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Fun story: when the Soviets tried to reverse-engineer captured B-29s bombers (into Tupolev Tu-4s) they had a lot of trouble because their production of sheet al
by JorgeGT 8y ago
Fun story: when the Soviets tried to reverse-engineer captured B-29s bombers (into Tupolev Tu-4s) they had a lot of trouble because their production of sheet aluminium, rivets, etc. was done in metric sizes, whereas the B-29 used imperial-sized components, and thus extensive re-engineering was required to compensate the slight differences in thickness (and thus in weight and balance) of all components.
- Gravityloss 8y agoAnd Airbus only uses imperial bolt sizes.
- r00fus 8y agoI wonder if this justifies the US adherence to the imperial standard - meaning it acts as a basic barrier to entry for other countries who use the "world" standard.
- pandemic_region 8y agosort of like the use of analog comms on the Galactica right?
- TeMPOraL 8y agoNot quite the same thing, but since you mention Galactica and her non-networked systems, I believe watching this show should be required of anyone even tangentially considering work in an IoT project.
- Bellyache5 8y agoTry making a paper airplane with Galactica’s octagonal sheets of paper!
- lmm 8y agoCompatibility usually gains you more than you lose. If you can't make US planes with parts from the rest of the world then that does mean other countries can't make US planes, but that also means that the US manufacturers can't import parts from elsewhere.
- dotancohen 8y agoThe F-35 has components made all over the world, but was designed in the US. Is that plane metric?
- lmm 8y agoI would assume/hope so? Lockheed of all companies should be on top of that after the mars probe incident.