On 2/7/2014 2:18 PM, Bob Lowe wrote:


Hi - FWTW, I just cut this from a 737 accident report...Engine mounts on
Boeing jetliners are a major safety issue.
I have always maintained that I would make a poor aircraft designer
because my planes would be too heavy to fly. At one time I was a liaison
at the Grumman plant at Calverton, Long Island and it was after Grumman
had been asked by the Navy to design an F-111 version for them. They
built three with each lighter and after the third the Navy said it was
still too heavy and Grumman said okay, we are not going to build it any
lighter so forget it. So there are aircraft design engineers out there
that may think like me, but only somewhat, I agree. I worked for Douglas
Aircraft and their philosophy was, build it light, and then beef it up
where required later. Thanks,

Bob Lowe



That was Ed Heinemann's philosophy.

There were a few problems with the original A-4 Skyhawk as a result.
Mostly systems stuff . . .

These first four aircraft were really challenging. They weighed
some 9800# empty and everything seemed to go wrong on test flights.
During these early flights test pilots discovered that the speed
brakes cracked in a high speed dive, the metal flange alongside the
vertical tail peeled back in high speed runs and the slats tended to
hang up resulting in violent accelerated stalls. In addition, the
oil pressure gage was a simple flip/flop gage, with barber poles the
only indication of pump/oil failure.

On the other hand, once the teething problems were ironed out it was
one hell of an attack airplane.

It was reported that the wing had an infinite fatigue life - even if
flown at full combat weight and max Gs.