>(I know
>> that structural steel was always custom fabricated in any shape and
>> dimension in Russia, so perhaps pipe and tubing is always custom in some
>> places)
I watched an interesting program on Discovery about the Soviet program to
reproduce the USAAF B-29 bomber from two intact aircraft which had landed
in eastern Siberia. Stalin directed that exact copies be made from the
originals. That meant that all the tubing, sheet metal, fasteners, cotter
pins, gears, shafting, bearings, fittings and the rest had to be made
from scratch to US customary sizes. You didn't argue with Stalin. It was
an enormous job, but they actually did it. I think it was designated the
Tu-2. They had no tooling of course so they drew everything including
what would otherwise be standard off-the-shelf parts, and developed the
tooling after they'd literally taken the planes down to nuts and bolts,
drawn everything. The Russian team was under incredible pressure from
Stalin and a number of the project people suffered complete breakdowns
before the first Tu-2 flew. That must've been what Churchill meant when
he mention the Russian capacity for suffering...
Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at
<a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=NW3A4gMBJxLgJNLbr_7ma505NFJa_6bmSztyfFrie1cU3scXP8AL8P5KR_MXci0Pl5lj8SZkCxMH">chrisw@skypoint.com</a> | this distance" (last words of Gen.
___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)
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http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw">
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Received on Wed Jan 07 23:47:00 2004