A New Way to Help the Technical Library
We are very grateful to the people who have donated to the technical library over the years. The cost to keep it going is significant and we appreciate every contribution no matter how small.
However, donating is difficult as you are making a cash gift for nothing tangible in return (OK, you get some stuff from the website, but there is a tenuous physical relationship there….)
In order to make it easier for people to support the technical library we have moved from asking for donations to selling engineering related products. You can see what we have on offer here.
Our intent is to make the designs relevant to engineers, unique and amusing where we can.
I have ordered some of the products as samples and I am happy with the quality and the value and am going to treat myself to a number of the ‘bad patent’ t-shirts and sweaters.
We will be updating the range of merchandise and the designs so please do check out the store on a regular basis and if you can make your engineering colleagues and friends aware I am sure they will find something that will amuse and delight them.
How Much Oversight Is Too Much – Response
From one of our readers, Chip Haynes (reproduced with his permission, minor corrections for email speed typing):
I have a couple comments on your commentary that provide at least a partial rebuttal. Although I largely agree with your conclusions, there are some points that justify why we are where we are.
I think the increase in readily available computing power has also created a problem regarding integrity of analytical models. When FEA was first on the scene, the computing power necessary to actually solve more than the simplest of 1D or 2D models meant that only OEMs and large government entities (e.g. NASA in the 60’s and early 70’s) had the ability to perform. Today, anyone with a PC can solve fairly complex models within seconds. And the user interfaces have become “plug and play” so much that people with limited engineering knowledge can create very complex models. This gives the FAA (and other regulatory agencies) less confidence in what is being produced.
Given the production and safety issues that have come to light at one major OEM (rhymes with “snowing”), the relationship between FAA and design holders (whether or not those holders are ODAs ) is frayed to say the least. The FAA has reverted to the “trust no one” mentality in my opinion. This does not increase safety, and definitely increases development costs. But I can somewhat understand why they are going this way. (I use the FAA as a proxy for all regulatory authorities since I have most experience dealing with them.)
I also agree the “brain drain” at these agencies is significant and a big problem for any certification project. The FAA engineers I have worked with were excellent and highly knowledgeable in all aspects of aircraft design , development, and certification. Unfortunately, they have (almost) all retired and there have not been enough experienced engineers available to replace them.
Mr. Haynes makes some good points, tempering my hyperbole. Thanks.
