Air Force Magazine – July-August 2019

   JULY/AUGUST  AIRFORCEMAG.COM

Next came systems development. “We adopted an agile
mindset and a block plan approach to hardware and software
integration,” he explained. “is had us releasing software
every eight weeks and testing it at the system level to validate
our requirements. By doing this, in such a disciplined way—at
frequency—it allowed us to reduce our software eort by 50
percent.”
The ground-based training system was developed in
parallel with the aircraft. Because the aircraft software and
simulator software are on a matching pace, pilots will never
see something dierent in the airplane than they see in the
sim, Niewald said.
e 3-D models translated into parts so precisely tooled
that pieces t perfectly together on Day One. “is allows us
to have a shimless design,” Niewald said. “We had one master
tool on the program, and the parts were self-locating. is
allowed us to have something like a 75 percent increase in
rst-time parts quality.” Among parts suppliers, “everybody
knew what their interfaces were.”
Computer-aided design and modeling has existed for
decades, but the level of delity possible today is greater. By
applying “dimensional management and dimensional anal-
ysis on the parts, we knew with certainty that when the parts
were manufactured and came together, they would come
together just as we had modeled,” Niewald said.

Parts came back “one-time, rst-time quality. It comes

back, it ts together.”

So great is the fidelity of Boeing’s virtual wind tunnel

tests, in fact, that Boeing expects it could skip some flight

testing.

Indeed, Niewald said the strong validation of the models—

and the performance of the actual aircraft in ight—may make

future wind tunnel tests unnecessary. “If it were me,” he said,

all wind tunnel testing would be eliminated. Boeing had full

trust in the model to “represent full-scale ight with the com-

putational uid dynamics, because it continues to advance.”

All assumptions were questioned, and new techniques were

developed. For example, the canopy transparency is attached

to the frame with an “injected adhesive sealant,” eliminating

600 fasteners. “We had planned six weeks in the schedule to

assemble the canopy,” Niewald said. “It took us eight days.”

Overall, T-X requires 80 percent less touch labor than tra-

ditional manufacture, and rework has been reduced to 0.03

percent, he claimed.

So condent was Boeing in its new approach that it priced

its oer to the Air Force about $9 billion below what service

ocials anticipated.

Precisely how those savings break out are a matter of

competitive edge for the company. “is is a story that we

have guarded jealously, for a number of years, in term of the

Boeing’s T-X
advanced
pilot training
aircraft were
developed to
meet the specific
requirements of
the USAF. Photo: John Parker/Boeing