Good enough for government work

What folks don't realize is that the taxpayers pays for the sloppy engineering on the back end rather than investing in proper "unnecessary" [costly] engineering oversight.  Generally the Government take ALL the risk.  If the contractor builds it and it turns out to be crap the Government pays them to fix the crap because most likely the Government approved the crappy design [competent engineering oversight].  As indicated these are general comments of Government contracting.  The contractor is paid for the work done. good or bad.  The contractor wrote the software but the software is wrong, for whatever reason, yet the Government then pays the contractor to fix the software they bungling up.  The Government test and test then pays the contractor to fix the issues found.  How it works. 

 

Somewhere someday people are going to be concern about sloppy engineering which is the general state of military engineering.  Many of the program totally rely on the Contractor.  In saying this I mean the Program Office or Program Manager [PM].   Once I had the PM office say to my face "I trust the contractor not you."  Once with the Air Force working on the ALQ-131 Block II pod there was a problem with the new software [done by Westinghouse] being tested at Elgin AFB.  I was asked to identity the problem which I did.  It was a memory allocation error.  One line of code need to be change I show the problem and the correct to management.  Over my objections, management decided to pay Westinghouse $500K to fix the problem.  I have numerous stories wasteful spending by the Government.   Once on a ECP for the ALQ Block I + II Pod I reduced the steps the Contractor had to do, blue suitors would do it, yet when the Contractor provided the cost of the reduced labor ECP to the Government it had gone up significantly from the cost of the Contractor doing all work.  Government spent $100K to repair a Contractor proprietary loader I had replaced for $30K with a state of the art versatile PC computer one of the first used on the flight line because they did not have the right color of the money.  So it's crazy.  I saved irreplaceable circuit boards that the government was disposing of because they did want to pay another organization to store the equipment.  Storage space they use to own that was given to another organization who was now going to charge for the space!  I advised a contracting officer you could buy a microchip for $7 that was being bought for an exorbitant amount and he says that's just the cost of doing business with the Government or I got upset about the price being paid and the contracting officer goes that why I don't tell you engineers.

 

Pointing out how bad the engineering was only got me in trouble with the PM who controls the money therefore controls engineering management who retaliated for making folks uncomfortable about those accusations e.g. DO-178 that they could not be defended.  Essential if you read the Army responses the reason the Army has for not meeting world recognized (and the US) software standards is they don't have to.  Because they write the government regulations and as I've written it's good to be King.  You state that you can not certify the software due to missing or inadequate data yet you are told to do it anyway and then when you do not submit to their demand remove.  Easier to get rid of you than to fix the problem.  I was not willing to approve incomplete data even when ordered to by my supervisor Phil Howard.  Susan Davis got so mad because I point out under her stewardship the organization software process [EPIC] was total crap.  She then made faults statements and acquisitions [to be posted in the near future] to substantiate removing me from the government.  Partly as an extension of Phil Howard who threatened me with removal from the government for disapproving the engine control software.  He then removed all my work which he and management denied when I filed a grievance.  Bill Craig claim to be a devote Christian but had no problem lying to cover up Phil Howard's actions when I filed grievances.  To my amazement finding out that the Union President was just as bad as Army management denying me fair arbitration since I was not a paying member of the Union.

 

I pointed out that they are not meeting their own Army Regulation for Airworthiness and  what do they do they delete the offending statement in a new Regulation published within months of me writing Army management about the infraction.  Which clearly show Army management's lack of ethics and even the practice of good engineering.  There are absolutely NO technical requirements in the current airworthiness regulation.   The Air Force PRETENDS to have technical requirements but this is just a trick used throughout government engineering to pretend there are technical requirements which I intend to address when we take a look at the Air Force airworthiness regulations. 

 

"Good enough for Government work" came about for a reason!

 

Which originated in World War II. When something was "good enough for Government work" it meant it could pass the most rigorous of standards. Over the years it took on an ironic meaning that is now the primary sense, referring to poorly executed work.

 

So it ain't just me that thinks this shit but apparently I'm one of the few willing to do the right thing even if the US Government is willing to do "good enough for government work."  Attacking and removing the individual willing to question the BS.