Random Thoughts - Part III The Search for Spark (No Politics)

[Capt Spaulding]

Hang in there. Some perspectives on management are stunningly myopic. They have one goal in mind that is often time driven. Get it done. It’s classic. We don’t have time to do it right, so they end up making time to do it over. And over. And over.

I think Dadhawk flies. So he’s heard of “getthereitis.” I remember having it drilled into me. That flaw “killed more pilots than the Luftwaffe.” But some nevertheless point the aircraft down the runway, push the loud lever and hope for the best.

One of the beautiful things about academic tenure used to be that you were hard to fire. I can’t count the number of times I’ve piped up in a faculty senate meeting and gotten Socratic with a Provost or whoever. The conclusion was always the same - ask them, “now truthfully, does this sound as stupid to you as it does to me?”

In the private sector there is little tolerance for that so you generally have to eat your words. Hopefully, once it turns to shit they’ll learn something. It isn’t likely. Among the administrators I worked with the ability to reflect self critically was rare.

[Clipdat]

Test Environment first and THEN Production Environment. You'd be shocked at how many places don't have a test environment even though it seems like common sense.

Since when did change control stop being a thing? Mind boggling.

[spike021]

Two jobs ago, my team was liaising with a software engineer from another company whose product we were using. They may be a billion dollar company now.

Anyway we were experiencing some bugs and told the rep from the company and he emailed us this:

[Clipdat]

lol smh

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by Clipdat

Test Environment first and THEN Production Environment. You'd be shocked at how many places don't have a test environment even though it seems like common sense.

Since when did change control stop being a thing? Mind boggling.

It sickens me. Agile-smagile Slow-the-fuck-down!

[Capt Spaulding]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

It sickens me. Agile-smagile Slow-the-fuck-down!

Years ago in my motorcycle racing days a friend remarked, “hurrying doesn’t look good on you.” He was right. Since then I’ve tried to think more carefully and act more deliberately.

I like it. I wind up doing things better and doing them fewer times.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

I think Dadhawk flies. So he’s heard of “getthereitis.” I remember having it drilled into me. That flaw “killed more pilots than the Luftwaffe.” But some nevertheless point the aircraft down the runway, push the loud lever and hope for the best.

Yep, applies to a lot of things more than flying....Just in flying it's almost always fatal. "Flying is the quickest way to get where you are going, as long as you aren't in a hurry"

[spike021]

To be fair I will say I haven't noticed much in the way of hard deadline pressure. Like the bug I mentioned exists and my boss isn't pushing us to ship now, he's giving us time to debug it.

It's more just that members of my team are wanting to move forward despite it and basically see if it affects regular customers. Which IMO is bad.

[Capt Spaulding]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Yep, applies to a lot of things more than flying....Just in flying it's almost always fatal. "Flying is the quickest way to get where you are going, as long as you aren't in a hurry"

I remember vividly one incident where it almost killed my wife and me. We were in the back of a corporate jet when the flight crew, under pressure from other passengers, made some ill advised decisions that almost led to us all dying in a fireball in Mexico City.

If you’re interested I’ll post the story. It’s a little long, but really illustrates the long chain of mistakes that leads to most disasters.

It was less than 2 years after another Brown and Root bizjet crashed trying to land at a fog shrouded Anchorage airport.

[Clipdat]

Please do share, if you're so inclined and feel like typing it out.

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by spike021

I'm feeling pretty frustrated about work today.
...

At least they shut it down before you went through the effort to solo a pilot, make ROI estimates, get approval for the entire effort, spend ~12 hour days for 2 months expanding the pilot into a full prototype to meet a compressed schedule, demo the prototype, show that actuals match the estimates so far precisely and then ask for the next commitment that's in the goddamn plan they already approved. It would indeed be pretty silly to see all that in addition to every piece of evidence that says everything is on target and then say "you know what, this newfangled technology thing isn't worth halving our test cost and schedule, we're just going to do it the old way", right? It would also be extremely foolish if 4 years later (after the planned ROI) the same people said "we really can't afford the old testing method anymore, so we're just not going to do it and hope for the best. YOLO!"

I'm not bitter or anything.


Actual advice: Remember that seeing it done wrong is the best way to understand why you need to do it right. Take the lesson at your companies expense and remember that in your next interview . The problem with management is they cannot ever admit to something being wrong. Their value to people up the chain who sign their timecard is bringing in money, not technical excellence. Their game is to get promoted before the shit hits the fan, or get laid off and take the promotion somewhere else.

[Capt Spaulding]

Edit: you can blame Clipdat for this.

My wife and I got married in 1976. A year or so later, my father – a senior project manager for Brown and Root - accepted an assignment to work on a PEMEX project that was being done out of Mexico City. In 1978 he, my mom, and my youngest sister moved down there for a 3 to 5 year assignment.

Now, my family had for years flown to various destinations, mostly east coast, on a variety of company aircraft ranging from converted C47s to turbo prop Gulfstreams to Sabreliners. In the summer of 1978 (IIRC) my wife and took a commercial flight to Mexico City for a three week visit. The day we were supposed to come home my dad called from work. There was a B&R bizjet at the Mexico City airport that would be taking several of the VPs back to Houston early that afternoon. I we wanted, wife and I could hitch a ride back and get refunds on our commercial tickets.

I love flying on those airplanes and my wife never had so I jumped on it. We got to airport early and loaded our crap on board. I’m pretty sure it was the Sabreliner. Chatted with the flight crew – really nice guys. Waited around and the big wigs showed up about an hour late. It’s now about 1:30 local time.

We get on board, belt up – Big wigs get on and belt up – flight crew pre-flights, gets on board and belts up. They run through the cockpit checks and start the start sequence. An engine starts spooling up, but then slows down. The crew is looking at stuff up front and they try again. This time it spools up, not as far as last time, then spools back down with a slight puff of smoke from the intake. Pilot turns around tells us the battery has gone south and they can’t get the engine spinning fast enough to start it. They’re going to have to try to find and external source of power.

They get on the radio and eventually a truck rolls up alongside. Now this is Mexico City in August. It’s like 100f outside and the cabin is getting pretty warm. But no as warm and the under collar areas of a couple of the big wigs. They have dinner plans in Houston for early evening and aren’t interested in sitting around of the apron in Mexico City.

The generator on the truck puts out the incorrect voltage. No dice. More radio conversations. Another truck. Wrong again. An hour has gone by and the suits are unhappy. One makes an off-hand comment about the flight crew’s ability with the airplane. The crew is getting nervous. Eventually a trailer with Mexican Army logos is pulled up alongside. It’s for started helicopters, IIRC. Turns out it will work.

Connections are made. We try again. First engine spools up, lights off, and settles in a comfortable idle. Once the first is running, the second fires right up. Lots of thanks are conveyed to the Army guys.

It’s about 3:00.

The cabin starts to cool down, but the suits are in a huge hurry to get rolling. The flight crew, however, is taking their sweet time getting airborne. Again, one of the suits complains. So, we start taxiing. We taxi for a long time. I’m pretty sure we made a circuit of the whole airport to get back to the runway we were beside to begin with. We go onto the runway, but rather than turn toward the departure end, we make a 180 and back taxi down the displaced threshold and make another 180.

Now, I’m nervous. The airport is at an elevation of 7,400+ feet. It is 100f outside. While chatting up the flight crew earlier I had watched 747 float halfway down the runway trying to get the wheels to touch. I was (and still am) a very low time private pilot. I did know, however, about density altitude. I don’t know what a 7400 ft 100f day is in density terms, but it’s high – my guess is well into 5 figures high. It finally dawns on my low time brain what’s happening.

The pilot runs up the engines, waits until they are at max thrust, and releases the brakes. We begin to accelerate but it seems pretty leisurely. The curtain is open to the cockpit and the folks in the back can see down the runway. I can still hear the tires hitting the expansion joints in the concrete – bump bump bump bump. The bumping continues for a long time. I look out the front. The runway centerline light go from all white to alternating red and white. The pilot rotates the nose and just as the lights switch to all red we’re airborne. But we don’t start climbing. We hear the gear cycling, but we’re still not climbing very fast. Eventually, as we cross the road at the edge of the airport the nose edges up and we start climbing.

We get to Houston Hobby, drive by customs shack and taxi to the company hanger. The suits deplane and head off to dinner. I was talking to the pilot and FO. I apologized for effing him up and thanked him for saving our lives. He gives a worried grin and says something like, “yeah, that was a lot closer than I like to cut them.” I thanked him again and he went to oversee pushing the plane into the hanger.

So, we’re doing the NTSB postmortem for an accident that didn’t happen, in a foreign country. What happened?

I was pretty sure then and over time became convinced that putting us on board made a hash of the crews’ weight and balance calculations. They had a hot day at a high airport. They had fueled the plane for and to a specific weight. Our added weight put them on the wrong side of the curve. That might not be a big deal. Start the engines, burn up some fuel, lighten the plane and, while it might be tight, it works.

But the engines don’t start. We sit for over an hour to get a start cart that will work. The day gets hotter. Factor in complaining company VPs putting pressure on the crew to get home and you have a prescription for bad things. What I think happened when the suits got really testy is the crew took us on a tour of the airport to burn up some fuel. Then we back taxied onto a displaced threshold to get more real estate in front of us. Once he spooled the engines up he didn’t release the brakes until they were as tight as he could get them. In the hot, thin, air the engines’ power output was significantly reduced so he kept the nose down as long as he could. He rotated when he had to, but kept the aircraft near the runway (in ground effect) as he raised the gear and let the plane accelerate. Once he had enough airspeed he started his climb.

So, 1) jumping at the chance to take a free ride on a cool airplane, combined with
2) the surprise of added weight to said airplane’s crew, and
3) a balky battery, and
4) difficulty finding a start cart, and
5) a really hot day at a very high airport, and
6) a bunch of impatient, frustrated company big shots, and
7) the crews’ unwillingness to a) tell my wife and I to go away or b) tell the suits to calm down

Almost killed all of us.

[villainous_frx]

Hearing this reminds me of a situation I've been experiencing recently.

My coworker spent several months testing and R&Ding a widget with the overseas factory, negotiating a price point and quantity to order, designing packaging, getting all the Canada side sign offs etc. In the 11th hour their superior decides to switch suppliers to someone cheaper. The savings are less than 10 cents per unit, and the downside is a known less reliable power unit.

The keen observers can see where this is going .

And to the surprise of no one we've been having a lot of upset customers because their multi-hundred dollar widgets are DOA.

In Q4 of 2022 we threw out/salvaged parts from thousands of these units due to the faulty power unit. We've also spent thousands shipping defective units from customers to our warehouse to then ship out a Canada tested unit... which could fail at any moment. When our QC inspector was testing these replacement warranty units, they were opening "new" stock and had a failure rate of nearly 40% out of the box.

But they have learned because the latest order went back to the original supplier.

The phrase "penny wise, pound foolish" comes to mind...

[Spuds]

First time I flew on a private jet one of the two engines lost all it's oil somewhere over Tennessee. That was... not a fun experience.

Short version is the engines had less than 10 hours since a rebuild and clearly at least one wasn't rebuilt right. So we spent over an hour on minimum throttle going upwind to the nearest big airport knowing one of the two engines put together by the same shop had just failed.