4 ms·

You mean the time FedEx towed one of its airplanes to the other side of a hanger to keep it out of sight of a sheriff with a lock and a chain sent to lock down

by graycat 12y ago

You mean the time FedEx towed one of its airplanes to the other side of a hanger to keep it out of sight of a sheriff with a lock and a chain sent to lock down the airplane as collateral for unpaid fuel bills? You mean when some angry union people showed up objecting to FedEx pilots handling packages? You mean the time two barrels of liquids in the shop got confused and maybe some bad stuff got pumped by mistake into the hydraulic systems of some unknown number of airplanes? The time I used the differential equation y'(t) = k y(t) ( b - y(t) ) to please our two representatives of Board Member General Dynamics, have them unpack their bags and stay after all, and, thus, saved the company? The time after midnight in my office I was practicing violin and, as I left, noticed that Fred, in the next office, had been working late? The time at a top employee basketball game, in the locker room with Fred I asked him if he would do it again and got his answer, a more colorful version of investors don't like risk. The time Fred, in the Dassault DA-20 Fanjet Falcon he saved as the company executive jet, was flying, kept finding airports closed, kept flying, and finally landed but flamed out from no fuel on the runway -- cutting it close. How the planning had said that we could fly the airplanes half full and print money but actually flew the airplanes packed solid, doubled the rates, and still were losing money -- not good planning. How Fred wanted to have containers to fit the inside of the plane, like regarding the inside of the cargo part of the plane as a big sausage and cutting it into a few identical slices. Then have ball rollers on the floor of the plane for moving the containers. Then to move the containers on/off the plane, have a truck with a platform in front, about the right size for one container, able to be raised and lowered with hydraulics, drive up, next to the opening for the cargo door, and on/off the containers. Well, Fred described all this on the phone to a guy in CA who got a truck chassis, did the welding and hydraulics, and drove the thing, chassis, no body, to Memphis. Actually, at least as a prototype, it was okay. And the basic idea was important in production. Still, that the thing had been designed in a phone conversation upset some on the Board. There were a lot of such war stories. But, in total the experience was a good lesson in doing a startup.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
Incredible. Sounds like quite the ride. Congratulations on having such an experience.
HCIdivision17 12y ago
As an engineer, programmer, and human being I would be thrilled to hear these sorts of war stories. If you've a book or lecture series, I'm all ears (err, eyes, as the case goes). This is a great, fascinating look - thanks for continuing to weigh in! (And, incidentally, cruel to just skim over this stuff; some of this is Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman material :)
- alanfalcon 12y ago
  Agree with the aside: if you want more detail view his comment history and you'll see at least some of these stories spelled out in more detail—though still less detail than I want.
astrojams 12y ago
Please share more - these are fantastic!
saryant 12y ago
You should write a book.
karanbhangui 12y ago
As others have said, please write a book if you have the time and interest. This stuff is so fascinating and an amazing way to learn how businesses are really built from the inside.
- Gurkenmaster 12y ago
  I recommend reading this story about a audio hardware startup: http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/schiit-happened-the-story-of...
ubernostrum 12y ago
You mean the time FedEx towed one of its airplanes to the other side of a hanger to keep it out of sight of a sheriff with a lock and a chain sent to lock down the airplane as collateral for unpaid fuel bills? Apocryphally, this is similar to the reason alleged for American Airlines not offering service to Israel. When TWA went into bankruptcy, it simply abruptly terminated employees at outstations. The former employees in Israel went to court, alleged the proper severance procedures had not been followed, and won, getting a pretty significant award from the court. But since TWA was no longer flying there (or anywhere), they had no way to collect on that judgment. The remnants of TWA were acquired out of bankruptcy by AA, and allegedly Israeli courts have held that AA thus inherited TWA's obligation to the former employees, but AA has not paid it off. Thus, the implicit threat is that any AA aircraft which lands in Israel is subject to seizure either as collateral or to simply be sold to pay the judgment. At the moment US Airways flies PHL-TLV, but it remains to be seen whether that route will survive the final stages of their merger with AA.
jonah 12y ago
My cousin flew for FedEx for many years. He lived in southern California but was "based" in Memphis so he had to commute to work (jumpseat). One thing he said was pilots enjoyed flying freight as they were able to takeoff, land, and generally maneuver much more aggressively than they could to with passengers.
- graycat 12y ago
  My first work for FedEx, writing the software to schedule the fleet, I did from our living room in Maryland. My wife was in her Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. To write the code, I had a time sharing terminal and wrote the code in PL/I on a CP67/CMS system in Stamford, CT. Nice setup. I really liked the data structures and string manipulations in PL/I. And, yes, for the great circle calculation, that's just the law of cosines for spherical triangles! Well, for writing the code, I wanted the basic PL/I manuals so called the local IBM office to order them. Soon the manuals came, hand delivered, complete with a very interested and attentive IBM marketing representative! I'm not sure we ever paid for the manuals! So, sure, sitting there in our living room, I explained to the IBM guy what I was doing. So, sure, he and his branch office had guessed that anyone who wanted PL/I manuals was likely up to something significant and, thus, might also want a few million bucks worth of hardware, too. Their guess was correct: Eventually FedEx did go with IBM (there's a story there, too). When I got the software written, in six weeks, also finishing teaching computer science at Georgetown U., I drove to Memphis and rented a room. But I wanted to get home as often as possible. So, since my work had to do with airplane operations, FedEx talked the FAA into letting me ride jump seat as an observer. It was just I did all my observing commuting to/from home in Maryland! Yes, the pilots sometimes flew somewhat less gracefully than they would have with a passenger plane. A lot of the pilots were fresh from Viet Nam, maybe as fighter pilots. The pilots were the most competent, serious, effective, and professional part of FedEx. So, one time when I was observing the pilots for some reason on the way to landing wanted to descend quickly. So, they went down at 6000 feet per minute. Going down that fast, in the little jump seat I was hanging by my seat belt! Going down that fast also had the outside of the plane, still cold from cruise altitude, suddenly in much warmer and very humid air. So, we got a layer of ice over the front windows and could see nothing. The pilots were not concerned at all but just flew via instruments.

by graycat 12y ago

toomuchtodo 12y ago

Incredible. Sounds like quite the ride. Congratulations on having such an experience.

HCIdivision17 12y ago

As an engineer, programmer, and human being I would be thrilled to hear these sorts of war stories. If you've a book or lecture series, I'm all ears (err, eyes, as the case goes). This is a great, fascinating look - thanks for continuing to weigh in! (And, incidentally, cruel to just skim over this stuff; some of this is Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman material :)

alanfalcon 12y ago
Agree with the aside: if you want more detail view his comment history and you'll see at least some of these stories spelled out in more detail—though still less detail than I want.

astrojams 12y ago

Please share more - these are fantastic!

saryant 12y ago

You should write a book.

karanbhangui 12y ago

As others have said, please write a book if you have the time and interest. This stuff is so fascinating and an amazing way to learn how businesses are really built from the inside.

Gurkenmaster 12y ago
I recommend reading this story about a audio hardware startup: http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/schiit-happened-the-story-of...

ubernostrum 12y ago

You mean the time FedEx towed one of its airplanes to the other side of a hanger to keep it out of sight of a sheriff with a lock and a chain sent to lock down the airplane as collateral for unpaid fuel bills? Apocryphally, this is similar to the reason alleged for American Airlines not offering service to Israel. When TWA went into bankruptcy, it simply abruptly terminated employees at outstations. The former employees in Israel went to court, alleged the proper severance procedures had not been followed, and won, getting a pretty significant award from the court. But since TWA was no longer flying there (or anywhere), they had no way to collect on that judgment. The remnants of TWA were acquired out of bankruptcy by AA, and allegedly Israeli courts have held that AA thus inherited TWA's obligation to the former employees, but AA has not paid it off. Thus, the implicit threat is that any AA aircraft which lands in Israel is subject to seizure either as collateral or to simply be sold to pay the judgment. At the moment US Airways flies PHL-TLV, but it remains to be seen whether that route will survive the final stages of their merger with AA.

jonah 12y ago

My cousin flew for FedEx for many years. He lived in southern California but was "based" in Memphis so he had to commute to work (jumpseat). One thing he said was pilots enjoyed flying freight as they were able to takeoff, land, and generally maneuver much more aggressively than they could to with passengers.

graycat 12y ago
My first work for FedEx, writing the software to schedule the fleet, I did from our living room in Maryland. My wife was in her Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. To write the code, I had a time sharing terminal and wrote the code in PL/I on a CP67/CMS system in Stamford, CT. Nice setup. I really liked the data structures and string manipulations in PL/I. And, yes, for the great circle calculation, that's just the law of cosines for spherical triangles! Well, for writing the code, I wanted the basic PL/I manuals so called the local IBM office to order them. Soon the manuals came, hand delivered, complete with a very interested and attentive IBM marketing representative! I'm not sure we ever paid for the manuals! So, sure, sitting there in our living room, I explained to the IBM guy what I was doing. So, sure, he and his branch office had guessed that anyone who wanted PL/I manuals was likely up to something significant and, thus, might also want a few million bucks worth of hardware, too. Their guess was correct: Eventually FedEx did go with IBM (there's a story there, too). When I got the software written, in six weeks, also finishing teaching computer science at Georgetown U., I drove to Memphis and rented a room. But I wanted to get home as often as possible. So, since my work had to do with airplane operations, FedEx talked the FAA into letting me ride jump seat as an observer. It was just I did all my observing commuting to/from home in Maryland! Yes, the pilots sometimes flew somewhat less gracefully than they would have with a passenger plane. A lot of the pilots were fresh from Viet Nam, maybe as fighter pilots. The pilots were the most competent, serious, effective, and professional part of FedEx. So, one time when I was observing the pilots for some reason on the way to landing wanted to descend quickly. So, they went down at 6000 feet per minute. Going down that fast, in the little jump seat I was hanging by my seat belt! Going down that fast also had the outside of the plane, still cold from cruise altitude, suddenly in much warmer and very humid air. So, we got a layer of ice over the front windows and could see nothing. The pilots were not concerned at all but just flew via instruments.