Posted on 09/07/2022 11:26:43 AM PDT by Nextrush
The Pentagon has stopped delivery of F-35 fighter jets after the aircraft's maker, Lockheed Martin, found a part used in the jet's engine was made in China, the Defense Department and company confirmed Wednesday...
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
The F-35 engines are Government Furnished Equipment (GFE). The government buys the engines directly from P&W. Lockheed would have no insight to the engine's parts or P&W's suppliers.
The issue is between the government & P&W.
Pratt and Whitney makes the engine.
And the F-22 Raptor engine.
And most US military engines.
Wait - Honeywell certified their stuff was in compliance, yet it wasn’t... that is pretty unscrupulous, considering they know where all their parts come from.
Why is our China-Vichy government starting to actually sound concerned about parts made in China? This is second article in the last couple of days on this topic. I thought Xi Apand Xiden were bffs?
We SHOULD be concerned, I’m just wondering why they actually are all of a sudden.
“China is the Saudi Arabia of Rare Earth Metals”
Yeah which is one more reason EVs are stupid.
RARE earth materials
rare1
adjective
(of an event, situation, or condition) not occurring very often.
“a rare genetic disorder”
Similar:
infrequent
few and far between
scarce
sparse
scattered
thin on the ground
golden
like gold dust
as scarce as hen’s teeth
occasional
limited
odd
isolated
sporadic
intermittent
unaccustomed
unwonted
out of the common
“(of a thing) not found in large numbers and consequently of interest or value.”
Fossil fuels however....not so much
“it was not uncommon for the documentation to far outweigh the hardware being shipped”
Yep, seen it many times......if your doin’ it right any. 😏
That mountain of paperwork isn't cheap, by a long shot. Aviation parts don't come from Home Depot. And if we want our planes, ships, tanks, whatever to actually work in combat, we need parts that are up to spec. And that means "backed by a mountain of expensive paperwork".
Note that Pratt & Whitney are now a subsidiary of Raytheon — ask SecDef Lloyd Austin about this.
So did the third tier supplier “accidentally” get the alloy from China?
Not necessarily. Certs often get emailed at the time of shipment. Sometimes they get a lot of scrutiny before the parts leave incoming inspection, sometimes this stuff doesn't get caught unless there is some suspicion and the paper trail gets audited.
Best thing to do is to come-clean.
Ping
In the early 1960's Boeing bought every transistor they could on the world market, to use on the Minuteman program. They bought out the entire stock in supply at Radio Shack.
Hooray!! A poster that understands Mil-Std-1535 requirements instead of a canned ready, fire, aim comment.
This might be an alloy of neodymium, iron, and boron, often referred to simply as a “neo” magnet.
I used to source magnets. Depending on the company, Chinese magnets could be from “inconsistent” (esp. if a reseller), to, from the better companies actually doing the manufacturing, better and more consistent than US companies’ products.
The propagation of this miasma of corruption is yet another reason for not doing any business with China (or India for that matter).
Chinese produced alloy used in magnet production. How much savings could possibly be realized on raw alloy?
HA!
good old radio shack
lots of interesting stuff
fun to shop
but as for quality control.... caveat emptor
ha ha
buying for the air force there? what could possibly go wrong? ha!
My wife worked at a manufacturer who had contracts involving Lockheed. She called Lockheed “Rocket Head.”
At the time, late 50's-early 60's, the transistor manufacturers were Motorola, RCA, Ratheon, Western Electric and Hughes to name a few. They were mostly American made products.
Given all that, I'm sure that Radio Shack didn't get the cream of the crop. But, this wasn't your strip mall Radio Shack either. It was geared more to the hobbyist and tinkerer, not cheap games for kids and CB radios for adults that refused to grow up.
Still, I was a Minuteman maintainer for 9 years and the system was/is incredibly reliable because it is made with discrete semiconductors, not tubes or RCL analog circuits. The big problem now with maintaining the system is component availability and a brain drain of people who remember discrete component technology. Who remembers a 2N3906?
I have not heard them called that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.