I’m reminded of Michael Crichton’s book “Airframe” which laid heavily into the unions for threats and sabotage.
Nah, never. Besides, they’d just go work for Southwest, right?
Sounds like sabotage.
Cutting QC never works out. My company did that in the mid-2000’s, and paid a hefty price.
The Air Force is absolutely anal about tools and their potential for foreign object damage. I did some work in an Air Force facility... two stories underground... miles from the flightline... and I still had to follow all the tool rules... sign out... sign in... daily inventory...
Don’t forget that the tanker contract was originally won by Northrop, but Boeing ratcheted up the political pressure and, in a mockery to procurement, got the award vacated because the Northrop airbus frame was so much better than the requirents that it wasn’t a fair competition. Surprising nobody, the tanker contract went to them and it failed to meet delivery by two effing years.
When we did acceptance of C-141s from depot level maintenance and modification we had similar problems.
It was pretty difficult to place a high level of confidence on the quality of the worker when we found empty liquor bottles and apparently used condoms inside the extended fuselage plug?!?!
It was classified as FOD (F'in Odd).
If they're not enforcing 100% tool accountability, they're negligent. If they are ... this is deliberate sabotage.
As I recall, the last time this was an issue was...during labor unrest. That and a work stoppage got Boeing's unions a composite manufacturing plant and an assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Local scuttlebutt says that IF Boeing builds the new Mid Market Plane (the 797) it's not a given it will be built in Everett...and if it is, it could well be at the cost of all 787 assembly moving to Charleston.
They can't seem to help themselves.
I’ve heard that it rained parts and tools when the shuttle transitioned from horizontal-to-vertical.
Its good the USAF hasn’t allowed quality control inspectors to be handled by civilian contractors. The military abrogated that responsibility with respect to food to the FDA and the USDA and the quality has really sucked since then.
FOD - Foreign Object Debris
The Air Force guys are right.
I worked on an aircraft retrofit in the 80s. Before we could even enter a plane we had to empty our pockets into bins, then we had to weigh our tool box. The tool box was weighed again upon de-planing. If the weight was different we had to go back in and find whatever was missing. Everything had to be accounted for.
Look for the union label!
Good guess. I remember reading about Nucor steel starting
the first concast plant, the union guys would accidently
drop a hard hat into systems cooling supply. Caused a lot of problems,
some dangerous.
Loose junk in a plane is dangerous!
Boeing is far more concerned with diversity and ensuring there is a black on every team than they are a out quality.
the Trash goes in before the Name goes on...