Pete, Matt, and Michele had their picture taken with Bockscar...the plane that dropped the second Atom Bomb over Nagasaki on August 6, 1945...bringing an end to the war. Joe Downey had been a Flight Test Engineer on the B-29 at the Gunnery Range in Harlingen, Texas. That's why Pete was born in Brownsville, just 2 months after the war ended.
As Flight Test Engineer for GE's remote computer controlled armament system, Joe had to do the computations that verified that his upper and lower gun turrets and computers could be removed for the A-Bomb runs from Tinian Island...They needed the weight savings with the extra load. Joe computed that the B-29 flew high enough and fast enough that only the tail gun was needed for that mission. Statistics showed that 75% of the kills had been with the tail gun.
Fat Man was dropped by the Enola Gay on Hiroshima early on Monday, August 6, 1945. The Manhattan Project involved over 125,000 people from Enrico Fermi's demonstration of Nuclear Fission underneath the bleachers at Northwestern University in Chicago...to production of 100 pounds of material at Oak Ridge...shipped to Los Alamos in New Mexico...to a July test at Alamagordo, NM...to August 6 Delivery.
There were two Architectures developed for risk management, with Little Boy being the 2nd. Both worked as Bockscar delivered Little Boy on the morning of Thursday, August 9, 1945. Jeff tells us that the Japanese would surrender 5 days later on August 14. Time from Lee and Bernie's December 7 wedding to surrender ...44 months and 7 days...just a quick computation by Jeff Downey...or 3 years, 8 months, 7 days. The Boeing B-29 program was authorized in September 1940...with over 3,000 built by the end of the war. We also saw the B-24...8,000 built...Ford executives sketched a restructured the Production Line in a 24 hour visit to Consolidated Aircraft in San Diego...then brought Production to Willow Run.
The B-29 ended WWII, but started what would become the Nuclear Cold War. Diana and Pete remember the "Stop, drop, and roll" exercises in school, but we never thought they'd work. The fabulous 50's had some fear as America and Russia vied for control. Pete and Diana would later move the family to California in 1986 to work on the B-2. Pete had some qualms about building a Nuclear Delivery System, but a recruiter had outline the broader Vision & Mission: End the Nuclear Cold War. We decided to have a family meeting to give the kids choices between moving back to St. Louis, to Milford, OH, or to Los Angeles. The kids looked at one another for a long second...then responded..."Disneyland!" That began our 4 years in California.
The B-2 is beautifully displayed, and impressive in its simplicity as you enter the Cold War Section of the Museum.
The Museum has Air Vehicle 2 (AV2), the second aircraft and was assigned Registration No 21070, four numbers after AV1's Registration Number...21066. This AV2 aircraft never flew. It was the destructive test article that we tested to structural failure. The repair splice plates can be seen under the Right Engine area. The restoration Team signed the Nose Landing Gear Door. The Quality Signature is a B-2 tradition as 30,000 people signed a banner delivered to the Air Force with rollout of the first B-2 on November 22, 1988...built on Production Tooling with all of its Systems and Installations...but still a little epileptic in the Electrical and Software Systems of the World's Largest Flying Computer System.
Kevin snapped Pete's picture with his baby...Pete's Air Vehicle Number 1, the Spirit of America is flying with the Fleet today...Air Vehicle Number 2, the Spirit of Freedom is the closest the public can get to a B-2. The Motto of the 500th Air Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base..."Follow Us"...One of the B-2's Missions is to take the lead along with Lockheed's F-117 in wiping out enemy air and other strategic defenses...flying Around the World Unseen from Whiteman Air Force Base, southeast of Kansas City.
First flight was originally scheduled on Wednesday, July 12, two days before Dave, Janine, with Storey, Ashley, and Whitney arrived in California on July 14...the 200th Anniversary of the French revolution...Jeff again. We had scheduled Monday, July 17 for Disneyland.
Jeff Downey, our family historian, remembers the detail of key events. He reminds us that we had a Downey family dilemma on July 17, 1989...B-2 First Flight had been rescheduled that same Monday morning. With one of those "squeeze play" promises, Pete told Diana to take our 2 cars with Dave, Janine, and kids to Disneyland...Pete would hitch a ride with a fellow manager for the 90 miles up to Palmdale...and meet them at Disneyland at noon. Pete outlined a plan as Diana rolled her eyes...Pete gave Diana his pager...Pete would page from a Disneyland pay phone, she would call back, then meet up...the old days before cell phones.
The plan actually worked...Pete arrived at 12:15 (15 minutes late isn't bad) and paged Diana...Then we all met up at the Town Square to complete one of those "priceless" days in your life... B-2 First Flight in the morning, Disneyland in the afternoon...
Whitney proclaimed her love for Minnie and ignored Mickey as we were greeted in the Main Square. She wore her hat backwards on her dad's strong shoulders...later Whtney, Matt, and Storey waited for Tinker Bell to glide down from the Matterhorn to begin the Fireworks Celebration. It felt great to know the world would be a little safer for all of our kids after that day. In 2006, Matt married Kristy and Storey married Marc. Whitney is a now a beautiful young lady. We still have problems in the world, but at least we don't worry about a nuclear end of the world...and we need to keep it that way.
First Flight is like watching your kid taking his or her first steps. As the B-2 Taxi by as it emerged from the Plant, it's natural to ask...Will it fly or will it fall?...and if she fell, everyone might blame Pete's computer systems. Pete had sold hard to eliminate all Mockups and Prototypes ...Saving 3 years and $3 Billion. December 2006 marks the 20th Anniversary of the decision to dump Herbie and go direct to Production Build. We had a Team of 13,000 in the old Ford Plant in Pico Rivera ...and a total team of 30,000 including Boeing, Vought, GE, Hughes Partners...and multiple other suppliers...all in a Cloak of Secrecy.
She finally rolled down the runway at Palmdale and took off against the backdrop of the mountains. Kevin Thomas converted our Northrop at 50 tape to web-streaming format. Pete was interviewed for this video...with an excerpt used for the takeoff roll.
B-2.First.Flight.Northrop.at.50.wmv
After take-off from Palmdale, most people left. But 4 of us from Information River Management took off for Edwards...it was going to be close getting back to Diana at Disneyland...but this was worth the risk. We raced to Edwards in Sam's Camaro...pulling into the Parking Lot of the B-2 Test Facility next to Yeager's "pit"...a depression in the parking lot.
This is Pete's favorite picture of the B-2 looking North over Edwards. The B-2 Test Facility is shown below the B-2 in the picture below. The B-2 made its lazy circles over the white area for over an hour that day of first flight. This shows the laminar flow that had been simulated on our Cray Supercomputer with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). We also managed the Electronic Digital Assembly to specific Aircraft Number through Flight Test...We could show the configuration of this specific airplane.
"Yeager's Pit" was where Chuck's X-1 had been loaded into Joe's B-29 above to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947. The Joe's B-29 was the opening salvo of the Nuclear Age and the Cold War. It was a priceless moment to be Joe's kid by Chuck's pit thinking..."Checkmate Mr. Gorbachev."
The Spirit of Edwards is captured in the first 20 minutes of The Right Stuff as Yeager broke the Sound Barrier...The movie begins with the loading of the X-1 into the belly of the Joe's B-29 using "Yeager's Pit". TheRightStuff-TheBoom.wmv Chuck Yeager would join the Northrop Board during the B-2 years.
During Pete's demo to the Northrop Board in May 1989, we demonstrated the Electronic Digital Assembly...but you have to reach beyond Engineering and Manufacturing into the In-Service Operations and Support to finish the Customer operational basing vision.
| "With our Electronic Digital Assembly, we created 100% Electronic Technical Publications...eliminating a mountain of paper as high as the Washington Monument for each aircraft. Electronic Flight Manuals and Tech Pubs go on-board to mobilize to any airport in the world...impossible to destroy in a Soviet first strike...then we Fly Around the World Unseen for second strike. This obsoletes Soviet Radar defenses...$400 Billion that would bankrupt them to replace." |
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev had a number of productive meetings on disarmament. Gorbachev was frustrated that "Bombers" were not negotiable...Pete later learned why. This is a "Checkmate" move to end MAD...Mutually Assured Destruction...and why the Reagan administration pushed us hard to deliver, even though they had built 100 B-1's at the plant next to ours. The Electronic Digital Assembly supported the Full Operations and Support Lifecycle.
After the B-2 flew on July 17...the Berlin Wall fell a few months later on November 11. Symbolically, a replica of the Berlin wall stands by the entrance to the Museum Cold War Exhibit...immediately in front of the B-2. On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan spoke at the Brandenburg Gate and challenged, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Two years later, the Germans did it themselves. November 11...11/9...is the date that Tom Friedman uses as the beginning of his "Flat World." We had operated behind walls to protect ourselves from the world threat of nuclear annihilation...but we also had the built competitive assumptions that protected us during the Cold War. The fall of the Berlin Wall began opening the world to competition.
When Pete gave Friedman's Book to Dave Christophersen to read in an earlier visit, he noted the African parable of The Lion and the Gazelle. Dave noted another strategic option...A gazelle just has to outrun the slowest gazelle to survive, but in any case, the action is the same when the sun comes up.
The Air Force and Northrop were rewriting the book of Aircraft Product Development...the Air Force Saturn Program...Understanding of Stealth had changed the Strategic Value to the Customer...but it didn't stop there. The first B-2 was built on Production Tooling...flying 3.5 years after the new W-Tail Design Baseline...and that was 6 months late after our Electrical Wiring debacle. The Air Force and Northrop eliminated 5 Flight Prototypes from the Contract. We eliminated all Plaster Masters, and Pete pushed hard for the last step...eliminating the $60 Million/Year Manufacturing Development Fixture...a high precision Mockup. Northrop was moving FAST to outrun other Lions and Gazelles. The Air Force rated the B-2 Concurrent Engineering process as "5 Years ahead of the Industry" just a few weeks before Pete's drive to Detroit.
Dad Parks worked in the Topeka Logistics Depot supporting of WWII bombers. Matt taught him to make video after he saw Matt's Birthday Video to Kristy...Dad taught Pete. He now has high speed internet, and can ride along in a Google Earth simulation video of B-2 first flight from Palmdale to Edwards Air Force Base. B2.First.Flight.GE.Path.17Jul1989.wmv...14.6Meg, 1:37 Min Formerly Muroc Dry Lake Bed, it was renamed in 1950 for Glen Edwards, who had died in the crash of Jack Northrop's B-49 Flying Wing at Edwards on 5 June 1948...The Flying Wing returned 41 years later.
The B-2 Test Facility is now used as a much needed general upgrade to Edwards. The B-2 was in swanking new test facility with mission tracking similar to a mini-Mission Control for space flights...while the Northrop YF-23 and Lockheed YF-22 were on opposite sides of a wall constructed in a "tin shed" on the opposite side of the main runway.
The original V Tail was changed to a W Tail for Low Level Attack like the Reagan Administration like that developed for the B-1 Bomber, and earlier Fighter-bombers.
One Low Level Attack strategy is to follow a set of Waypoints along the River Valleys...staying low to avoid Radar. This simulates Google Earth "challenge run" down the Red Rock Creek at the real Headwaters of the Missouri River on the Idaho-Montana border just West of Yellowstone. Driving needs Radar, Engines, Airframe, Flight Controls...
MO.Red.Rock.Source.Low.Level.Attack.Simulation.wmv
Low level ground wind gusts push the aircraft up. The GLAS "Beaver Tail" was added to keep the airplane flying low. But there were major inter-relationships that drove new structure. This thinned the outer wing enough so that it could fail in a radical move...so the Rudder Controls on the Outer Wing had to do a very quick maneuver to relieve structural loads, and then return to normal flight control. Learned from Lockheed's C-5.
With the Design Baseline, we developed the Aerodynamic Shapes of the B-2...Synthesizing Aerodynamics and Stealth...simulated in our Cray supercomputer. This was the first step in our Dick & Don Demo. The math that led to "reflection management" was learned from Ken Ruff of General Motors... initially implemented with Tom Melson of McDonnell and Tom Weebe of Douglas. Tom Weebe and Hank Timmer brought it to Northrop...still being used on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter "tough stuff."
As everything was moved around in 1985 major reconfiguration, the use of the Electronic Digital Assembly saved $500 Million as we "morphed" items to new configurations. We created a very visual "Skeletal Schematic" to click down from high level to lower levels.
One of the challenges of Electrical was to easily traverse Sections...for our Dick and Don Demo...We used the Refueling Receptacle...Controlled from the Northrop Flight Deck...connecting the the Receptacle in the Roof of the Aft Center Boeing Section.
Beyond Board of Directors and Dick & Don Demo's, the refueling receptacle was used in training 6,000 Engineering, Manufacturing, and Support people...including the critical training of 1,000 managers. As this item flips over for refuel, then back to its stealth mode, it has multi-system integration characteristics...mechanical, fuel system flow, electrical control, interface to computerized Flight Control for flow monitoring and flight adjustment as fuel is taken.
On August 11, 1989, we did a $20 Billion Demo for Dick Chaney to show Dick and his new Number 2, Don Atwood from GM. The B-2 Nuclear Mission was threatened. We briefed a new conventional Mission...a B-2 and its tanker replace 50 aircraft...Give us 2 GPS Numbers...Fly Around the World Unseen...Don't Ask, Don't Tell...Long Loiter...We Deliver! If we had Osama's GPS location on 9/11...we would have delivered...but life wasn't that easy. Dick and Don approved 20 B-2's for $20 Billion. Bill Clinton authorized replacing Air Vehicle 1 Wiring, flying today as the Spirit of America.
Jeff Mirich, Pete's Development Manager, did the Board of Directors Demo...Pete had to take some time off with Diana for their 20th Wedding Anniversary on August 2...to talk about opportunity in Detroit. We've captured 5 minutes of Jeff's presentation in streaming video. When Don challenged how we had done what looked like an impossibility, Pete responded..."Henry Ford's Lean Saturn Pattern." Pete's Aircraft guys looked confused...as a car guy, Don Atwood understood, and he stopped challenging. Dick said nothing...but you could tell...he got it. Northrop had just grown up in the eyes of #1 and #2 in DOD.
B-2_Video_PD4_Engineering.wmv...Jeff Mirich Video of the Dick and Don Demo...sent to Pete in 1994 for review by GM's Bob Dorn...Came back with a note..."Right on!"
Jeff would later become VP of Engineering for Disney Imagineering...now Chief Information Officer for Disney Studios.
Matt told the story of how the F-15 (Pete's aircraft number 3) saved his team's life as they circled overhead in Iraq, while his team was surrounded by hostile forces. Matt's team visibly sat up and showed themselves to be on the radio...with the enemy thinking they were in communication with the two seater "E's"...and keeping them at bay until help could arrive. Matt's Team Leader, Buck, was a quick thinker...The E's were staging to attack Fallujah targets...But the enemy didn't know that.
We saw the old F-4...the Reconnaissance version shown with long nose for cameras and sensors. Pete's first aircraft was the F-4K/M...Morphing the Fuselage to a fatter version to house the UK's Rolls-Royce Engines...a summer intern job while at Notre Dame. We did it the old way with Plaster Masters, intensive tooling...Pete wrote his senior Paper on Ford's Clay Model process...then got rid of the equivalent in Aerospace...totally replaced by computers by Aircraft #7...the B-2.
The Lockheed's F-22 is the latest addition to the Fighter line...Northrop's YF-23 competing with the YF-22 at Edwards...every Monday morning in 1989 and 1990...Pete would fly from Long Beach to Palmdale...then to Edwards to visit the B-2...and hitch a ride across the runway to the YF-23. Northrop was First, Fastest, and Stealthiest. But as Pete showed the Museum group...Lockheed added "Engine Thrust Vectoring" Exhaust Nozzles for more Agile Dog Fighting.
This is the onlly known picture of the YF-23 and the B-2 together at Edwards as the B-2 takes off in front of its Test Facility, the YF-23 waits to take off behind it. #1 and #2 to fly without a Mockup...Alan Mulally's Boeing 777 was #3...usually counted as #1 as a production aircraft that never had a mockup...then Pete's F-18E/F was #4.
The Future of Aircraft is represented by the Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) hanging above the F-22...every move controlled by computer. The human pilot disappears from the cockpit.
