And your information comes from _______?
I ask because it's a well known documented fact that the airplane would have passed certification as it was originally designed, but the FAA was afraid of this new fangled composite technology, so they made Beech/Rutan desgin the thing much more stout than it needed to be.
Firstly, show the documents. I swear to god I mean the documents, not whatever half hazard written crap from a magazine bemoaning the faa and their horrific absolutist ideas about certification and safety. There were structural tests done after the fact, after cert was complete ill add, confirming the hardening composites were suppose to give, and those passed. Those are sometimes pointed to in articles but the writers lose the chronology.
Secondly one of the reasons the faa was afraid was because the composite wouldnt pass lightning direct effects at first. The test make the composite a giant resistors melting the glue, I mean bonding, that hold the fibers together.Same thing on the 787, only it was that and some insanely dangerous rivets Boeing never did any QC on until after they were in the wings. In the 80s it would have been do-160 still I think, no bloody a, b, c, d, or e. Now sae 5412-16 covers most of it and I think do160 is up to revision f. Back then I still think we only wave waveform 1,2,3 (1-10), and 4. The direct effects were probably still the old ABCs, C dump going long and giving birth to 5a and 5b before we knew what that was or had a test for it. The failed tests would have been on record at the controlling fsdo at Wichita, but I dont even know how youd find them anymore. Environmental electrical effects are a continuing issue with composites, many airframe manufacturers gave up certification instead making select parts that were structurally sacrificial. It's tricky work getting them to pass, and thr engineers from the 80s were taking their first stabs at it. The trial and error was expensive. Also when I say tricky I mean to say it blows my brains to mush and some people think im pretty smart. The truth is I and most here are dullards, especially compared to those few engineers.
Now Rutan has made up crap that the plane was fine and the faa made stuff up. Rutan makes up lots of stuff because for all his structural knowledge he still can't understand why no one believes him that composites are just "black aluminum". Its a well rehearsed part of the mythos he's tried to create, it's bad enough I can usually spot from the writing who an authors historical source is. Composite isnt new, and any engineer thats had success in the process makes big bucks with their expertise, the first real wave is retiring now. Theres a reason rutan sticks to experimentals. It doesnt mean he's dumb, just that he's a little more down with the rest of us than he likes to think.
The Starship was a cacophony, and while it might be the taj mahal of turboprops, there was a lot of learning being done while beech built it. It was expensive and it turns out you had to add so much weight back into theframe to increase it's electrical cross section that the plane was even more expensive to build than the sales people feared. Yes at some point the plane got so heavy it needed a type, but that was for a variety of reasons. I dont know if composites were the main reason, but I'm sure we added some lbs it didn't want.
Now all this isn't to say the faa was perfect, but im tired of them being the scapegoat for every engineer that couldn't engineer around the problem. Building airplanes ain't like knotting rope or digging trenches. It's a wildly complex process maybe 8 or 10 people on earth can really do it on their own. I've been privledged enough to meet two of them while I worked in the field. Each manufacturer has a trusted few guys who are really the brains, and the team of 200-600 engineers riding their coat tails are there to do tasks delegated to them. Each one specializes and takes those skills to the next job when the project ends. Some of those guys think they know more than they do, and theyre usually the ones blaming the faa for all their woes when their narcissism and god given talents only take them so far. Of a 600mman group there's a possibilty that after 10 years one of them won't stop learning and he or she will rise to the top. It's very pure and completely merit based. It's often said in football youve got 32 teams and maybe 5 guys who can really be a QB that runs the offense and can do more than just manage a game. If there are 10 guys walking the earth that could engineer a starship 2000 or a 787 from start to finish I'd be shocked. Bill Lear could, theres a couple guys from beech who could given the resources. Wanna know exactly how many? Take all the manufacturers with a track history of part 25 certfied aircraft who haven't been bought two or three times now and divided, and are currently working on projects and multiply by 2. Figure 1-3 guys per Boeing Airbus Embraer and Canadair. You think theyres a pilot shortage? Oh boy. The truth is, even those couple senior design engineers screw up a little here and there, and it costs millions every time. It's amazing we aren't all still piloting blimps.
You're probably asking right now, "but theres lots of aircraft manufacturing companies". Sure, experimentals dont count, the part 23 guys do ok but part 25 is a grizzly bear that must be wrestled by hand. Not many people can, theres some that think they can, and fail quietly or construct some convoluted story about how regulation foiled them, and the rest of us without egos just sit back admiring. Sometime ask yourself why the US gubbermint sells the designs for their latests and greatest to the highest bidder? F22 has been for sale (not the radar obviously) and purchased 3 or 4 years ago? Another 7 and we might see one fly, and itll still pale in comparison. China might finally get that md88 flying after 15 years with the design and the tooling. They're smart too, its just very tough work because it takes so much brainpower and experience.
