A bit Heath Robinson

In the later part of 1990 one of the structural proposals I was involved with for Menasco was for a latch mechanism for the Boeing 777, not just a simple door latch that is, this was one latch actuator (of a series of seven or eight a side) that would allow the wings to fold up.

Yes, you heard me, a folding wing concept on a massive airframe like the 777.

I'd heard the phrase before, probably from good old Jim Collins and here it was again from Larry Abram, as he put it in a meeting one day:

"It's a bit Heath Robinson"

That's one of the English phrases in life that can sum up an entire concept as being far-fetched, overly complex or just plain old silly, yet here we were, a group of important design and structural engineers, giving it a go (again, the paint it pink approach for your average contractor).

The latch mechanism was the first that I had been involved with where the "rapid prototyping" approach was used, nowadays we just call it 3D printing which is fairly inexpensive, but in 1990 it was far from cheap. However, watching a three-dimensional CAD solid be created into a tangible, full size prototype was impressive.

This was not the first full size prototype in my career however, if you exclude photo-elastic models for various landing gear systems, the best, most exciting mock-up was for the C-17 fuselage, back in 1985 when I was enjoying life at McDonnell Douglas in California.

I've never mentioned the T-45 mock-up that we had back then either, however, something hand crafted from foam board, sitting on a table, could hardly compare with my first rapid prototype that evolved from a designers sketch, stressed using a rudimentary beam model, developed into a CAD solid and finally printed (sintered) using minute plastic beads to produce a life size component.

Amazing, even if the (doomed) concept was a bit Heath Robinson.