This is a legendary set of laws for spacecraft design - tongue in cheek, but with plenty of truth. If you substitute "engine" for "launch vehicle", they apply equally well to aircraft design, I think. Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design
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But the background on the web page is architectural grid, not engineering grid.
Wanttaja
Well-Known Member
Good stuff, and all true.
My spacecraft design work has been mostly in the Rapid Prototyping field, for which we got our advice from the Klingons:
Ron Wanttaja
My spacecraft design work has been mostly in the Rapid Prototyping field, for which we got our advice from the Klingons:
Ron Wanttaja
Akin's Laws are brilliant ! That made my morning, and I ain't even one o' them engineer type animals.
wktaylor
Well-Known Member
ProfJ... thanks for the Akins Laws of Spacecraft Design... I've added them to my Quotes File!
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I have two other 'laws to submit'...
Following are some key rules Edward Henry (Ed) Heinemann (Douglas Military, General Dynamics [now Lockheed-Martin] Engineer).
Ed said he tried to adhere to these when dealing with people. They give you a measure of the man!
• Tell people what is expected of them.
• Tell them in advance about changes that will affect them.
• Let those working for you know how they are getting along.
• Give credit where credit is due, especially for extra effort or performance. Do it while it's hot. Don't wait.
• Make the best use of each person's ability.
• Strive to keep ahead of schedule.
• Don't waste time.
• If you're the boss, give guidance, direction, and most important, decisive answers to questions.
• Make sure people know where to go to get answers.
• Beware of office politicians.
• If you want to pick a man for a difficult job, pick one who has already thought out the problem or is capable of doing so quickly.
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
• A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. Beware of these.
• Respect the specialists - those who are masters of a particular phase of an operation. But be wary of allowing them to make big decisions.
• Avoid lengthy committee meetings.
• Avoid paralysis by analysis.
• Plan ahead.
NOTE1. Ed Heinemann was directly/deeply responsible for [2] famous tactical aircraft designs...
A-4 Skyhawk [All]
F-16A/B Structures/mechanical systems
Clarence “Kelly” Johnson's famed 'down-to-brass-tacks' management style was summed up by his motto, "Be quick, be quiet, and be on time." He ran Skunk Works by the Kelly's 14 Rules
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I have two other 'laws to submit'...
Following are some key rules Edward Henry (Ed) Heinemann (Douglas Military, General Dynamics [now Lockheed-Martin] Engineer).
Ed said he tried to adhere to these when dealing with people. They give you a measure of the man!
• Tell people what is expected of them.
• Tell them in advance about changes that will affect them.
• Let those working for you know how they are getting along.
• Give credit where credit is due, especially for extra effort or performance. Do it while it's hot. Don't wait.
• Make the best use of each person's ability.
• Strive to keep ahead of schedule.
• Don't waste time.
• If you're the boss, give guidance, direction, and most important, decisive answers to questions.
• Make sure people know where to go to get answers.
• Beware of office politicians.
• If you want to pick a man for a difficult job, pick one who has already thought out the problem or is capable of doing so quickly.
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
• A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. Beware of these.
• Respect the specialists - those who are masters of a particular phase of an operation. But be wary of allowing them to make big decisions.
• Avoid lengthy committee meetings.
• Avoid paralysis by analysis.
• Plan ahead.
NOTE1. Ed Heinemann was directly/deeply responsible for [2] famous tactical aircraft designs...
A-4 Skyhawk [All]
F-16A/B Structures/mechanical systems
Clarence “Kelly” Johnson's famed 'down-to-brass-tacks' management style was summed up by his motto, "Be quick, be quiet, and be on time." He ran Skunk Works by the Kelly's 14 Rules
- 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.
- Strong, but small, project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.
- 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).
- A very simple drawing and drawing release system with great flexibility for making changes must be provided.
- There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Funding a program must be timely so that the contractor doesn't have to keep running to the bank to support government projects.
- 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.
- Access by outsiders to the project and its personnel must be strictly controlled by appropriate security measures.
- 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.
- [not written down] NEVER do business with the Navy… They don’t know what they want.
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wktaylor
Well-Known Member
Augustine's laws were a series of tongue in cheek aphorisms put forth by Norman Ralph Augustine, an American aerospace businessman who served as Under Secretary of the Army from 1975 to 1977. In 1984 he published his laws…
Law Number I: The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin with a silk sow. The same is true of money.
Law Number II: If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would probably be twice as good as yesterday was.
Law Number III: There are no lazy veteran lion hunters.
Law Number IV: If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to.
Law Number V: One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output. Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average output.
Law Number VI: A hungry dog hunts best. A hungrier dog hunts even better.
Law Number VII: Decreased business base increases overhead. So does increased business base.
Law Number VIII: The most unsuccessful four years in the education of a cost-estimator is fifth grade arithmetic.
Law Number IX: Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent possible to make trivial ideas profound...Q.E.D.
Law Number X: Bulls do not win bullfights; people do. People do not win people fights; lawyers do.
Law Number XI: If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all the managers would fly off.
Law Number XII: It costs a lot to build bad products.
Law Number XIII: There are many highly successful businesses in the United States. There are also many highly paid executives. The policy is not to intermingle the two.
Law Number XIV: After the year 2015, there will be no airplane crashes. There will be no takeoffs either, because electronics will occupy 100 percent of every airplane's weight.
Law Number XV: The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the problems.
Law Number XVI: In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.
Law Number XVII: Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics; i.e., it always increases.
Law Number XVIII: It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of ten degradation accomplished.
Law Number XIX: Although most products will soon be too costly to purchase, there will be a thriving market in the sale of books on how to fix them.
Law Number XX: In any given year, Congress will appropriate the amount of funding approved the prior year plus three-fourths of whatever change the administration requests, minus 4-percent tax.
Law Number XXI: It's easy to get a loan unless you need it.
Law Number XXII: If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice.
Law Number XXIII: Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is currently estimated.
Law Number XXIV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most costly action known to man.
Law Number XXV: A revised schedule is to business what a new season is to an athlete or a new canvas to an artist.
Law Number XXVI: If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance.
Law Number XXVII: Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank.
Law Number XXVIII: It is better to be the reorganizer than the reorganizee.
Law Number XXIX: Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results hang on about half a decade.
Law Number XXX: By the time the people asking the questions are ready for the answers, the people doing the work have lost track of the questions.
Law Number XXXI: The optimum committee has no members.
Law Number XXXII: Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of turning problems into gold, your problems into their gold.
Law Number XXXIII: Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread.
Law Number XXXIV: The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed randomly.
Law Number XXXV: The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity.
Law Number XXXVI: The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea.
Law Number XXXVII: Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect. The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much.
Law Number XXXVIII: The early bird gets the worm. The early worm...gets eaten.
Law Number XXXIX: Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of the year, in either direction.
Law Number XL: Most projects start out slowly, and then sort of taper off.
Law Number XLI: The more one produces, the less one gets.
Law Number XLII: Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing.
Law Number XLIII: Hardware works best when it matters the least.
Law Number XLIV: Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics.
Law Number XLV: One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected.
Law Number XLVI: A billion saved is a billion earned.
Law Number XLVII: Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters.
Law Number XLVIII: The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about. Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing.
Law Number XLIX: Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds.
Law Number L: The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's, but four times as long as the official's who created it.
Law Number LI: By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more government workers than there are workers.
Law Number LII: People working in the private sector should try to save money. There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again.
Law Number I: The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin with a silk sow. The same is true of money.
Law Number II: If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would probably be twice as good as yesterday was.
Law Number III: There are no lazy veteran lion hunters.
Law Number IV: If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to.
Law Number V: One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output. Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average output.
Law Number VI: A hungry dog hunts best. A hungrier dog hunts even better.
Law Number VII: Decreased business base increases overhead. So does increased business base.
Law Number VIII: The most unsuccessful four years in the education of a cost-estimator is fifth grade arithmetic.
Law Number IX: Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent possible to make trivial ideas profound...Q.E.D.
Law Number X: Bulls do not win bullfights; people do. People do not win people fights; lawyers do.
Law Number XI: If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all the managers would fly off.
Law Number XII: It costs a lot to build bad products.
Law Number XIII: There are many highly successful businesses in the United States. There are also many highly paid executives. The policy is not to intermingle the two.
Law Number XIV: After the year 2015, there will be no airplane crashes. There will be no takeoffs either, because electronics will occupy 100 percent of every airplane's weight.
Law Number XV: The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the problems.
Law Number XVI: In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.
Law Number XVII: Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics; i.e., it always increases.
Law Number XVIII: It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of ten degradation accomplished.
Law Number XIX: Although most products will soon be too costly to purchase, there will be a thriving market in the sale of books on how to fix them.
Law Number XX: In any given year, Congress will appropriate the amount of funding approved the prior year plus three-fourths of whatever change the administration requests, minus 4-percent tax.
Law Number XXI: It's easy to get a loan unless you need it.
Law Number XXII: If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice.
Law Number XXIII: Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is currently estimated.
Law Number XXIV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most costly action known to man.
Law Number XXV: A revised schedule is to business what a new season is to an athlete or a new canvas to an artist.
Law Number XXVI: If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance.
Law Number XXVII: Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank.
Law Number XXVIII: It is better to be the reorganizer than the reorganizee.
Law Number XXIX: Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results hang on about half a decade.
Law Number XXX: By the time the people asking the questions are ready for the answers, the people doing the work have lost track of the questions.
Law Number XXXI: The optimum committee has no members.
Law Number XXXII: Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of turning problems into gold, your problems into their gold.
Law Number XXXIII: Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread.
Law Number XXXIV: The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed randomly.
Law Number XXXV: The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity.
Law Number XXXVI: The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea.
Law Number XXXVII: Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect. The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much.
Law Number XXXVIII: The early bird gets the worm. The early worm...gets eaten.
Law Number XXXIX: Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of the year, in either direction.
Law Number XL: Most projects start out slowly, and then sort of taper off.
Law Number XLI: The more one produces, the less one gets.
Law Number XLII: Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing.
Law Number XLIII: Hardware works best when it matters the least.
Law Number XLIV: Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics.
Law Number XLV: One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected.
Law Number XLVI: A billion saved is a billion earned.
Law Number XLVII: Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters.
Law Number XLVIII: The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about. Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing.
Law Number XLIX: Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds.
Law Number L: The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's, but four times as long as the official's who created it.
Law Number LI: By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more government workers than there are workers.
Law Number LII: People working in the private sector should try to save money. There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again.
wktaylor
Well-Known Member
OH yeah, and...
"It is necessary for us to learn from others' mistakes. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself." -- Hyman Rickover, American admiral
"It is necessary for us to learn from others' mistakes. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself." -- Hyman Rickover, American admiral
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Should be at the top of every HBA page.
How could a Grumpy Cynic not like this thread!?
