A Starfighter’s Testing Tale

[RidgeRunner]

I thought some might be interested in this short tale that I received today via the IFS circuit. It comes from one of the engineers who worked on the early ‘104 tests (name withheld):

 

”The mention of pylons and and by association pylon tanks brings back memories of an incident we had during the early initial flight testing days which may be of interest.   As the youngest flight test engineer at Palmdale, I was assigned one of the YF’s for run of the mill type of stuff.  This was sometime in 1956.  We had to demonstrate clear separation of external stores as per the USAF spec requirements.  This flight was to demonstrate clear separation of full pylon tanks to simulate an emergency shortly after takeoff.  We did this as I recall around 20k.  All aircraft had all electrical FTP’s - Functional Test Procedures - performed during final assembly which was right next door.  Unfortunately, the ejection circuits got missed and the hot wire to both the pylon tank and pylon explosive charges had been put on the same terminal at the relay.  Naturally when the eject button was pushed both explosive charges to tank and pylon fired simultaneously.  The pylons bounced off the tanks and with airflow cartwheeled over the wings creating much damage to the slats as well as a fair amount on the wings.  After a fair bit of discussion,  it was felt better not to extend any surfaces so the landing by Charlie Kitchens, our chief pilot at the time, was made clean at around 220.  The wings were replaced and life continued.”

 

Martin

[dov]

These are early mistakes, since one had no experience with logic circuits and circuit sequences in common use.

This development took place in all areas over decades.

Today we find these errors in almost every area of the digital world, unless the more advanced thinking with all-encompassing logic including Murphy and the fool proof kicks in.

Many good informatics are today authists and can not comunicate with others.

This is the new danger.

Happy modelling