Uh-oh. America’s brand-spankin’, new, whiz-bang stealth jet, the Joint Strike Fighter, “took off for the first time Friday but landed about 30 minutes into a planned hourlong flight,” according to the AP. Murdoc has some pics.
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Witnessed this flight live today during the employee “all hands meet” at the Pratt hanger East Hartford, CT.
What we witnessed today is an aircraft power plant that is known via DOD as the Conventional Take-Off & Landing (CTOL) Version. Full use of a land located flight deck. Many hours were spent managing the assembly operation and the evolving “work in process” system this CTOL version experienced. I mention manage and evolving with skepticism only because of the ever increasing reliability for a corporation and management to depend heavily on a product produced and engineered by temporary,contract employees who can only gain personal satisfaction rather than a sense of corporate reward or belonging to this program. Some of this work is actually archived as far as India and Pueto Rico which now puts a new meaning on a product that you thought was made by true employee commitment across all partnerships. Thus the company Moto “The eagle is everywhere” but Pratt engines can use focus on quality control beyond it’s low cost borders which creates wildfires a well seasoned auditor has to try to control.
Evolving engineering data requirements are still changing as standard work issues are still not carved in stone. Quality issues along the way ? Lets just say they were lost in the translation of the new global,economic, communication arena supporting a developing engine patterned for similar production techniques.
Are you saying that something as vital as a fighter jet engine is being partially outsourced to foreign, temporary sub-contractors? This is shocking to me given how much money is being spent on such an item. That is, it would seem that doing this would save only chump change relative to the total cost of the item being built. Am I thinking correctly?
Hey PrattTeam:
E-mail me, ok? defense-AT-defensetech-DOT-org…
Excellant job defensetech!
you’ve really nailed that left slant down.
A real site would have said things of praise, and how it was good to see her take to the skies…but not you, oh no…you have to report on the fact that this aircrafts very first flight might have had a small problem.….again, job well done on this perfectly unbiased report.
oh no, criticism! we must be anti-american.