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Re: Re: North American YF-93A penetration fighter
Yeah, I know, but did Boeing say anything specifically purporting bercr's affirmation that "nobody will never see them"? Or is this merely an assumption?
Arjen said:You might want to put some distance between you and the idea that organisations always act in a logical way
Yeah, I know, but did Boeing say anything specifically purporting bercr's affirmation that "nobody will never see them"? Or is this merely an assumption?
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Re: Re: North American YF-93A penetration fighter
Probably just money, as you cannot keep an archive without labour, especially not, if it shall be
freely accessible for people from outside the company/organisation
That price would have to include the payment of the staff delegated to the archive. So for the officials,
those questions are simple arithmetics. How many researchers can be expected per year ? Whats the
maximum charge they would be willing to pay ? What's the cost of the archive per year (remember the personal
costs) ? And pretty sure, the final number would be prohibitive for most of us. And with this knowledge,
it's no surprise, that companies in most cases keep their hands off. Probably we should be thankful for every
document, that at least is kept somewhere in such a company, in a folder a cardbox or the broom closet, instead
of being sent directly to the recycler. The way companies are run, even that broom closet is causing costs ...
I still think, most companies actually ARE acting in a logical way and that's just the problem. Their raison d'être
is to make money and for this reason they are following their three golden rules: 1. Cutting costs, 2. cutting costs
and 3. cutting costs ....
As long, as archives won't help to achieve one of those points, they are just a liability.
Maybe that in some cases there may be ways by offering a cost-free clear-out, with the "garbage" later brought to
a public museum or the like ? Could perhaps give a positive image to those companies ...
Stargazer2006 said:
Probably just money, as you cannot keep an archive without labour, especially not, if it shall be
freely accessible for people from outside the company/organisation
Stargazer2006 said:
That price would have to include the payment of the staff delegated to the archive. So for the officials,
those questions are simple arithmetics. How many researchers can be expected per year ? Whats the
maximum charge they would be willing to pay ? What's the cost of the archive per year (remember the personal
costs) ? And pretty sure, the final number would be prohibitive for most of us. And with this knowledge,
it's no surprise, that companies in most cases keep their hands off. Probably we should be thankful for every
document, that at least is kept somewhere in such a company, in a folder a cardbox or the broom closet, instead
of being sent directly to the recycler. The way companies are run, even that broom closet is causing costs ...
I still think, most companies actually ARE acting in a logical way and that's just the problem. Their raison d'être
is to make money and for this reason they are following their three golden rules: 1. Cutting costs, 2. cutting costs
and 3. cutting costs ....
As long, as archives won't help to achieve one of those points, they are just a liability.
Maybe that in some cases there may be ways by offering a cost-free clear-out, with the "garbage" later brought to
a public museum or the like ? Could perhaps give a positive image to those companies ...
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Re: Re: North American YF-93A penetration fighter
I get your point Jens... but then why do Lockheed Martin choose to keep the memory of their companies (Lockheed, Martin, Convair) alive through Code One and pay people to do that research bit for the site? Possible answers: 1°) Passion for aviation from the top execs (unlikely); 2°) Image (most likely). Being a century-long company that has constantly strived to innovate and developed the most ground-breaking technology is good for your image!!!
Boeing has an incredible history too... and so do the companies it acquired through mergers (Douglas, McDonnell, Curtiss, North American). Given the millions such a company spends in advertising and communication, paying only three guys to dig up stuff and keep that memory alive would not be very costly. Not wanting to bother about it is plain stupid, but then they could give paying access to serious authors and researchers.
I get your point Jens... but then why do Lockheed Martin choose to keep the memory of their companies (Lockheed, Martin, Convair) alive through Code One and pay people to do that research bit for the site? Possible answers: 1°) Passion for aviation from the top execs (unlikely); 2°) Image (most likely). Being a century-long company that has constantly strived to innovate and developed the most ground-breaking technology is good for your image!!!
Boeing has an incredible history too... and so do the companies it acquired through mergers (Douglas, McDonnell, Curtiss, North American). Given the millions such a company spends in advertising and communication, paying only three guys to dig up stuff and keep that memory alive would not be very costly. Not wanting to bother about it is plain stupid, but then they could give paying access to serious authors and researchers.
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Re: Re: North American YF-93A penetration fighter
Companies are run by human beings. so personal preferences (or maybe even understanding for history !)
probably are an issue. And when the publicity department of a company regards an archive as worthwhile
for the popularity, another one may come to other results.
In the ‘80s I was working for ITT/SEL (later a NOKIA subsidiary) and got to know the head of the department
for technical standards, which doubled as the companies archive. SEL (Standard Elektrik Lorenz) was the
successor to the Lorenz company, which was heavily involved during the war in development and production
of radar and there actually still were cardboards full of old documents, which I only was able to peep in very
shortly, but amongst others there were detailed installation drawings for antennas and radar sets to the Ju 88.
Could still be interesting for us today …. The mentioned guy was well in his sixties and more or less just waiting
for his retirement, he had rode out all rounds of dismissals, because the compensation the company would have
had to pay was enormous ! So he still had his office with an additional room for documents and records, as
guaranteed in his job specification, because it was the cheapest way ! After his retirement, we got the technical
standards as microfiches, the two rooms were used again for “reasonable utilizations” and all papers, which had
been stowed there for decades, had gone ! It wasn’t a very big company, but I think, that’s the way things are
often handled.
BTW, we are far away from the original topic, but I think this discussion is interesting nevertheless, so, if nobody
minds until this evening, I would split those last posts and move them to the bar.
Companies are run by human beings. so personal preferences (or maybe even understanding for history !)
probably are an issue. And when the publicity department of a company regards an archive as worthwhile
for the popularity, another one may come to other results.
In the ‘80s I was working for ITT/SEL (later a NOKIA subsidiary) and got to know the head of the department
for technical standards, which doubled as the companies archive. SEL (Standard Elektrik Lorenz) was the
successor to the Lorenz company, which was heavily involved during the war in development and production
of radar and there actually still were cardboards full of old documents, which I only was able to peep in very
shortly, but amongst others there were detailed installation drawings for antennas and radar sets to the Ju 88.
Could still be interesting for us today …. The mentioned guy was well in his sixties and more or less just waiting
for his retirement, he had rode out all rounds of dismissals, because the compensation the company would have
had to pay was enormous ! So he still had his office with an additional room for documents and records, as
guaranteed in his job specification, because it was the cheapest way ! After his retirement, we got the technical
standards as microfiches, the two rooms were used again for “reasonable utilizations” and all papers, which had
been stowed there for decades, had gone ! It wasn’t a very big company, but I think, that’s the way things are
often handled.
BTW, we are far away from the original topic, but I think this discussion is interesting nevertheless, so, if nobody
minds until this evening, I would split those last posts and move them to the bar.
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Thanks Jens.
A fellow forum member just told me that Boeing are currently pretending that there never was an SST program; they simply obliterated it from all their timelines and historical retrospectives. How utterly idiotic it appears to me. Idiotic? Actually, the correct adjective is "Soviet": Remove some information from all official documents and pretend it never existed. Only difference is that there's no gulags in Renton or Chicago...
A fellow forum member just told me that Boeing are currently pretending that there never was an SST program; they simply obliterated it from all their timelines and historical retrospectives. How utterly idiotic it appears to me. Idiotic? Actually, the correct adjective is "Soviet": Remove some information from all official documents and pretend it never existed. Only difference is that there's no gulags in Renton or Chicago...
Stargazer2006 said:
I just checked the photo section of the online Boeing store and there are a number of SST images available for sale. And certainly NTRS and DTIC have a number of detailed reports on the history of the SST program.
As for Code One, it undoubtedly has a marketing slant, but Eric's articles on evolution of the F-22 and Super Hustler are still company-sanctioned efforts at providing a significant amount of enthusiast-oriented historical information. You get to enjoy the show, all you have to do is sit through a few commercials.
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