I could post some links but then I'd be ßanned. Or at the very least Magnum would have a talk with me.

Magnum? You wanna field this one?

I walk through that plant floor everyday, and it is amazing. I do find it interesting that it is alot of manual work involved, but I am sure there are reasons for it. Whether it's a union labor thing, or something else. I wouldn't even know how to speculate on the reasons for what they do, but I love going in and seeing the 18's and 15's being built. Very cool stuff.

Um... maybe you haven't noticed, but military aircraft are not bought by the millions. Heck, they aren't even bought by thousands these days, and most sales are well under a hundred units. "Meaning what Rick?" Meaning, automation is expensive, expensive and time consuming to set up, has it's own tweeks and tuning to sort out before the product comes out perfect, and has a degree of inflexibility to new changes. Meaning, if you only plan on making a couple thousand of them, in their entire production life, in some cases "automation" is more expense and trouble than it's worth. Making aircraft TODAY is one of those. Remember, in WW2 aircraft were all mass produced with "human automation" on assembly lines. Those aren't seen today, for a reason.

Cars are probably about the most complex products that are made through automation. But even then, sportscars are not, since regular cars are made at a rate typically 20 000 units/year, while sportscars especially fancy expensive ones are typically less than 1000 units/year. It doesn't make sense to automate if the cost of automation is more than simply training humans to do it. That goes double if you aren't sure how many of them will be bought. Then there is the complexity of the internal guts of modern fighters, do you really want to trust a robot arm to move stuff about in the tight wiring bundles and hydraulic lines inside, without scraping or bending any of them, when you could get a careful human to do it?

You guys are kidding, right? If it were possible, it would no doubt be done. It has nothing to do with politics or cheaper labor or the amount ordered etc... It simply is not possible with the availiable technology. I cannot begin to explain, really. The criteria, the tolerences, the high precision... the list goes on. Imagine being able to mass produce a high performance, high quality, state of the art fighter aircraft (Fighter Aircraft people!) at a rate of thousands, heck, tens of thousands per year! If any enemy country could pull that off, our skies would be "clouded" with masses of fighters everywhere.

Great video.


Wheels