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Understanding Engineers


Red Logan #12252

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Being a retired engineer, I have a slightly different take on the field of engineering. A lot of different fields are called engineering and many are not design related.

 

I was Director of Production Engineering at a large aerospace company. Our responsibility was in the fields of manufacturing engineering, industrial engineering and manufacturing technology. We were the so called trouble shooters. When production problems arose, we were called in to fix these problems. I had engineers from many different specialties and experience to call on depending on the type of problem. Manufacturing folks hated us and called us the spies :wacko: But usually we fixed what was wrong and kept the production schedule and costs on track. When I retired we had delivered over 1500 F-18 aircraft on schedule and under cost.

 

Not all engineers are geeks, I had a lot of fun and it was interesting work, never a dull moment :D

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Mo my Dad coached me in a paper airplane building contest once. Operating within the guidelines and with his expertise the fuselage was one triangular cross section piece, the wing was a proper airfoil and it had both vertical and horizontal tail surfaces. It had a glide ratio that made the rest of the stuff look like manhole covers. He was, is and will remain my hero for being able to take something from idea, to design to product regardless if its a plane or a remote control system to take pictures of humming birds on the back deck.

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When my eldest daughter was in Middle School, the class (don't remember now what subject) was given a project to design and construct a bridge out of 5 sheets of 3' x 4" thin balsa. When they were complete, the bridges were to be tested to destruction with weight applied to the top of the bridge.

 

I, being one of those nutty engineers, helped her with the design, including arches and trusses, and construction techniques. On the day of the bridge tests, I came home from work to find her grinning from ear to ear. She told me that all the bridges that were submitted were fairly easily destroyed as weight was added to them. All, that is, except hers. When the weight applied to the top of the bridge exceeded 200 pounds, the test was halted for fear of what might happen to flying pieces when the load limit was finally exceeded. Her bridge never did break.

 

I really made some points with her that day.

 

 

Warhorse

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