Time lapse build of a F-18 Super Hornet

[Bone]

kind of fun to watch

http://dvice.com/archives/2009/07/time-lapse-fa-1.php

[PRB]

That's cool. Sure is a lot of bits screwed together to make one of those things. Those workers must go through a ton of coffee every day to work so fast though...

[imn2sims]

That's cool. Sure is a lot of bits screwed together to make one of those things. Those workers must go through a ton of coffee every day to work so fast though...

Well I can attest from personal experience it doesn't go QUITE that fast. Being an NC electrician at Boeing St. Louis, I'm in those buildings from time to time (Bldg67&75) to repair the production equipment. After 26yrs I'm still amazed at how complex these machines are. I do most of my work in Bldg 101 where the F-15 and portions of the C-17 are built.
BTW I notice your KSUS reference so you must live around here also.

Steve

[falcon409]

After watching that (although I worked F-16's) I can safely say that . . . .That ladies and gentlemen is why, when you have to change ANYTHING on the interior of modern fighters they're a B___h to get to, lol.

[jeansy]

i was going to say, theres no chance that was done in australia

no defence contractor company works that fast down here

[T Square]

falcon409

After watching that (although I worked F-16's) I can safely say that . . . .That ladies and gentlemen is why, when you have to change ANYTHING on the interior of modern fighters they're a B___h to get to, lol.

Falcon

I remember an F-4C we inherited from another unit, that had a coke can that had gotten down in a compartment some how and was impossible to remove without doing structural damage to the aircraft. Depot's answer to the problem was to shoot expanding foam into the compartment to prevent said coke can from moving, then X Ray the compartment. The X Rays became a permanent part of the aircraft records along with a special inspection requirement to X Ray the said compartment during phase inspections to ensure that the can had not moved. Also believe it or not even the weight and balance records had been adjusted to take into account the added weight of the foam and can. Can't remember the tail# but it came to us with two kill marks from Veit Nam.

When you worked on F-16's did you ever get a chance to go to assembly plant in Fort Worth ? When we turned in our F-4s for F-16s we got a tour of the plant. I was amazed at the jiggs they had for building the cockpit section. They could roll the forward half of the 16, 360 Degrees and lock it at any angle.

[CodyValkyrie]

That was fun to watch!

Thanks for sharing.

[falcon409]

Falcon. . . . . . .When you worked on F-16's did you ever get a chance to go to assembly plant in Fort Worth ? When we turned in our F-4s for F-16s we got a tour of the plant. I was amazed at the jiggs they had for building the cockpit section. They could roll the forward half of the 16, 360 Degrees and lock it at any angle.

Sadly no. . .and the ironic part of that is two fold. . .1.) Lockheed Martin is right across the runway from the 301st. We share the same runway, lol. . .and 2.) A rep from LM would come over to the shop (Egress) about once a month to pick up Seats we worked on for them and yet with both those things going for me I never saw the inside of the plant, lol.

[PRB]

I remember we had an A-7 that an engine mech drove into a dirt pile when the holdback gear came loose during a high power test (oops...). The airframe shop had to rebuild the bottom of the intake "lip", and I was amazed at how thin and fragile airplane aluminum bits are when they are not all riveted together, and how skilled those airframe types are! This is why I'm glad I worked on avionics - I didn't have to x-ray the planes and take the wings off to get the job done! And in many ways, Hornets are easier to work on than, say, A-7s and F-14s. The avionics boxes are easier to get to. Most of them anyway...

[Bone]

Falcon

When you worked on F-16's did you ever get a chance to go to assembly plant in Fort Worth ? When we turned in our F-4s for F-16s we got a tour of the plant. I was amazed at the jiggs they had for building the cockpit section. They could roll the forward half of the 16, 360 Degrees and lock it at any angle.

Sadly no. . .and the ironic part of that is two fold. . .1.) Lockheed Martin is right across the runway from the 301st. We share the same runway, lol. . .and 2.) A rep from LM would come over to the shop (Egress) about once a month to pick up Seats we worked on for them and yet with both those things going for me I never saw the inside of the plant, lol.

That's too bad, Ed. I had a friend who worked on the assembly line there. His job was buidling the 4 foot square area around the gun port, and he took me out there once to see the assembly line in action. Years later he switched to another station on the assembly line, but I think he said he had built about 1500 or so gun port sections before he switched.

[T Square]

PRB

I remember we had an A-7 that an engine mech drove into a dirt pile when the holdback gear came loose during a high power test (oops...). The airframe shop had to rebuild the bottom of the intake "lip", and I was amazed at how thin and fragile airplane aluminum bits are when they are not all riveted together, and how skilled those airframe types are! This is why I'm glad I worked on avionics - I didn't have to x-ray the planes and take the wings off to get the job done! And in many ways, Hornets are easier to work on than, say, A-7s and F-14s. The avionics boxes are easier to get to. Most of them anyway...

I think on an F-16 for me anyway the leading edge on the wing was the worst place to work. All the wiring bundles and matrixes for the weapons stations run in about a 4 by 3 space, along with torque tubes. Wire damage and chaffing always an issue in this area. Most of the wire could not be spliced and had to be a specific length, if you changed the length of the wire or guage of the wire it would cause havoc with the weapons system, by changing the timing. We had this one F-16 was at EOR ground crew noticed smoke coming from comm access panel, had pilot shutdown and called emergency. Towed aircraft back to hangar found a short due to chaffing in a breaker panel forward of the comm panel. Melted wiring from the right wing tip all the way to the radar in the nose, melted throught 4 bulkheads. Aircraft is now a gate guard at Ellington Field in Houston TX. There was a lot of talk back in the day of future aircraft using fiber optics, I understand the weight difference but to me it seems like it would just be to fragile.

[PRB]

In the A-7E we had this “electrical fuzing system” that was similar, but not as sensitive to length of cabling. For electrically arming the bombs when they had electrical fuzes attached. It was all coax wiring from the control unit to the six stations, with the whole thing one big parallel circuit, so if there was a short anywhere in the system, the whole system was gone. Finding the short was a simple (“simple”) matter of disconnecting parts until the short went away, but the wiring went all through the wings and was sometimes a bit of a hassle to track down. F-18s have the same system, btw. Early ones anyway. Don't know about those SUPER-Bugs.

The Hornet wing is attached to the fuselage by four giant bolts (I think it's four) attached to a big titanium (or maybe steel) bit, which is mated to the carbon fiber wing itself in a giant oven (autoclave?). Very interesting process. Requires much precision. Got a tour once....

[brettt777]

That's pretty cool to see one built in about five minutes. I wonder how long it actualy takes from start to finish? What do the assembly instructions look like? Could you imagine Dad having to stay up late Christmas Eve to put that together?