the A330 was more bang for the buck. After orders to redo the study over the course of several years,they got the report back with orders to take out the letters A330 and insert B767, or never get any DOD work, or something to that effect. And now we'll go to war with KC135R's and KC10's. Maybe take one of these KC46's fill it with gas and Boeing executives and everyone involved with this decision, remotely fly it and see if they can set an altitude record. when it runs out of altitude and airspeed, have the remote pilot take a well deserved smoke or coffee break. The telemetry could show us if it breaks up enroute to the desert floor, or stays together until impact. The data could prove useful when we send the next batch or executives/congressmen/ senators up.
I used to hate flying Airbus. Now I'm reconsidering. Even if the pilot doesn't crash the 737 MAX, I don't think I want to be on that ride.
The core problem with Boeing is outsourcing. They bought the magic sauce that outsourcing would reduce their costs and increase their quality. Of course, it doesn't do that -- once you fire all your expensive expertise to gain the "cost savings", there's no one who knows enough about the whole system to actually manage the process of designing and building the things. I saw it happen myself in person when I worked at a computer company that bought the notion that outsourcing was the magic sauce to profitability for them. The end result was a system that was hard to manufacture (because the outsourced vendors had no incentive to design to make it easy to manufacture), expensive (because they had no incentive to design to a price point), inflexible, had multiple issues that ended up with me having to go in and patch firmware to make it work, and eventually ended up with the company going out of business.
It was post it notes, not paperclips. And yeah, the CEO in charge for both 737Max and the Tanker made sure no one wanted to provide bad news. Celebrity CEOs, they're great as long as nothing goes wrong. On the other hand that's true for a box of rocks too.
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