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I don't think this kind of thing is all that uncommon for military airplanes that have been long out of production. I recall reading a decade or two ago that o

I don't think this kind of thing is all that uncommon for military airplanes that have been long out of production. I recall reading a decade or two ago that our local air guard wing had to fabricate some of its own replacement parts for its F-16s (IIRC, then some of oldest that were still in service). I also recall that Lockheed had to take special effort to preserve production know-how and tooling for the F-22 when they shutdown production early, so it would be possible to restart if needed. You can't capture everything you need to know in blueprints and documentation.

benzene 6y ago
>Long out of production. The difference in technology likely plays a large role - these parts were designed without CAD and modern fabrication protocols have changed. It reminded me of NASA's endeavor to reverse engineer the Saturn rockets https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the...
- deleted 6y ago
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- hondo77 6y ago
  > The difference in technology likely plays a large role - these parts were designed without CAD and modern fabrication protocols have changed. Actually, the B-2 was one of the first military aircraft designed with CAD. https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/B-2-Spirit-of-Innovation.pdf https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/B-2-Spiri... (search for "NCAD")
jyounker 6y ago
Preventing the loss of manufacturing capability is one of the reasons for offering military aid to friendly countries. We give them money to buy weapons, but they are obligated to buy certain weapons systems with that money. For example, the Saudi's really don't need all those M-1s they buy from us (with money we give them), but we offer the it keeps our production lines open and active. It's a devious way of laundering military readiness expenses.
WalterBright 6y ago
A friend of mine looked into building a P-51 from scratch, as buying a real one was too expensive. He ordered the blueprints, which are readily available. But then he talked to some P-51 owners, who told him the blueprints wouldn't be much use. The airplane was defined by the jigs used to build it, and the blueprints were just drawn up later as documentation and never checked. The jigs were scrapped when the airplane went out of production.
WalterBright 6y ago
During the escalation of the Vietnam War, the Air Force ran short of jet transports and decided to pull a bunch of WW2 era propeller transports out of mothballs and put them back in service. The mechanics, however, complained that they followed the instructions to the letter on tuning the engines but could not get them to develop the power they were supposed to. The AF finally hired a bunch of old WW2 airplane mechanics. Those mechanics never looked at the manual, they just listened to the engine, made few adjustments, and the engines were soon singing at full power.

benzene 6y ago

>Long out of production. The difference in technology likely plays a large role - these parts were designed without CAD and modern fabrication protocols have changed. It reminded me of NASA's endeavor to reverse engineer the Saturn rockets https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the...

deleted 6y ago
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hondo77 6y ago
> The difference in technology likely plays a large role - these parts were designed without CAD and modern fabrication protocols have changed. Actually, the B-2 was one of the first military aircraft designed with CAD. https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/B-2-Spirit-of-Innovation.pdf https://www.northropgrumman.com/wp-content/uploads/B-2-Spiri... (search for "NCAD")

jyounker 6y ago

Preventing the loss of manufacturing capability is one of the reasons for offering military aid to friendly countries. We give them money to buy weapons, but they are obligated to buy certain weapons systems with that money. For example, the Saudi's really don't need all those M-1s they buy from us (with money we give them), but we offer the it keeps our production lines open and active. It's a devious way of laundering military readiness expenses.

WalterBright 6y ago

A friend of mine looked into building a P-51 from scratch, as buying a real one was too expensive. He ordered the blueprints, which are readily available. But then he talked to some P-51 owners, who told him the blueprints wouldn't be much use. The airplane was defined by the jigs used to build it, and the blueprints were just drawn up later as documentation and never checked. The jigs were scrapped when the airplane went out of production.

WalterBright 6y ago

During the escalation of the Vietnam War, the Air Force ran short of jet transports and decided to pull a bunch of WW2 era propeller transports out of mothballs and put them back in service. The mechanics, however, complained that they followed the instructions to the letter on tuning the engines but could not get them to develop the power they were supposed to. The AF finally hired a bunch of old WW2 airplane mechanics. Those mechanics never looked at the manual, they just listened to the engine, made few adjustments, and the engines were soon singing at full power.