Hey John,

My father worked for Hughes in the 60's when we lived in Tucson(where I was born), refurbishing air-to-air missles.  He eventually grew tired of the lay offs between military contracts and took a job in Alaska in 1969.  My parents agreed to try life here for one year to see if they would like it, they are still here.

Mark in AK

----- Original Message -----
From: John Bange <jbange@GMAIL.COM>
Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 3:40 pm
Subject: Re: Cracked Slider Hub Pictures
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM

> On 11/16/05, Loren Busch <starwagen@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Bad initial design. What idiot put a square corner on a opening
> in a piece
> > subject to lateral stress? Can you spell 'Comet Jet'?
> >
>
> Heh. Yeah, that's right, same deal there with square windows. I
> suspect the
> square cutouts in the 3-4 synchro slider hub are the work of a junior
> process engineer whose work was signed off on by an inattentive senior
> mechanical engineer. Process engineers seem to gravitate towards
> squared-off
> edges on things because it's easier to gauge whether the manufacturing
> process is properly calibrated. My father used to work on missile
> systemsfor Hughes Aircraft in the 80's. The DOD made them "second
> source" many
> missile parts from Raytheon, a very poorly run company. One day Hughes
> tested a $60 million dollar missile and the rocket motor failed to
> ignite.It dropped off the F-14 like a bomb and smashed to pieces
> on the desert
> floor. Investigation showed that the rocket safety failed to
> disengage. The
> safety was a 12-toothed spring loaded rack held in place by a 6-
> toothedpinion gear on a stepper motor. The motor would rotate
> exactly twice, then
> the arm would snap free under spring pressure and hit the switch
> ignitingthe rocket. The very end of the Hughes version of the rack
> was rounded. The
> Raytheon version was squared off and, as a result, it in effect
> had a
> THIRTEENTH TOOTH on the end of the rack. This extra tooth stayed
> caught on
> the pinion, preventing motor ignition. The Raytheon process
> engineers cut
> corners by discarding details on the drawing they felt were
> superfluous(such as rounding the end of the rack) thus saving the
> company money. I bet
> they felt real smart, having saved the company maybe a quarter man-
> hour per
> part. My father said that fully half the machined parts they
> second sourced
> from Raytheon where similarly "process engineered" into uselessness.
> Everything from Simple angle metal brackets incompletely shaped to
> fit in
> carefully specified places, to steel anchor points with squared
> off corners
> instead of properly rounded to fit MILITARY STANDARD underwing weapon
> stations.
>
> Back to obligatory Vanagon content: GoWesty has some pretty good
> pics of
> failed 3-4's
> <http://www.gowesty.com/3-4syncrohub.html>
> --
> John Bange
> '90 Vanagon - "Geldsauger"
>