Just can’t get the shipbuilders nowadays.....

[bucksmanuk]

mcdjl said:

You weren't thinking of this pipe were you? https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cms...

No, but that is the sort of headache that i tend to deal with....

[PugwasHDJ80]

KrissKross said:

CrutyRammers said:

Lord Marylebone said:

Indeed. How can you?

But I recently witnessed my with my own eyes a British designed and made intercooler and pipework rob a 750bhp GTR of over 50bhp compared to an American system of the same size and the same flow/power rating. The charge temperatures were around 30c higher.

It's just a radiator that cools air for fk sake.

The guy bought it as he didn't want to wait weeks for the American item, but ended up wasting his money as it was taken off in the end and swapped for the American one which cost the same.

With regards to aftermarket engine building, tuning, and associated parts manufacturing, the Americans and Japanese are just streets ahead of us.

I'm simply giving a small example of precision engineering, design, and manufacturing here Vs our competition abroad.

You seem to be generalising from a few specific parts for a very niche industry to "all British manufacturing is ste", while excluding all the examples given where it is in fact very good.

+ 1, why don't you focus on the specific supplier and not the entire country, they might not even be buying their parts from the UK!

perhaps i can give you three pertinent UK companies that will change your mind

Red Arch Exhausts- designs Titanium exhausts https://www.redarcheng.co.uk/case-studies/titanium...
EcuTek International- A world leader in the design of software that allows car Tuners to exist- http://www.ecutek.com/OEM-Services/Hard-Parts-Manu...
Cold Formed Products- Designs and Makes very very high quality Ali brake pistons for high quality brake components http://www.coldformedproducts.co.uk/

All of these are uk founded, owned and run and produce world leading products

[Evanivitch]

bucksmanuk said:

Or maybe the pipe is 12 metres long, and 400 mm diameter.
.......
Maybe it’s just a pipe and cymtriks needs his/her backside kicking.-I doubt it though....

My mate just did a PhD on shaping pipes, some would say he's a bit of a bender.

[wolfracesonic]

Evanivitch said:

My mate just did a PhD on shaping pipes, some would say he's a bit of a bender.

Buy him one of these, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

[Ian Lancs]

bucksmanuk said:

mcdjl said:

You weren't thinking of this pipe were you? https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cms...

No, but that is the sort of headache that i tend to deal with....

I hope things have moved on since these days... ( )

[ian in lancs]

Kccv23highliftcam said:

"Consider all the testing"

As a resident F35 naysayer, may I point out they haven't actually "tested" anything of the airframe and systems of even the BASIC go to war aircraft!!

Testing was deferred to get the program back on track many years ago.

That didn't work either.

rubbish

https://www.f35.com/news/detail/f-35-horizontal-ta...

[Talksteer]

glazbagun said:

Not just us, Ze Germans rejected a ship for the first time at the start of the year after they were handed a slow, overweight heap with a list:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/201...

And the Americans built a ship that can't fire its guns as the shells cost $800K a go!

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/201...

Along with the F35 costing a squillion, it's almost like defence contractors are taking the piss.

Virtually all defence contractors also manage to deliver successfully on time to civilians.

In fact the public accounts committee in the UK found that on average UK defence contractors delivered value for money. It is generally the military requirements drafters and budgeters who are to blame for cost overruns, which are generally because they mess up the requirements and then change their mind half way through see CVF.

[Talksteer]

hidetheelephants said:

I do have to wonder what the MoD/RN do for quality control these days; once upon a time there would have been some MoD civil servants and a couple of RN officers onsite in the shipyard, supervising and overseeing work under the moniker Principal Naval Overseer or PNO. Does this not happen anymore? This kind of stuff is exactly why you have onsite supervision.

Do airlines and ferry operators have their own inspectors go into the factories where their aircraft and ships are built?

It is generally interference from the customer which makes military equipment expensive and or late.

[Talksteer]

WyrleyD said:

Also look at the problems stacking up with the Rolls-Royce Trent engines for the Boeing 787, some of the components have been found to a very short serviceable life and it's costing millions and millions to rectify, replace the engines and compensate the airlines. Not something I would have expected of Rolls-Royce so it's affecting even the most highly regarded companies.

You do realise it's not a communicable disease between british companies:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/compone...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-10...

The certification process won't guarantee engine life times and it is usually impossible to fully durability test and engine during its development programme, aircraft simply fly too many hours in too many different places.

[WyrleyD]

Talksteer said:

WyrleyD said:

Also look at the problems stacking up with the Rolls-Royce Trent engines for the Boeing 787, some of the components have been found to a very short serviceable life and it's costing millions and millions to rectify, replace the engines and compensate the airlines. Not something I would have expected of Rolls-Royce so it's affecting even the most highly regarded companies.

You do realise it's not a communicable disease between british companies:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/compone...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-10...

The certification process won't guarantee engine life times and it is usually impossible to fully durability test and engine during its development programme, aircraft simply fly too many hours in too many different places.

Hmmm, didn't realise that they had severe problems too. I guess that the RR problems were publicised to a greater degree, I first heard of the problems when I was over in NZ and Air NZ had to curtail their 787 operations because of the engine issues.

[mcdjl]

WyrleyD said:

Hmmm, didn't realise that they had severe problems too. I guess that the RR problems were publicised to a greater degree, I first heard of the problems when I was over in NZ and Air NZ had to curtail their 787 operations because of the engine issues.

Nope, they all do. You don't hear (much) about it as each manufacturer would point to a different engine of their competitions with the result that the average flier would be convinced their plane was about to fall out of the sky thanks to the pres.

[Scrump]

Nanook said:

There are inspectors from Lloyd's, on site overseeing the fabrication.

So yes, this does happen these days, and no, this interference does not make things expensive or late, it means there's an extra quality check by someone with all the relevant expertise which can only be a good thing.

As Nanook said there will be a surveyor from a Classification Society overseeing the build. It is also not uncommon for there to be an owner's engineer or representative present to keep an eye on things.

[MBBlat]

Talksteer said:

Virtually all defence contractors also manage to deliver successfully on time to civilians.

In fact the public accounts committee in the UK found that on average UK defence contractors delivered value for money. It is generally the military requirements drafters and budgeters who are to blame for cost overruns, which are generally because they mess up the requirements and then change their mind half way through see CVF.

I'm convinced that defence cost overruns could be slashed by simply firing anyone in the MoD who uses the phrase "wouldn't it be nice if ...."

[Talksteer]

Nanook said:

Talksteer said:

hidetheelephants said:

I do have to wonder what the MoD/RN do for quality control these days; once upon a time there would have been some MoD civil servants and a couple of RN officers onsite in the shipyard, supervising and overseeing work under the moniker Principal Naval Overseer or PNO. Does this not happen anymore? This kind of stuff is exactly why you have onsite supervision.

Do airlines and ferry operators have their own inspectors go into the factories where their aircraft and ships are built?

It is generally interference from the customer which makes military equipment expensive and or late.

There are inspectors from Lloyd's, on site overseeing the fabrication.

So yes, this does happen these days, and no, this interference does not make things expensive or late, it means there's an extra quality check by someone with all the relevant expertise which can only be a good thing.

Doesn't happen in aerospace, regulation is essentially about demonstrating that you are a responsible party rather than the regulator checking things.

This is generally acceptable because products are made in volume whereas ship building in particular ship building for navies tends to be about very small volumes.

Which goes back to my point that if you want defence budgets to go further work out a way to deliver all capabilities which takes advantage of economies of volumes.

[glazbagun]

Spain this time. Sub built too heavy so needs to be lengthened for boyancy... meaning it won't fit in the dock.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44871788