LHX and the record week.

The LHX request for proposal had come our way and the schedule was tight (it seemed they always were) so it was going to be a busy few weeks.

The Main landing gear was quite the puzzle, having a planing link to rotate the assembly into a space constrained bay area, so it became an iterative process within that tight schedule, something that was great for the bank account but not so great for the mental stability of all involved.

Stability, that was something that was elusive for the FEM constructions I was involved with, the system used at Menasco was SEAS200 for beam models, which was similar to STRESS3 but as anyone who has used either will know, not quite the same. The two packages evolved from the same code but, over time, the respective owners or caretakers of the modified codes took their own paths.

So, SEAS200 and a rapidly evolving kinematic puzzle created what seemed like an endless loop of model making, at the time, coordinates were developed from the CAD model, hand cranked into the FEM and then  a fingers crossed approach ensued. Often unstable models were catapulted into infinity and specific reasons why became elusive.

So, mental stability became an issue also.

If I recall correctly, myself and a good CAD guy called Tony Barr ran through thirty or more kinematic variations of the LHX main landing gear over a period of two weeks, working weeks that included Saturdays and Sundays and of course, premium time.

The proposal was completed in time, not without frayed nerves and a shift towards evening alcoholism, it was at this point in my life that a job shopping earnings record was set, never to be broken in the years that followed.

In that final week of the proposal, I had worked seventy hours in total, thirty of them at premium time. I was on a lowish rate of forty-three dollars an hour back then, but even so, that last week provided me with a check of almost thirty-seven hundred bucks.

Mentally unstable, but money in the bank.