Re: [FT] Military Overcharging

And the C130 is an outstanding aircraft. (and has been for what? at
least 40
years) If it took 400 pages of specifications to make it so (which by
the
way seems hardly unreasonable to me given the complexity of the system,
then
it's well worth it.

Los

----- Original Message -----
From: Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2001 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: [FT] Military Overcharging

> At 8:41 AM -0400 6/30/01, Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
> >Derk Groeneveld wrote:The MIL Spec problem comes about from a large
> >number of peacetime warriors with
> >nothing to do.  The specification for the C-130 Hercules transport
> >was a total of
> >400 pages.  The pentagon did not have the man-hours to specify
everything, and
> >left much of the details to the aircraft manufacturers.  Four
> >hundred pages may
> >seem like a lot, but the specification document for the C-141
> >Starlifter could not
> >be safely loaded into a C-130, if one expected it to take-off.
>
> Having worked at Lockheed martin when they were putting together
> specifications for aircraft, this isn't quite so true.
>
> I was there for the UK-RMPA, the C5-D bid and a few other smaller
> proposals. The documents aren't that big. They are in the 2,000+ page
> range but that's because it includes materials advances, changes in
> design from existing systems and all sorts of very in-depth details
> on the design and its capabilities. Once the book was compiled, it
> was sent to the government board and they broke it back down into the
> various sections for their experts to compare with the other bids.
>
> I know this because I worked in the publications department and
> supported the Macs they used to generate the graphics and lay the
> pages out in Framemaker. I got to see the process first hand. I got a
> nasty speeding ticket on the day we finished the UK-RMPA (P3-Orion
> for the Brits) bid and the publications group was doing the final
> assembly of the document.
>
> I'd have loved to have seen the C5-D.
>
> --
> - Ryan Montieth Gill		  DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
> - ryan.gill@SPAMturner.com  I speak not for CNN, nor they for me -
> - rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com	       www.mindspring.com/~rmgill/ -
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