nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
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 Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 10:46 am Post subject: Greatest OBAM aircraft achievement in history? |
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I was digging around in my mini-museum of vintage electronics looking for a part to photograph and ran across
this item:
[img]cid:.0[/img]
It was 24 years ago yesterday that the largest, heaviest, most fragile, aerodynamically unstable, and highest risk owner built and maintained aircraft departed Edwards for what is probably the greatest achievement in the history of OBAM aviation.
I was privileged to be a part of this effort. B&C LR-1 regulators were in service during the close circuit shake-down. LR-2 regulators were installed for the Around the World Flight. I think their serial numbers were perhaps under 25. It has been a humbling thought that the folks in the Rutan Skunk Werks bolted our work-product to this high-risk airplane with no questions that I can recall about failure mode effects analysis, reliability studies, DO-160 testing, parts de-rating, post-production screening, mil-standard components, assembly personnel training and certification, quality assurance manuals, membership in the club of ISO elites, etc, etc . . .
Had those regulators been crafted and delivered to modern notions of "aviation quality", they would have probably cost $25,000 each. The regulators we shipped were the same configuration of work product that went out the door to mounted on a LongEz and cost the guy $225. What's more, it was just a few weeks earlier that the LR-2 replaced LR-1 after we discovered some unhappy qualities in LR-1s.
I believe that nobody was happier to see that airplane safely back on the ground as I. Something profound that happens to individuals who take on tasks like this. Had those regulators been $25,000 each and the mission had failed due to regulator failure, no doubt there would be plenty of places to hang blame. The post-mission de-briefing would assert some "system failure." When 4 or 5 folks hammered out parts in a Butler building in Bill's back yard, places to hang blame are limited. No system in which to hide.
Very few folks in today's world are even aware of nor do they have an appreciation for what the Voyager program represented. It was conceived, built and completed a successful mission with the same top-to-bottom management philosophy that produced a host of airplanes that range from Blackbirds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Johnson
down to C-140s, Bonanza, PA-12, etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_aircraft
Voyager may have been the very last of such success stories. The last vestiges of this recipe for success has all but disappeared from institutionally produced aviation. But it hasn't completely expired. It's still happening in the shops and hangars of thousand of OBAM aircraft enthusiasts all over the world.
Yeah, there's uncle Burt's space flight program . . . another example of how a capable, closely knit and bureaucracy free program can bring new recipes for success into the history of human achievements. Those achievements have little or no potential for "trickle_down" to the form of aviation that inspires us to design, build, maintain and fly products of our imagination just for the fun of it.
Most individuals alive today have any concept of where all this began and how it evolved. If you told your next door neighbor that your RV parts were ordered from Walmart, there's a fair chance they'd believe it. When you show off your work-in-process . . . or you take anyone for a ride . . . see if you can plant some seeds of curiosity about the history and particularly the people who made it all happen. In particular, try to emphasize the fact the greatest things happened when unique individuals ignored those who were convinced, "that will never work."
Bob . . .
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