Defense One: Raytheon has called in retired engineers to teach its employees how to build the Stinger missiles heavily used by Ukraine’s military—using blueprints drawn up during the Carter administration.
It’s the latest example of a private company working to ramp up production of a now-in-demand weapon that the Pentagon hasn’t purchased in decades.
“Stinger’s been out of production for 20 years, and all of a sudden in the first 48 hours [of the war], it’s the star of the show and everybody wants more,” Wes Kremer, the president of RTX’s Raytheon division, said during an interview last week at the Paris Air Show.
The United States has sent nearly 2,000 of the heat-seeking missiles to Ukraine, which has used them to shoot down Russian aircraft. All of those missiles have come from U.S. military stockpiles. And the Biden administration said this week it will send even more Stingers to Ukraine. more
50 yo White guys,
Assemble!
Because there is no money in Peace.
AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Hope the Russians nuke us. There’s no hope. No way out. It’s ovah.
Would literally join the invading army. ANY invading army. Fuck this country. Maybe we’ll break up into 300 insignificant ridiculous countries.
Anything beats what we got right now.
I know a fellow, I think I might of had coffee with him once. He’s got a very loud mouth & a very nasty individual, he throws off a lot of heat, just point,aim & fire.
What the…?!?
Won’t it be entertaining if the grid goes down.
There’s a lot of what’s called ‘tribal knowledge’ in building defense contractor products.
^^^^^^
The problem is not unique to Raytheon Missile. Young Engineers don’t know how to read blue prints. They’re use to looking at a solid model on a computer screen.
it’s because the new diverse bunch can only read blueprints in crayon.
Once the CNC machine doesn’t work today’s new machinist can’t make anything.
Stick welding is also becoming a lost art.
AS one of those engineers, I can tell you it is much more than reading the print. What about parts? What about tooling? There must be some good old fashioned ANALOG stuff in there. Some software weenie will have no idea about biasing, 1/f noise levels, power supply stability. Can’t imagine.
You know they run off a chemical battery that gets red hot. Insane vibration. Lots of fun.
Different Tim,
Ditto Oxy Acetylene.
We got guys out there that can’t even set the flame, never mind Brazing Copper Pipe with it.
Plumbers now use Plastic & Crimped Metal Bands. They were sniffing too much Glue bonding Drains.
Different Tim AT 6:33 PM
“Stick welding is also becoming a lost art.”
…and you need to ennunciate very clearly if you call a good welder a Tigger…
“What about parts? What about tooling”
All controlled by prints. The ultimate problem here is they lost the process. So much for ISO. Having said that ProE, Solid Works, etc, are dynamic as hell. You could teach a 12 year old conservative child how to assemble one of these by watching the movie. A Libtard, good luck.
Kcir – Boring Straight Honkie in my 50’s & Proud AT 7:55 PM
“Different Tim,
Ditto Oxy Acetylene.”.
…when I was doing exhaust work for Kmart and Sears, I got to where I could cut an inside pipe out without damaging the outside one, and blow out manifold bolts in a closed end hole without damaging the threads. It was mostly out of necessity and with volume and repetition we all got pretty good at it.
Last couple of years I was witb them Sears banned torches tho,around 99 or so. ths was because some boob in one of the then hundreds of auto centers cut an upper rear shock mount on an LTD and set the guy’s trunk carpeting on fire. Sears was a very one-size-fits-all corporation then so when ONE young dude screwed up, it took the torches away from EVERYONE, and cutoff wheels weren’t NEARLY as efficient or versatile, and STILL could be fire hazards.
Things like that dumb the kids down. They don’t learn because companies are too risk adverse to let them make the mistakes that lead to experience.
…and then they wonder why they go out of business…
How about basic soldering? How about mil-spec soldering? You know an amazing amount of that “old tech” was hand soldered. My stuff all was. And every joint inspected. You are not going to watch any amount of videos and suddenly make 1000s of perfect joints. Who knows anything about lead/tin/silver alloys AND fluxes? How to perfectly strip teflon wire. Stress relief loops and proper cabling. And the chemicals! Imagine showing up with an open can of carbon tet to clean all those perfect solder joints.
I love Plasma Cutters too. You really feel like you’ve got the powah when you cut plate steel like its butter, in a perfectly straight line almost as fast as you can pull the head back, with molten steel blowing out in a firey stream underneath, most fun you can have with your clothes on, that involves metal working at any rate…
LasVegasBrad AT 10:15 PM
“How about basic soldering?”
…I was doing component level repairs on DC drives up to about 2000 or so. Electronics got a lot smaller and more integrated by then and components basically weren’t available to fix them even if you wanted to try, and breadboarding went out the window with Radio Shack failing, so most soldering nowadays is limited to cable attachments and puttimg ends on copper wire to make landing more positve, so its no wonder its a dying art with the kids….
SNS,
No One wants to pay for the apprentice to learn on construction or service.
The builders payed the Journeyman but they want the apprentice for free.
As a result, less got trained and now the shortage is severe.
You would be surprised at how I speak to these very same builders 36 years latter…
I don’t need the money, their business, or the government regulations anymore. I told my last Inspector to Go Fuck Himself & Show Me, as I Held out My tools.
“We are not allowed to touch anything Sir”
He left, no fines, charges, or deficiencies.
LasVegasBrad
“How about basic soldering?” That’s a lost art my friend.
I am sure it is Brad. I bring it up since that older tech Mil equipment will surely be full of hand soldered connections. So their ancient blueprint will simply show “Cable M” and who will be begin to find all the correct gold plated connector pins, correct sized TFEE wires, all the incredible special tools to assemble even ONE cable. OH yeah; I can picture it already.
Now multiply that by the sensor package, the steering equipment, the gyro package….and of course the Rocket Motor!!!
I had to be IPC-7711 certified to solder for reworks/repair during my time in Product Service (semi-large defense contractor). Initial class was 2 weeks long, and 2 day recertification every 2 years – and you need to show proficiency to pass. There are a lot of specialized tools for working with SMT components. For some of the tiny stuff you need a 3D microscope.
Binocular microscope. You know what I mean.
LasVegasBrad
Yea, you’ve been there done that. I’m guessing a manufacturing engineer. A process guy. I’ve always had issues with ISO. Starting with when it was originally formed no American quality org was invited to participate. Those same euopeons can brag about what ever want. But bottom line is, they could never match our capabilities. A couple years ago they destroyed 9858, gauging and calibration. No longer allowed. They replaced it with some generic bull shit no one even understands. I saw this for what it was back in 1998. A attack on white American male intellect. Tell me I’m wrong
Not to take away from anything that you guys have done, but for example, my youngest son is a welder for General Dynamics in naval shipyards and this is something I can’t imagine, but he can lay on his belly or his back, and weld the backside of a pipe using a mirror to see his bead. And his welds pass inspection. I’m thinking we need more skilled craftsmen like that. Right now he’s turning down more work than he’s willing to do.
That’s great joe6.
Good to hear, most younger guys I work with a pure blunt instruments.
Not only are they extremely sensitive to criticism, their first instinct if something is hard to disassemble, get the grinder, torch, & hammer.
Nuance is also a lost art as well.
Society is doomed because your son will likely never be fully appreciated because he is a talented White male.
for sure Joe, welders are awesome. So were the old machinists I remember milling out Fighter jet hardware. Yes, I know it is CNC now, even awesome 3D printing with dual scanning lasers. But something got lost like you said Brad. A real machinist could make the most awesome part from a hand sketch. He knew all the radius by heart, where the relief holes would go, where the welds would go….You know how complex that stuff gets. And of course, he knew his materials! And heat treating and coatings. I despair that some young idiot imagines his CNC machine could ever equal that.
stick-welded plate steel on elevated tanks, standpipes, pipe joints, mil-spec’d welding joints on high-pressure sludge lines, soldered everything from copper pipe joints to electronic boards (& de-soldered ’em too)
lost art … we landed men on the moon w/ slide rules
if our Chinese-manufactured chips f’up … the whole world is fucked … with a capital ‘F’ … no more building/manufacturing ANYTHING … how ya gonna get to your next ‘Women’s Study’ class? … “what happened to the air conditioning?”
who needs an EMP? … we’ve already totally f’ed ourselves through our ‘educational’ system … I cringe at the ‘males’ that date my younger granddaughters
ok, I’m in a mood …. gonna stop now …. good night all
Basic soldering with the 3 C’s, and heat sinks, when needed.
At ABC they took away all of our rosin core lead solder and gave us some garbage that was SUPERIOR. We had to sneak in some Nassau Metals Rosin Core. We really had to sneak. Under penalty of SUSPENDED!
Erik, they were headed towards no lead soldering when I retired. Another whole class for that, the instructor laughed and said all the lead from solder from the electronic industry is a fraction of 1%. All these regulations are counter productive.
Oh yes, I went through that also. Always had a stash of 63/37 lead solder with real flux. Nothing was ever better….how nice you boys know about THAT. G’night all.
extremely racist to use competent owg’s when there are useless diversity assholes available