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"Leslie Peet" <Leslie -dot- Peet -at- fimat -dot- com> posted the old McDonnell-Douglas
warranty hoax.
Snopes doesn't say it, but the origin of this item is actually a two-page
humor item that ran in the National Lampoon circa 1989. I've still got the
original article at home somewhere. I don't recall the actual month and year
of the article, but it was definitely late '80s.
>The tech writing tie-in? Ummmmmm ...=....
>How about research on the needs of the user?
There is another tie in, and it actually hits on a topic we were discussing
just a week or so ago. Does expertise in the subject matter help? In this
case, it would. With all due respect to Leslie (who I am sure is well versed
in her own specific subject area), she didn't spot the glaring flaw in it.
This item appears to be well put together and it seems plausible that
somebody in aerospace might have composed it, so we the recipients of the
information have no reason to doubt it. Leslie passed the item on in good
faith, certainly. But if you have some knowledge about U.S. military
aircraft, a quick read shows that this thing almost certainly couldn't have
originated by anyone working for Mc-D, even as a joke.
The real clue is that in question 2, three out of four of the aircraft
listed by name were never built by McDonnell-Douglas (or even Boeing, who
bought Mc-D several years back).
>2. Which model of aircraft did you purchase?
>[_] F-14 Tomcat
>[_] F-15 Eagle
>[_] F-16 Falcon
>[_] F-117A Stealth
>[_] Classified
The F-14 was originally built by Grumman (now Northrop-Grumman due to a
merger), the F-16 was originally built by General Dynamics but is now built
by Lockheed Martin (Lockheed bought the GD aircraft division about ten years
ago), the F-117A is a Lockheed Martin aircraft. Only the F-15 Eagle was ever
a McDonnell-Douglas aircraft. It's like getting a product survey form from
Ford motor company, and having it ask if you bought a Corvette, a Jeep, or a
Lexus.
A McDonnell-Douglas employee, posting this even as a joke, would surely have
listed aircraft from Mc-D and not the competition.
Leslie, this wasn't intended as a swipe at you, and I hope it didn't come
off that way. It's a funny bit, I enjoyed reading it. But at least when we
forward it, we should at least give proper attribution. There's some poor
forgotten NatLamp writer who deserves the credit for this item. I'm probably
being a little anal retentive here, but there's professional pride involved:
I wrote some of the tech manuals for one of the aircraft on that list above
(you'll have to figure out which one).
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