Page 121 - MY STORY

proficiency – therefore our interest in bidding this

program. Shortly after submitting our bid Cal M chose to
resign and his responsibilities were handed off to me. As
of scene 2 (Sid B’s visit), the USAF had not selected the

winner of this competition.

Scene 4 – Sid B’s Second visit

Two weeks later: the Failure Analysis lab under Austin P
and his crew completed their investigation of the rusty,
broken parts dropped off by Sid B. The findings were

extraordinary and worrisome. Worrisome because they
completely contradicted the findings by Boeing and the

Failure Analysis Lab at WPAFB.

We concluded that the failure was caused by faulty
construction of the steel fittings, with subsequent crack

initiation, fatigue flaw growth until the fatigue crack had
reached a critical length, causing failure at a significantly

lower stress than a pure overload failure at ultimate
tensile strength.