Welcome to the Hatteras Owners Forum & Gallery. Sign Up or Login

Enter partial or full part description to search the Hatteras/Cabo parts catalog (for example: breaker or gauge)
+ Reply to Thread
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 1 2
Results 11 to 19 of 19
  1. #11

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    In the maintainers will kill you venue. My son was fly the E8 JAYSTARS in Iraq and Afghanistan when this happened. http://aerossurance.com/safety-manag...uble-e8c-fuel/
    "DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU READ OR HEAR AND ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE" - BEN FRANKLIN




    Endless Summer
    1967 50c 12/71n DDA 525hp
    ex Miss Betsy
    owners:
    Howard P. Miller 1967-1974
    Richard F Hull 1974-1976
    Robert J. & R.Scott Smith 1976-present

  2. #12

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    It’s also the maintainers that will save your bacon. We all put our lives in their hands just as we put our lives in the hands of the three and four striper with the window views. It’s all about trust.
    Dave & Trina
    Benedetto
    1989 60MY HATDK310
    Sturgeon Bay/Ft. Lauderdale

  3. #13

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    RAC, do you think perhaps the fuel went bad after the planes were grounded? Hard to imagine they'd pump it all back out, but I have no idea.

  4. #14

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    Quote Originally Posted by jim rosenthal View Post
    RAC, do you think perhaps the fuel went bad after the planes were grounded? Hard to imagine they'd pump it all back out, but I have no idea.
    Metal shavings and tools?
    1978 53' Motor Yacht "LADY KAY V"
    Hull number 524
    Chesapeake Bay

  5. #15

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    Quote Originally Posted by Westfield 11 View Post
    You have it backwards: Boeing took over Mc-Donnell Douglas when Harry Stonecipher sold us out. I was a mechanic in Flight Test at the time it happened and I remember it well. MD was in deep doo doo financially, the MD11 was not doing great sales wise, they had lost a huge fighter contract on a fly off and the first C17 was far behind its schedule. The company was on the brink, but could have pulled through until Stonecipher took over, merged us with Boeing as a very junior partner and got himself a good job at Boeing for the rest of his career.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...arings/602188/
    1978 53' Motor Yacht "LADY KAY V"
    Hull number 524
    Chesapeake Bay

  6. #16

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    Quote Originally Posted by oscarvan View Post
    Metal shavings and tools?
    Sorry, I meant clumped fuel and that sort of thing, not metal shavings and tools. Nope, not that.

  7. #17

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    Here's a short opinion quote: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Boeing...onnell-Douglas

    The 1997 Boeing-McDonnell-Douglas merger was really the work of outgoing Boeing CEO Frank Shrontz. It was a $12 billion stock swap for essentially the defense business, because McDonnell’s commercial airplane business was worthless by that point. Really it was worse than worthless, because Boeing assumed all the support and liability for the old McDonnell-Douglas fleet, which became a big headache when Alaska Airlines MD-80 crashed three years later — due to an outdated rudder design that dated from the 1960s. In any case, the defense business was hardly worth $12 billion at that point.

    But here’s the bizarre thing about the merger. McDonnell-Douglas was a failed company, believed to be months away from bankruptcy at the time of the merger. Its executives had committed a long string of disastrous mistakes as they squeezed the company for short term profit and refused to invest for growth. Yet for some reason after the merger, Boeing promoted these executives instead of Boeing’s own managers and essentially let them run Boeing. That’s why it was said that McDonnell-Douglas essentially took over Boeing with Boeing’s money.

    The Boeing CEO after Shrontz, Phil Condit, a brilliant engineer, was just not much of a leader and kind of delegated the commercial airplane business to former McDonnell CEO Harry Stonecipher, who took a wrecking ball to it. Stonecipher wasted billions of Boeing money on financial services, leasing, internet — everything but making airplanes. In just 4–5 years Airbus dominated sales so much that there were industry whispers that Boeing was planning to exit the commercial airplane business entirely and cede a monopoly to Airbus.

    Fortunately, Boeing’s Puget Sound leadership led by Alan Mulally (who went on to become Ford Motor CEO) managed to get Stonecipher’s grudging approval for a plan to develop an all-composite plane, the 787, a plane that eventually reasserted Boeing’s technological leadership in this industry.

    Stonecipher and Condit, who mistakenly thought there was no money to be made in manufacturing airplanes, required that much of 787 development and most of its manufacturing be outsourced, which turned out to be a disastrous mistake when the outside contractors were unable to deliver the components they had promised.

    The 787 was delivered 2 1/2 years late after several billion dollars of cost overruns, largely because Boeing had to take over work that its outsourcing partners couldn’t execute.

    Even today, the 787 is not as profitable as it could be for Boeing because the outsourcing arrangements meant Boeing’s outsourcing partners get paid a large share of the profits.

    Anyway, looking back, this has to be considered one of the worst mergers of all time. It wasn’t just that Boeing overpaid by billions of dollars — that’s common with mergers. The bigger problem was that the merger caused Boeing to lose its engineering focus and sense of mission and become obsessed with counting money at the very time it faced technological challenges from Europe.
    Different comment

    I worked at the Boeing Company during this event. What I am about to share is not based on any inside knowledge, just my impressions of what went on. Boeing did not buy McDonnell Douglas the two companies merged. In fact a significant portion of the McDonnell Douglas leadership became the new Boeing Company leadership. In fact the McDonnell Douglas CEO became the Boeing Company CEO.

    I recall that the basic philosophy of the company changed with this merger. We, employees, were told the company was no longer a family but now like a sports team. The primary driving mantra in management became shareholder value, because companies are in business to make money not build exquisite products. Over engineering cost money.

    No, it did not feel like Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas, it felt the other way around.
    FTFD... i drive a slow 1968 41c381

  8. #18

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    FOD is not degraded fuel, it is foreign objects in the tank or elsewhere in the aircraft or apron, taxiways or runways. Usually it’s small hand tools left behind after the work is complete, but also includes dust, dirt and any debris from the job. This is why the military use shadow boarded tool boxes with foam cutouts for every tool and also have a list of everything brought onto the aircraft. That is also why we had weekly FOD Walks where a hundred people lined up and walked the ramp picking up pea sized bits of grit and gravel.

    During my time in C17 flight test on aircraft T1 we literally wrote the book: there was no Maintenance Manual for a new aircraft. The first thing they did was take away our personal rollaways with all of our customized tools and give us the boxes the AF maintainers would use, then they assigned a tech writer and cameraman to follow and observe us as we went about doing maintenance. They were not interested much in us taking care of the special flight test instrumentation unless it involved R&R of normal components. They also observed the normal processes and procedures such as towing, fueling, operation of the doors and cargo ramp and cargo loading including adjustment of the load locks which held the air dropped pallets in place until release.

    Eventually we had to use the manuals we helped write and give feedback as to the validity of the processes and tooling needed. One thing that was immediately obvious was that the bulk of the maintainers were very very narrowly trained: they knew their specific job or few tasks and that was all. They were the ultimate specialists and it wasn’t until you got up to the crew chief level that you reached the skill set that we had. Not a knock against them and I don’t see how the AF could do otherwise given the short enlistment period of many of the airmen. I don’t think you had the opportunity to attend any advanced schools unless you signed up for a long period of time.

    Anyway it was an exciting job and it was a real thrill to work at Edwards Air Force Base while all the F-117, B-1, Space Shuttle and other activity was taking place. Definitely the highlight of my career.
    Michael & Beth
    Hull Number CV312
    63’ Cockpit Motor Yacht
    1986 model launched in August 1987

  9. #19

    Re: Using Detroits as Fuel Polishers

    Quote Originally Posted by krush View Post
    Here's a short opinion quote: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Boeing...onnell-Douglas



    Different comment
    It’s funny how things looked different from Long Beach. I remember that after the merger morale went into the toilet as they brought in a new system called CPIP, continuous product improvement program, which nobody could explain or understand! I will say that except for the Flight Test department which was always a sort of elite band of brothers MDC was a terrible place to work. Full of cronyism and corruption, lots of malingering and theft, even Crips vs Bloods gang activity in Hanger 9 where they built the MD80. Luckily my duties kept me away from Long Beach most of the time: Quartzite AZ engine testing and EAFB on T1.

    One story they still told was about the Douglas/McDonnell merger: pencils in St Louis, home of McDonnell had McDonnell Douglas written on them such that as you sharpened them you removed the Douglas. Of course in Long Beach it was reversed: sharpening a pencil there removed McDonnell.
    Michael & Beth
    Hull Number CV312
    63’ Cockpit Motor Yacht
    1986 model launched in August 1987

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts