From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp*lib.org)
Date: Fri Jul 11 1997 - 23:45:30 MDT
>Man
>made air vehicles have always had maintenance requirements of between
>20-100 man hours per flight hour.
I'm not sure that your low end number is literally true. I'm going to
visit my local F.O.B pretty soon, and I'll try to get their numbers
for the low end. It may (in fact, I expect it will) depend on the
timescale you measure.
>higher maintenance requirements, with the exception of some of our new
>military planes like the F-22, but vehicles like the space shuttle and
>the stealth bomber are still way up above the top of the range.
Bzzzt! Have you further considered that that's because they're absurdly
specified and designed, by political and pocket-lining
creatures? You do know the story of the B-1 and of F-111s, right?
To take the latter example, suppose I insisted on fielding a full
complement of F-111s (the B variant, I think) fully loaded with Phoenix
on an aircraft carrier. You're going to have hella high maintenance
if you really want to keep everything flying; in fact the carrier may
never be the same, either:). Those tubs land *hard*.
MTBF very much depends on how rich you are, how carefree you are (i.e.
"what's a failure?"), and how superior your tech is to the requirements.
I suspect strongly that the maint-to-flight hours ratio (whatever that's
called in aero, I forget) is, too.
The long term data isn't in for things like composites and the Zoche
turbo diesel, but I suspect they, or what comes after them, will
start stretching those numbers out into the sub-1 range.
<snip>
>As for your assertion of any visitors not being detected, this goes
>against logic. Given that some group, corporation, or government on
>another planet would have shelled out billions if not trillions of
>EBE-bucks for such an expedition, the idea that they would not try to
>wring out the maximum PR, scientific, or economic value from that
>investment is ludicrous.
Ah, but why is this a given at all? And who says they'd derive any
benefit from being seen? How can you (or Hara Ra) be sure you know
what their payoff matrix is for be3ing seen? What if their motto
really is "Primum non nocere (at least at first...)"?
MMB
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