RE: A Day in Technical Documentation History

["Janoff, Steven" <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com>]

What if the plane's computer system fails or the digitized manuals otherwise become inaccessible?  No paper backup?  (Might be rare but you'd think as a failsafe...)

Also, anybody remember what happened with the Challenger shuttle and the O-rings?  I think this story was circulated a while back (at least once -- too lazy to search).  Was the documentation at fault in any way?  I remember there was an internal whistleblower in Morton Thiokol who had warned against the very situation that happened (launching in cold weather and failure of the O-rings, right?).

Thanks,

Steve

On Thursday, May 26, 2016 3:24 AM, Rick Lippincott wrote:

Bee Hanson said:
>My team's 40,000+ pages of documentation were in the cockpit...

Good placement. Sounds a bit more convenient than on the C-5, where (when they were still paper) only manuals directly related to flight were in the cockpit. The rest of the ones they carried were on a pair of deck-mounted racks immediately aft of the second bunkroom, forward of the first galley.

(And for those of you not familiar with the C-5, I am not making this up.)

Last time I was up in that area was a couple of years ago, the racks are still there but empty. It's all digital now.

--Rick Lippincott


On 5/26/16, Bee Hanson <beelia -at- pacbell -dot- net> wrote:
> I worked for MDC in the late 80s, not for the DC-10, but for the C-17, 
> which is still flying.
> My team's 40,000+ pages of documentation were in the cockpit, which by 
> now they have certainly digitized. But it's such a huge cargo plane 
> that extra weight would hardly have mattered.
> I don't believe any of those planes ever crashed (after first flight), 
> but I can't take credit for it. The whole program was run by the DoD - 
> a military project that was apparently successful.
> Who woulda thunk it.
> Bee
>
>     On Wednesday, May 25, 2016 7:41 PM, William Sherman 
> <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
>
>  Unfortunately, history is often created by incredibly sad or horrible 
> events. Today in 1979, that pretty much describes it. American 
> Airlines Flight 191 crashed after take off at O'Hare International 
> Airport in Chicago. A total of 273 people lost their lives as a 
> result, the deadliest aviation accident in the US.
>
> A coworker was only a couple of miles from the airport on that day and 
> saw the smoke all rise up when it happened.He says he will never forget it.
>
> How this ties to technical documentation is that it saved the company 
> that built that plane, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10. Initially blamed as 
> a poor design and as such, all liability would come on McDonnell 
> Douglas, it was found that MDC had fully documented the correct method 
> of removing and installing the wing engines and that American Airlines 
> and others were using an unauthorized shortcut. As such, MDC was not held responsible.
>
> Hopefully, your documentation will never be tested under such horrible 
> conditions, but please make sure it will stand up to such scrutiny.

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