Page 120 - MY STORY
P. 120
Scene 3 – About two months before day zero
Engineering Offices, Douglas Aircraft
Cal M and Austin P were leading a proposal effort to win
a competitive R&D contract from the Research Labs of
Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio. The USAF recognized the
value of using the electron microscope as part of the
failure investigation process and was soliciting bids from
the major airframe companies and research institutions to
generate a “Handbook of Electron Microscope
Fractography” that would teach the industry how to
conduct investigative procedures and interpret fracture
features observed in the electron microscope to aid in the
identification of failure root-causes. This procurement
was hotly competitive, with our feeling that Boeing
Aircraft in Seattle would be hard to beat.
Unlike Douglas, Boeing had written many papers on the
subject. Austin P and our manager, Cal M, had worked
the proposal effort and submitted the proposal to the
USAF in Dayton. One of the key technical evaluators
was Howard Z, the manager of the USAF Failure
Analysis lab at WPAFB in Dayton, the sponsor of the
proposal request. Douglas had been using the electron
microscope for fractographic failure investigations for
years and had developed a very high degree of
