October 12 – The Week Ahead Open Thread

New JetBlue Livery
Rumor has it that the airline is about to unveil a new livery for its fleet to celebrate its 10th birthday. I can’t believe the airline is 10 years old already! I’m sure I still have my copy of Airways Magazine lying around somewhere with their first A320 on the cover. How time flies!

Blog World Expo
The 30,000 mile quest continues, as I find my way to Sin City this
Wednesday for 2009 Blog World Expo. Nothing directly aviation related
there, but it’s a great chance to see some of the emerging technologies
that will help enhance Flightglobal’s industry coverage online. After finding
Apture last year, I’m a true believer.

From Vegas I’ll be flying directly to Orlando for…

NBAA
Perhaps no one subject in the aerospace industry has generated more world wide discussion more than business aviation over the last year of the global recession. Starting on Saturday, I’ll be in Orlando for the National Business Aviation Association conference. It will be packed full of BizAv events, interviews and plenty of news. A small band of rebels (AKA Flight journalists) will be covering the event top to bottom. It should make for an interesting opportunity to assess the state of US and global business aviation.

Kelly Johnson’s 14 Rules
A veteran aerospace engineer suggested I post Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson’s 14 Rules of aerospace project management. They were originally intended for SkunkWorks projects and were created in 1943 with the XP-80 program. They still hold true for aerospace today…even on the commercial side.

1. The Skunk Works manager must be delegated practically complete
   control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division
   president or higher.
2. Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.
3. The number of people having any connection with the project must be
   restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good
   people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems).
4. A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided.
5. There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.
6. There must be a monthly cost review covering not only what has been
   spent and committed but also projected costs to the conclusion of the
   program. Don’t have the books 90 days late, and don’t surprise the
   customer with sudden overruns.
7. The contractor must be delegated and must assume more than normal
   responsibility to get good vendor bids for subcontract on the project.
   Commercial bid procedures are very often better than military ones.
8. The inspection system as currently used by the Skunk Works, which
   has been approved by both the Air Force and Navy, meets the intent of
   existing military requirements and should be used on new projects. Push
   more basic inspection responsibility back to subcontractors and
   vendors. Don’t duplicate so much inspection.
9. The contractor must be delegated the authority to test his final
   product in flight. He can and must test it in the initial stages. If he
   doesn’t, he rapidly loses his competency to design other vehicles.
10. The specifications applying to the hardware must be agreed to well
    in advance of contracting. The Skunk Works practice of having a
    specification section stating clearly which important military
    specification items will not knowingly be complied with and reasons
    therefore is highly recommended.
11. Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn’t have to keep running to the bank to support government projects.
12. There must be mutual trust between the military project
    organization and the contractor with very close cooperation and liaison
    on a day-to-day basis. This cuts down misunderstanding and
    correspondence to an absolute minimum.
13. Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by appropriate security measures.
14. Because only a few people will be used in engineering and most
    other areas, ways must be provided to reward good performance by pay
    not based on the number of personnel supervised.