F6F Hellcat, surprise, surprise.

[toad]

What is interesting is that it took the Japanese quite a bit of time to figure out that Hellcat was not a Wildcat. The looks were similar but the wingspan was larger and bit different in shape. Also by the time the Japanese figured it out they had lost too many experienced pilots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAXWcT5JVQU
It is interesting to contrast aircraft development between then and now. Aircraft are much more complex now but the tools to design them are more advanced also. For a while when cadcam first came along some engineering schools dropped the requirements for engineering design graphics, the basic course in drafting, and put the emphasis on running cadcam. Problems arouse with prints maxim hidden lines instead of the minimum, views that would confuse which end of a part was which because they would generate a print with X,Y,Z co-ordinates that where related only to the part, which was livable, but they would put in the conversion data to relate the rest of the aircraft to the parts co-ordinate system.

[Darrell]

Back in the day it didn't take them 20 years to field a new plane, either.

[First Shirt]

The SR-71, which still holds speed and altitude records, went from "idea" to "flying actual missions" in about 6 years.

[Vonz90]

Back in the day it didn't take them 20 years to field a new plane, either.

The big difference is how they spec them and how often they were spec'ed. The specs up to the mid 60s were pretty much just give the best fighter, attack or whatever. Also the design houses would work on the next thing now and show the services and get feedback. Hard to do when there is only one new one every generation.

These days, the specs look like an encyclopedia.

[Jericho941]

Back in the day it didn't take them 20 years to field a new plane, either.

Back in the day all a plane had to do was fly and shoot bullets. ECS was virtually non-existent, apart from a few rare models sensors consisted entirely of the M1 Eyeball, radios were simple (and dodgy), and there was little to no automation. The study of aerodynamics, while not exactly in its infancy, still left much to be desired. They also didn't get the Foxtrot Alpha/War Is Boring sensationalist nonsense doing its best to paint everything as impending doom to the taxpayer. Could you imagine? Fortunately, someone did.

http://intensionalmagic.tumblr.com/post ... -halberd-7

[slowpoke]

Back in the day it didn't take them 20 years to field a new plane, either.

Then a lot of the planes were built by the companies and then sold to the airforces. Pentagon procurements put an end to that in the '70s when they refused to buy any F20's from Lockheed, which ensured that they wouldnt be able to sell them to foriegn sales. Its all DoD procurements now....

[JustinR]

Back in the day it didn't take them 20 years to field a new plane, either.

They also had an abysmal safety record by today's standards. In Bob Hoover's book, he talks about a lot of dead test pilots he knew. He should have been dead multiple times himself.

A common theme among successful aircraft manufacturers was a well managed engineering team. Whether it was Edgar Schumed at North American or Kelly Johnson at Lockheed, these men understood not only the engineering aspects but leadership and what it took to enable a large group of talented employees to function well together. During the development of the P-51, Schumed had a whole wall of the main engineering office covered in paper, and mapped out a timeline of the development of every drawing, every fabrication, every test, and every pre-production build. A bar hung from the ceiling to signify the current day. Every goal was marked by a pin, which turned green when completed, and red when they missed a deadline. Schumed personally made sure he got his employees the help and information they needed to complete their tasks on time. It was an incredible task that was accomplished in record time, because there was competent leadership.

Now, that's not to say they also had to deal with thousands (millions?) of lines of computer code in the avionics alone. And the capabilities of a P-51 seems quaint compared to an F-35. But I suspect that on top of the broken Pentagon procurement process, it's engineering by committee now, and we all know how unsuccessful that can be. That's what happens when a company is run by Ivy Leaguers rather than engineers. Seems all too common in corporate America now.

[Termite]

The SR-71, which still holds speed and altitude records, went from "idea" to "flying actual missions" in about 6 years.

Kelly Johnson was a freaking genius.

Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson (February 27, 1910 – December 21, 1990) was an American systems engineer and aeronautical innovator. He is recognised for his contributions to many noteworthy aircraft designs, especially the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Besides the first production aircraft to exceed mach 3, he also produced the first fighter capable of mach 2, the United States' first operational jet fighter, as well as its first successful twin-engine fighter, the first pressurized airliner, and many other contributions to a large number of aircraft. As a member and first team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works, Johnson worked for more than four decades and is said to have been an "organizing genius".

[Mike OTDP]

Software is the schedule-killer. It's always more complex than the vendor bid...and for every software iteration the vendor originally bid, he'll wind up delivering three. He'll propose Version 2 software...and deliver Version 2.1, which has half the capability (half of which works), Version 2.2, which has all the capability (but only the Version 2.1 capability works, the new stuff doesn't), and Version 2.3 (most of which works, but not everything).

This isn't like Microshoddy delivering another half-baked software version to the consumer market. Screw up aviation software, and there is a very expensive smoking hole in the Mojave Desert or Chesapeake Bay.

[MarkD]

When I was a grad student (Comp Sci) there were a bunch of other grad students who were engineers at Gruman. When asked about why fast computers on airplanes were needed one replied "Because when a pilot is flying twice the speed of sound he'd like his calculations done FAST."