{"id":181144,"date":"2016-09-18T20:12:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T01:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/09\/18\/boeing-cannot-design-planes-anymore\/"},"modified":"2016-09-18T20:12:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T01:12:00","slug":"boeing-cannot-design-planes-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/09\/18\/boeing-cannot-design-planes-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"Boeing Cannot Design Planes Anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a result of years of layoffs and retirements of staff, Boeing lacked the technical resources to make a credible bid for the new Air Force Trainer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It seemed so all-American: a U.S. aviation giant unveiling its newest military jet to flashing lights and thumping heavy-metal music. But the sleek twin-tailed T-X \u2014 Boeing\u2019s candidate to become the U.S. Air Force\u2019s next pilot trainer \u2014 couldn\u2019t have made it to the dolled-up St. Louis hangar without a good deal of international help.<\/span>

<\/span>For all its deep aviation heritage, the Chicago company needed a partner on the T-X bid. A decade of engineering layoffs had left the venerable American firm without the workers needed to add the trainer competition to its existing workload, particularly with the Air Force requiring demonstration aircraft with a relatively quick turnaround. It also needed a way to do it more cheaply than past endeavors.<\/span>

<\/span>So the maker of the F-15 Eagle and F\/A-18 Super Hornet teamed up with Saab \u2014 builder of the Gripen 4.5-generation fighter jet \u2014 to develop a T-X candidate. And less than three years after the two firms announced their partnership, they have now unveiled their first two aircraft, which are expected to fly by year\u2019s end. That\u2019s pretty fast for an American defense firm.<\/span>

<\/span>While officials from neither company would say just what parts of the plane were developed in Europe, Saab is believed to be manufacturing large portions of it. In June, a large Russian cargo plane believed to be carrying sections of the new aircraft flew from Sweden to the U.S.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>\u201cI\u2019m not saying this thing is doomed. It\u2019s just that I\u2019m uncomfortable with a big disconnect between engineering and design and manufacturing,\u201d said Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at the Virginia-based Teal Group consulting firm. \u201cIt adds risk, it gets rid of a core company advantage, and frankly, there are just huge advantages of having designers and manufacturers co-located.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>Aboulafia cited Boeing\u2019s need to lean on its partner for engineering.<\/span>

<\/span>\u201cOutsourcing design \u2014 that appears to have a lot more complications than benefits,\u201d he said. \u201cIt adds risk and it gets rid of a core capability, a core differentiator.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I would note here that Boeing has outsourced technical expertise on the civil side as well, with many of the stumbles in 787 development coming from the fact that critical engineering expertise was outsourced to, “risk sharing partners.”<\/p>\n

It is a clear indictment of the McDonnell Douglas MBA style management that Boeing has had for the past few decades.<\/p>\n

Boeing can no longer design and build new aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a result of years of layoffs and retirements of staff, Boeing lacked the technical resources to make a credible bid for the new Air Force Trainer: It seemed so all-American: a U.S. aviation giant unveiling its newest military jet to flashing lights and thumping heavy-metal music. But the sleek twin-tailed T-X \u2014 Boeing\u2019s candidate …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[772,775,768,813,936],"class_list":["post-181144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-business","tag-fail","tag-philosophy","tag-sociology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}