9 ms·

The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entir

The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). Another HN commenter mentioned GPS being designed over a holiday. But we spent years and years in the military debugging GPS and making it functional. Claiming that something was designed in a day is good clickbait, but it completely discounts the years of blood, sweat, and tears it took to get to the product that people have in their head.

cs702 4y ago
The OP is emblematic of the "cocktail-party level of understanding" that leads people to discount how hard it is, and how much blood, sweat, and tears it takes, to build anything complicated, like a plane: https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/ https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/
- bombcar 4y ago
  It also downplays the absolute skill you need to be able to do even the “weekend session” and get something that’s workable - anyone can doodle a design in a weekend and even make changes to it, but getting one that’s actually a workable foundation requires people who know what they’re doing.
noneeeed 4y ago
An overnight success that was years in the making...
NoFactualActual 4y ago
Seems like a language thing—I'd distinguish the initial "design" from the iterative "engineering". Of course, you could describe the latter as design, too, but it's an ambiguous word (like most words). The people taken by this clickbait aren't going to care which word is used.
parineum 4y ago
> The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. Not even that is true. Here's the timeline from the article. > In July of 1948, Boeing received a contract from the still-new U.S. Air Force to design and build a new heavy bomber. ... > So when Boeing’s three-man presentation team arrived at Wright Field Air Force Base on October 21, 1948 ... > Warden suggested to the Boeing team that they do away with their design and come back to him with a new one that included turbojet engines ... unbeknownst to Warden at the time, Schairer happened to be carrying some work he’d already done on the possibility of a jet-powered bomber in his briefcase, giving him just enough of a foundation to think a redesign might be possible ... >The next morning, which happened to be a Friday, the Boeing team returned with their newly jet-powered B-52 design, only to find that Warden remained unimpressed. ... > The two soon joined Schairer, Wells, Carlsen, and Blumenthal in the increasingly cramped hotel room, pouring over sketches and quickly-scribbled mathematical computations. Computers wouldn’t become a common facet of aviation design for decades to come. It was up to these six men and their witts to design an entirely new bomber… and they had just 48 hours to do it. .. > By Sunday, the team had compiled a full proposal that they turned over to a local stenographer to type up a clean copy. By Monday morning, they arrived back in Warden’s office with not only a fully-realized 33-page B-52 proposal but a silver, hand-crafted, 14-inch model of the bomber itself. Warden immediately took to the weekend design. So, July -> October 26th (Monday morning) 4 Months isn't bad at all but it's not quite the 4 days suggested in the headline.
duxup 4y ago
"Idea guys" everywhere salivate over these stories I bet.
zymun 4y ago
Also, the people designing these things have years of experience and are most likely thinking about these designs daily through out the years. So, in reality it's 100s of years of synthesized experience to be able to design something over a weekend.
dylan604 4y ago
Designed in a weekend is the perfect HN trope.
fellellor 4y ago
Same goes for JavaScript. The first version is nowhere close to the beautiful, expressive and powerful masterpiece that we have today.
yabones 4y ago
It's honestly a fantastic case for incremental improvements over time. There's practically no single part on a modern B-52 that's original to the 1960s since everything has been overhauled and modernized decade by decade. Every attempt to replace it has been (or will be) retired before its EOL.
- GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
  I don't think you would say that if you had ever been inside one. They are ancient -- and very greasy.
- ofrzeta 4y ago
  Platonic question: is it still a B-52 then? cf. the Ship of Theseus
  - geodel 4y ago
    I mean in this case yes. Since it is a brand and not a single B-52 physical plane which is being improved all these years.
    - runjake 4y ago
      To eliminate confusion, the current operational B-52Hs were originally manufactured in 1960-1961. They have undergone significant upgrades over the years, on all systems, including the airframe itself, since then.
  - djmips 4y ago
    I think it is but they do rev the sub model number it seems.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Yes, it is. The current H generation has very little to do with the first build airframes so. Including certification. EDIT: Those upgrade programs, e.g. the F-15 is currently at "X", are complete development programs and involve a certain amount of certification and re-certification. That in the case of the B-52 those upgrades have been applied to existing, tremendously old, airframes, doesn't change that. It does make it quite impressive so, the B-52 turned out to be a very flexible and upgradeable design.
closewith 4y ago
> The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). The plane was only ever produced for a decade and the H model was last produced in 1963. Obviously it has been retrofitted with new engines, avionics, armaments, etc, but it's not a fundamentally different plane.
- hef19898 4y ago
  If every thing except the overall form of the fuselage is changed it is a new plane.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Only if the new plane is not Tu-144 or Buran. Then it's not a new plane, but a stolen one. /s
    - p_l 4y ago
      Buran was made to look like Shuttle (despite opposition of engineers on the project), but was completely local design.
      - aerostable_slug 4y ago
        How does one separate the outer mold line of the spacecraft from its performance? Isn't Buran's appearance driven by similar requirements vs. aesthetics? What else would it have looked like — if you want lots of crossrange capability, you're not going to get something that looked like Faget's designs, would you?
        p_l 4y ago
        Buran had different design requirements (once you discard the political), because unlike STS the orbiter wasn't sole launcher of the system - Energia took care of shipping heavy cargo to whatever orbit you wanted. So they had different set of constraints including size & prospective contents of the cargo bay. They have also flirted with the idea of just putting two jet engines into orbiter for extra cross range, which was probably not an option on STS given the huge dead weight of engines
thejosh 4y ago
One of my favourite (probably misquotes) is "I wrote FAT on an airplane!" from Bill Gates.
- jrc2022 4y ago
  that i would believe
- larrywright 4y ago
  It seems likely that this one is true: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20131008-00/?p=3003 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20131008-00/?p=30...
  - Forgeties79 4y ago
    I don’t know. Seems like apocrypha layered on apocrypha go me >…I wrote FAT on an airplane, for heaven’s sake.” >(I can’t believe I had to write this: This is a dramatization, not a courtroom transcript.) >This “I wrote FAT on an airplane” line was apparently one Bill used when he wanted to complain that what other people was doing wasn’t Real Programming. But this time, the development manager decided she’d had enough. >“Fine, Bill. We’ll set you up with a machine fully enlisted in the Windows source code, and you can help us out with some of your programming magic, why don’t you.” >This shut him up.
    - larrywright 4y ago
      Kind of, but the source here is someone who has been at Microsoft a very long time. Given that he didn’t put any qualifier around this story about it possibly not being true, I think it’s more likely that it is true. If this were J Random Blogger I’d agree with you.
daveslash 4y ago
Came here to say something similar. My comment being "The word 'designed' is being used very generously here. I would suggest 'conceptualized' as a better word"
- Forgeties79 4y ago
  “I want all my music to fit in the palm of my hand.” Steve Jobs created the iPod in just one day
  - daveslash 4y ago
    Heh, exactly. Succinctly put. Here's a longer-winded version: I'm an R&D Software Engineer. In a workplace setting years ago we had a Software Architect who would advise management and the implementation engineers. Me and my team were really struggling with a difficult implementation problem relating to some federated identity stuff. Management told us to go to the architect. We explained our problems and he waved them off as "that's implementation stuff, I don't do that, but the solution is very easy. Just get server X to communicate whatever token you need to server Y". It was off putting. He also told our management that our problem was an "easy one", without offering any helpful insight. It's like saying "Traveling to The Moon is easy. You simply need enough thrust to overcome Earth's gravity well. Simple!"
    - spaetzleesser 4y ago
      I always tell people that I could probably "architect" the infrastructure of my whole company (Fortune 500) in a few days if you ignored the little pesky implementation details.
    - gladiatr72 4y ago
      Or perhaps more in-line with a favorite of mine: The secret to mankind achieving unpowered flight is for someone to throw themselves at the ground and simply miss..
      - Forgeties79 4y ago
sebastianconcpt 4y ago
I don't see anything wrong or less deserving of merit in designing something remarkable in a short time. How much does it take to have a life-changing insight? or the moment of solving a challenge to resolve a theorem demonstration? An instant or your whole life up to that point?
throw0101c 4y ago
> Another HN commenter mentioned GPS being designed over a holiday. But we spent years and years in the military debugging GPS and making it functional. GPS/Navstar also wasn't the first system: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(satellite) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Predecessors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Pred... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_navigation#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_navigation#History
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Inspiration / perspiration?
jackcosgrove 4y ago
> Claiming that something was designed in a day is good clickbait It also glorifies an attitude that the greenfield design process is where the wizardry happens, and that forgetting about or dropping products after this stage is acceptable. Only failed products don't need to be maintained and refined.

cs702 4y ago

The OP is emblematic of the "cocktail-party level of understanding" that leads people to discount how hard it is, and how much blood, sweat, and tears it takes, to build anything complicated, like a plane: https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/ https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/

bombcar 4y ago
It also downplays the absolute skill you need to be able to do even the “weekend session” and get something that’s workable - anyone can doodle a design in a weekend and even make changes to it, but getting one that’s actually a workable foundation requires people who know what they’re doing.

noneeeed 4y ago

An overnight success that was years in the making...

NoFactualActual 4y ago

Seems like a language thing—I'd distinguish the initial "design" from the iterative "engineering". Of course, you could describe the latter as design, too, but it's an ambiguous word (like most words). The people taken by this clickbait aren't going to care which word is used.

parineum 4y ago

> The first prototype of the B-52 may have been designed in a weekend. Not even that is true. Here's the timeline from the article. > In July of 1948, Boeing received a contract from the still-new U.S. Air Force to design and build a new heavy bomber. ... > So when Boeing’s three-man presentation team arrived at Wright Field Air Force Base on October 21, 1948 ... > Warden suggested to the Boeing team that they do away with their design and come back to him with a new one that included turbojet engines ... unbeknownst to Warden at the time, Schairer happened to be carrying some work he’d already done on the possibility of a jet-powered bomber in his briefcase, giving him just enough of a foundation to think a redesign might be possible ... >The next morning, which happened to be a Friday, the Boeing team returned with their newly jet-powered B-52 design, only to find that Warden remained unimpressed. ... > The two soon joined Schairer, Wells, Carlsen, and Blumenthal in the increasingly cramped hotel room, pouring over sketches and quickly-scribbled mathematical computations. Computers wouldn’t become a common facet of aviation design for decades to come. It was up to these six men and their witts to design an entirely new bomber… and they had just 48 hours to do it. .. > By Sunday, the team had compiled a full proposal that they turned over to a local stenographer to type up a clean copy. By Monday morning, they arrived back in Warden’s office with not only a fully-realized 33-page B-52 proposal but a silver, hand-crafted, 14-inch model of the bomber itself. Warden immediately took to the weekend design. So, July -> October 26th (Monday morning) 4 Months isn't bad at all but it's not quite the 4 days suggested in the headline.

duxup 4y ago

"Idea guys" everywhere salivate over these stories I bet.

zymun 4y ago

Also, the people designing these things have years of experience and are most likely thinking about these designs daily through out the years. So, in reality it's 100s of years of synthesized experience to be able to design something over a weekend.

dylan604 4y ago

Designed in a weekend is the perfect HN trope.

fellellor 4y ago

Same goes for JavaScript. The first version is nowhere close to the beautiful, expressive and powerful masterpiece that we have today.

yabones 4y ago

It's honestly a fantastic case for incremental improvements over time. There's practically no single part on a modern B-52 that's original to the 1960s since everything has been overhauled and modernized decade by decade. Every attempt to replace it has been (or will be) retired before its EOL.

GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
I don't think you would say that if you had ever been inside one. They are ancient -- and very greasy.
ofrzeta 4y ago
Platonic question: is it still a B-52 then? cf. the Ship of Theseus
- geodel 4y ago
  I mean in this case yes. Since it is a brand and not a single B-52 physical plane which is being improved all these years.
  - runjake 4y ago
    To eliminate confusion, the current operational B-52Hs were originally manufactured in 1960-1961. They have undergone significant upgrades over the years, on all systems, including the airframe itself, since then.
- djmips 4y ago
  I think it is but they do rev the sub model number it seems.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Yes, it is. The current H generation has very little to do with the first build airframes so. Including certification. EDIT: Those upgrade programs, e.g. the F-15 is currently at "X", are complete development programs and involve a certain amount of certification and re-certification. That in the case of the B-52 those upgrades have been applied to existing, tremendously old, airframes, doesn't change that. It does make it quite impressive so, the B-52 turned out to be a very flexible and upgradeable design.

closewith 4y ago

> The B-52 of today was iteratively designed over decades and the current H models are entirely different planes than earlier models (although structurally very close to the G model). The plane was only ever produced for a decade and the H model was last produced in 1963. Obviously it has been retrofitted with new engines, avionics, armaments, etc, but it's not a fundamentally different plane.

hef19898 4y ago
If every thing except the overall form of the fuselage is changed it is a new plane.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  Only if the new plane is not Tu-144 or Buran. Then it's not a new plane, but a stolen one. /s
  - p_l 4y ago
    Buran was made to look like Shuttle (despite opposition of engineers on the project), but was completely local design.
    - aerostable_slug 4y ago
      How does one separate the outer mold line of the spacecraft from its performance? Isn't Buran's appearance driven by similar requirements vs. aesthetics? What else would it have looked like — if you want lots of crossrange capability, you're not going to get something that looked like Faget's designs, would you?
      - p_l 4y ago
        Buran had different design requirements (once you discard the political), because unlike STS the orbiter wasn't sole launcher of the system - Energia took care of shipping heavy cargo to whatever orbit you wanted. So they had different set of constraints including size & prospective contents of the cargo bay. They have also flirted with the idea of just putting two jet engines into orbiter for extra cross range, which was probably not an option on STS given the huge dead weight of engines

thejosh 4y ago

One of my favourite (probably misquotes) is "I wrote FAT on an airplane!" from Bill Gates.

jrc2022 4y ago
that i would believe
larrywright 4y ago
It seems likely that this one is true: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20131008-00/?p=3003 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20131008-00/?p=30...
- Forgeties79 4y ago
  I don’t know. Seems like apocrypha layered on apocrypha go me >…I wrote FAT on an airplane, for heaven’s sake.” >(I can’t believe I had to write this: This is a dramatization, not a courtroom transcript.) >This “I wrote FAT on an airplane” line was apparently one Bill used when he wanted to complain that what other people was doing wasn’t Real Programming. But this time, the development manager decided she’d had enough. >“Fine, Bill. We’ll set you up with a machine fully enlisted in the Windows source code, and you can help us out with some of your programming magic, why don’t you.” >This shut him up.
  - larrywright 4y ago
    Kind of, but the source here is someone who has been at Microsoft a very long time. Given that he didn’t put any qualifier around this story about it possibly not being true, I think it’s more likely that it is true. If this were J Random Blogger I’d agree with you.

daveslash 4y ago

Came here to say something similar. My comment being "The word 'designed' is being used very generously here. I would suggest 'conceptualized' as a better word"

Forgeties79 4y ago
“I want all my music to fit in the palm of my hand.” Steve Jobs created the iPod in just one day
- daveslash 4y ago
  Heh, exactly. Succinctly put. Here's a longer-winded version: I'm an R&D Software Engineer. In a workplace setting years ago we had a Software Architect who would advise management and the implementation engineers. Me and my team were really struggling with a difficult implementation problem relating to some federated identity stuff. Management told us to go to the architect. We explained our problems and he waved them off as "that's implementation stuff, I don't do that, but the solution is very easy. Just get server X to communicate whatever token you need to server Y". It was off putting. He also told our management that our problem was an "easy one", without offering any helpful insight. It's like saying "Traveling to The Moon is easy. You simply need enough thrust to overcome Earth's gravity well. Simple!"
  - spaetzleesser 4y ago
    I always tell people that I could probably "architect" the infrastructure of my whole company (Fortune 500) in a few days if you ignored the little pesky implementation details.
  - gladiatr72 4y ago
    Or perhaps more in-line with a favorite of mine: The secret to mankind achieving unpowered flight is for someone to throw themselves at the ground and simply miss..
    - Forgeties79 4y ago

sebastianconcpt 4y ago

I don't see anything wrong or less deserving of merit in designing something remarkable in a short time. How much does it take to have a life-changing insight? or the moment of solving a challenge to resolve a theorem demonstration? An instant or your whole life up to that point?

throw0101c 4y ago

> Another HN commenter mentioned GPS being designed over a holiday. But we spent years and years in the military debugging GPS and making it functional. GPS/Navstar also wasn't the first system: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(satellite) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Predecessors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Pred... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_navigation#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_navigation#History

fnordpiglet 4y ago

Inspiration / perspiration?

jackcosgrove 4y ago

> Claiming that something was designed in a day is good clickbait It also glorifies an attitude that the greenfield design process is where the wizardry happens, and that forgetting about or dropping products after this stage is acceptable. Only failed products don't need to be maintained and refined.