Comments on: Why Do Commercial Platforms Make Such Lousy Military Aircraft?

By: bjarni

bjarni — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:21:54 +0000

the HAMMER claim’s a holder

By: bjarni

bjarni — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:20:38 +0000

the HAMMER claim’s a holder

By: jer105

jer105 — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:46:55 +0000

You never save money being cheap. Buy quality once or cheap 3 times

By: Reginald Oka

Reginald Oka — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:45:30 +0000

COTS is a good option for non-combatant systems if the budget allows replacement in a shorter timeframe than MIL-SPEC. Using COTS airframes is a receipe for disaster under wartime conditions when non-MIL-SPEC hardware is used. COTS is not hardy enough for the stresses of combat. Think of using an AIRBUS to replace a C-17 in a “hot” landing zone.

By: AFRet91

AFRet91 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:00:57 +0000

when we design an aircraft to meet special interests requirements and use it as a ‘jobs’ project for minorities you get what you ask for. A piece of krap that does nothing well. Military requirements will destroy most civilian eqipment in short order, especially aircraft in a war zone.

By: Thomas L. Nielsen

Thomas L. Nielsen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:31:42 +0000

There’s a saying in the engineering world: “Fast. Cheap. Good. Choose any two”.
Or, to put it another way, it’s a bit like designing a main battle tank (bear with me): You’ve got 3 performance parameters in an MBT: Armor, mobility and firepower. The more you optimise one (or two) of these, the more the remaining suffer.
Same thing with “Faster, better, cheaper”: You want fast and cheap? Sure, can-do, just don’t expect it to be particularly good.
Regards,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:17:04 +0000

I’ve spoken to an airline pilot who
has flown both Boeing and Airbus equipment–
From what I gather, in a general sense, Boeing builds a fine, high quality plane right out of
the box that may be a little more expensive,
but operating costs and parts are reasonably priced-Airbus builds a somewhat lower quality
aircraft that is less expensive, but they gouge
you on parts after the sale. Anyone hear
something similar from those who fly both?

By: C4Casey

C4Casey — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:22:43 +0000

It’s a given that any aircraft will face troubles when being modified for a role drastically different from the one it was intended for. For very complex and dangerous missions, the military should rely on purpose-built military hardware, not civilian off-the-shelfs that were never intended for combat. The current Marine-One replacement debacle is a perfect example of the militart trying to get an airframe to do a job for which it was never intended.

By: Sven Ortmann

Sven Ortmann — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:26:45 +0000

Boeing 707 was no successful adaption of a civilian airframe as military aircraft. This includes AWACS.
The Boeing707 began its life as military aircraft (tanker) and became the Boeing 707 commercial airplane, so it was a successful adaption of a military airframe for the civilian airlines. Not the other way around.

By: JE

JE — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:23:06 +0000

One important thing to remember is that ‘faster, better, cheaper’ was baloney to begin with, and a joke amongst engineers (emphasized by some pretty spectacular NASA failures: Stardust, Mars Polar Lander, etc) .. it was more of a bean-counter/system engineering (read: power-point bureaucrat) mantra, not an something actual engineers ever viewed as viable.
So when ‘fast-better-cheaper’ programs succeed, it should come as a surprise, but not when they fail.