Lockheed Martin

rwellner98

rwellner98

Cleared for Takeoff
Joined
Jul 26, 2009
Messages
1,384
Display Name
Display name:
rw2
IIRC there is at least one person here that used to work at lockmart. But there is tons of aviation stuff in this episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Acquired. All their episodes are long, but I find them fantastic listening for exercise, farm work, etc...

Lockheed Martin
 
*Raises hand for former employee roll call*

Unlike Half Fast, though, I know nothing of engineering or even any math more advanced than that required for me to help my fifth-grader son with his homework. I supported IT operations for them.
 
I didn't invest in LMT when halffast was working there and the stock was like $285. now since he left it's over $600. what a dummkopf I am.
 
Still there for a few more years. I date back to the GD days....
 
Craig said:
Yep...
Click to expand...

I was MFC-Orlando and involved with the design of Sniper and F35 EOTS (and a ton of other stuff).

My last few years I was managing a dept that was half in Dallas so I was at the Grand Prairie plant for a couple of weeks every month.
 
Craig said:
Yep...
Click to expand...
In my first "real" USAF Engineering job, I was at GD/FW a lot on the F-111 Program. One of my best memories was what we called the "RAAF Museum". It was where all the Oz F-111C's were parked waiting for the wing box fix.
 
I worked for Martin Marrieta Denver Aerospace ages ago (right out of college).
In my later career, I often did contract work for a group that was IBM FSD, Loral, and then Lockheed-Martin.
 
Amazing episode, the book is even better.
 
Still here. Field Sustainment. I was flight test at Pax for a while, and really miss flight test. The "customer support" gig is.... different.
 
kyleb said:
I'm just glad I turned down that job working on the A-12 program back in '88 or '89...
Click to expand...
Always thought that program was used to hide another even blacker program....

aterry1067: I did the Flight Test thing for about 7 years, but was on the Instrumentation side of things, We still were supporting F-111 E4 at Eddie's Airpatch when I went back to the factory side of things.
 
Craig said:
Always thought that program was used to hide another even blacker program....

aterry1067: I did the Flight Test thing for about 7 years, but was on the Instrumentation side of things, We still were supporting F-111 E4 at Eddie's Airpatch when I went back to the factory side of things.
Click to expand...

That's awesome. The last time I saw an F-111 fly I was still active duty; I was in the AR shop at Nellis, and the Aussie's brought them to Red Flag.

I certainly miss flight test, and starting to get itchy feet. I love what I do, but would love to be on another new program.
 
Even though I had an engineering title, I did very little down that path. Only true engineering work I did was to design a quick look data pod that would take up to 24 channels of data and drew no power from the aircraft. Hang it on a pylon, wire in the data stuff and go fly. It got built a few months after I left the group, but my design got pretty bastardized when it was built.

My main tasks were to support Edwards, Eglin, Hill, NASA Plumbrook, NASA Langley and some occasional overseas tests. Along with that, I was one of the group that maintained instrumentation configuration control over all the test aircraft and space assets we supported.
 
aterry1067 said:
I was flight test at Pax for a while, and really miss flight test.
Click to expand...

Craig said:
I did the Flight Test thing for about 7 years,
Click to expand...

I was involved in flight testing from time to time, but it's a bit different on the missile side of the house. You airplane guys' tests end with a landing (hopefully), but missile flight tests end with the test vehicle crashing into something and blowing it to bits. We were almost totally dependent upon in-flight telemetry.

FRBs could be quite challenging....



Craig said:
Even though I had an engineering title, I did very little down that path.
Click to expand...

I count myself fortunate. I did gobs of engineering work (I was responsible for analog design assurance for nearly 20 years), but I also did gobs of engineering management, including program chief engineer and finally managing the chief engineer department. We theoretically had a "dual ladder" but I spent my career straddling them with a foot on one rung of each. I might have climbed higher if I'd had the good sense to pick one and stay with it, but I had a lot of fun all around and have no complaints.
 
Only live missile stuff I ever got to play with, was some parts for a payload fairing on an Atlas 2. They were instrumented for a test at PlumBrook and then that fairing was flown a few months later. Everything else was captive dummies, sometimes with active seeker/guidance systems. I was supposed to go out to Edwards for the live launches of a SLAM-ER on the F-16, but USAF chickened out and brought in some Navy bb stackers for the live loads.

Almost forgot...years earlier, when I was working for a microwave outfit, we did some work up at MM, there in Englewood, at the old Michelin Tire plant and MM Space out in Littleton. I had to walk by and at times thru the MX missile full scale hard mock up to get to our work area at the Michelin plant.
 
Last edited:
@Craig @aterry1067 I wonder if we crossed paths at some point in our respective careers. Same places, same stuff, different times maybe?

Nauga,
all thrust, no vector
 
Nauga....Could be....GD factory guy from 1986 to end of '87. FTI from Jan 88 til May 94. Back to the factory til Halloween 94 layoff. May 97 recalled to factory, laid off again in 1999. Recalled in 2000 to F-22, then to the fright line in 2002.

Used to deal with Bob Vanderpoel out at Edwards CTF a lot. George Phillips out at Edwards was my direct counterpart in our GD bunch. Lot of the FTI Operations Engineers that migrated back and forth out there were my buddies.
 
nauga said:
@Craig @aterry1067 I wonder if we crossed paths at some point in our respective careers. Same places, same stuff, different times maybe?

Nauga,
all thrust, no vector
Click to expand...

I have no doubt that we most likely have, if nothing else maybe at a golf course, food court/cafeteria, or base club during lunch. I think I might be a bit more recent than others, though. I was active USAF from ‘97 to ‘07. I was at Nellis when I got out and went civilian and reserve, still at Nellis (I did a short stint with the Predators and Reapers at El Mirage and Creech…hated it… so went back to fighters at Nellis). In ‘09 I joined Lockheed on the 35 program at Pax as BF-1 and BF-2 were just getting to the flight line from the factory. Since we didn’t have any planes at Pax yet we were mostly working on the flight line at FTW until BF-1 finally ferried to Pax. From Pax we took several trips to Edwards, Wallops, Lakehurst, and occasionally back to FTW. In 2015 I moved to a fielded FSE position and have been doing that since.

One thing I have definitely learned is that it’s a small world out there. The aviation world is even smaller, the fighter world is yet even smaller, and most of the test folks, no matter what program they were on, usually are at most one degree of separation away from any other flight test folks; it’s a tiny, tiny, world. It’s one of the many things that keeps me nice and cordial at work… the guy that you are arguing with today (because you think he’s an idiot that can’t see things your way), may very well be your boss tomorrow, or your subordinate that you are forced to rely on.
 
aterry1067 said:
the guy that you are arguing with today (because you think he’s an idiot that can’t see things your way), may very well be your boss tomorrow, or your subordinate that you are forced to rely on.
Click to expand...

TRUTH!

There were several guys that I went back and forth with. I'd go from being their boss to them being my boss, and sometimes both situations simultaneously when we were working multiple programs. After a while it didn't matter much, and we just did our jobs and got things done.
 
'As your climbing the ladder of success be careful who you step on, you never know who you'll meet on the way back down.'
 
aterry: We might have crossed paths at FTW...I moved to the program from Block 60, about the time BF-2 came out of Fuel Ops. Only travel I did for the company was a quickie out to Tuscon and back for one day test. Did spend several months at NNSS, northwest of Vegas, long before I started at GD.
 
Craig said:
aterry: We might have crossed paths at FTW...I moved to the program from Block 60, about the time BF-2 came out of Fuel Ops. Only travel I did for the company was a quickie out to Tuscon and back for one day test. Did spend several months at NNSS, northwest of Vegas, long before I started at GD.
Click to expand...


I am sure we have. Or at the very least, I am sure we have worked with a lot of the same people.

NNSS? No kidding? That must have been awesome!!!!!!! I used to drive up around that area when I worked at Creech. Even have a pic somewhere at the historical marker near there on 95, and at the Mercury exit sign. I was really interested in that part of our history, and working out of Vegas and Indian Springs was a great time to research it all. Also poked around the museum in Oak Ridge, which was also fascinating.
 
kyleb said:
I'm just glad I turned down that job working on the A-12 program back in '88 or '89...
Click to expand...
Another paths crossing story involved the A-12 Program. After the Program was cancelled by DoD, GD/MacAir sued the government because they claimed the Navy had approved everything they did. The DoD had cancelled the A-12 because it was totally FUBAR and it was all GD/MacAir at fault.

So I got hired by the law firm representing GD as an expert witness. After running up a suitable bill, I wrote up my findings that the Navy really had approved all the work. Then everybody met in DC to thrash things out. As I walked into the ring, to my surprise, I see several retired heavy breathers from GD I had worked with on the F-111 and F-16. Turns out that me, the retired Engineer from the USAF was on the contractor side and the retired GD guys were on the government side.

IIRC, the whole thing got settled by the GD/MacAir team giving Uncle Sam a REALLY good deal on some F-18’s and Uncle Sam paid a lot of what GD/MacAir claimed they were owed. And the lawyers (and their lackeys like me) did pretty well.
 
Last edited:
aterry1067 said:
I am sure we have. Or at the very least, I am sure we have worked with a lot of the same people.

NNSS? No kidding? That must have been awesome!!!!!!! I used to drive up around that area when I worked at Creech. Even have a pic somewhere at the historical marker near there on 95, and at the Mercury exit sign. I was really interested in that part of our history, and working out of Vegas and Indian Springs was a great time to research it all. Also poked around the museum in Oak Ridge, which was also fascinating.
Click to expand...

I was on a motorcycle trip out west a few weeks ago and rode past the Mercury exit on US95. I was intrigued by “No Services” sign and the serious looking guard shack I saw in the distance and later Googled the exit. Learn something new and cool everyday.
 
Only place that I ever worked that had a "Shoot First, ask questions after the smoke clears" policy. Any of the security teams had the ability to call for the launch of armed fighters from Nellis and give the freedom to fire on targets. Made you darn careful what you did and gave you good reasons to follow the security rules without question.
 
LM space, worked in Littleton CO, and Grand Praire TX, then over to Fort Worth(aircraft tech support) for a while. Long ago...
 
Not crossing of paths, but I spent the majority of my career supplying hermetic electronic packaging to all of the T1’s for military applications.

I have radar components in F15, F22, and F/A18. I have communications electronics in F/A18 as well. I have optical components in the first gen EODAS on F35. I was working with Uncle Ray on next gen EODAS when I retired, I don’t know if our company won that business, I haven’t kept tabs since leaving.

Lots of other cool stuff over the years.
 
aterry: You might have known my current boss while at Pax... Russ Novander. He was there and at Hill for a number of years.
 
Craig said:
aterry: You might have known my current boss while at Pax... Russ Novander. He was there and at Hill for a number of years.
Click to expand...

I do. We worked at Pax together. Good guy. Tell him I said Howdy!

I think we may have spoken before on another forum about this same topic. lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top