Meaningless? In the principles of aerodynamics it is meaningful. Every tiny rivet or protrusion adds their own little bit of drag; multiply that thousands of times, and it adds up a lot. Why don’t you ask Boeing or Lockheed Martin if that axiom is indeed meaningless or not.
As Garry B said, a tiny protruding rivet does not penetrate the boundary layer by any meaningful degree, and you sure as heck can’t find any huge bumps of any consequence that don’t need to be there on any Russian 4gen fighter. ‘MiGs’ by Bill Sweetman covers this as well, IIRC- the MiG-21 for example continued the trend of placing any such visible bumps in the airframe (for reasons of simplicity or structural strength or whatever) well back, where the airflow over the aircraft had already been broken up. A tiny rivet that protrudes by some infintesmally small amount is not of consequence aerodynamically. Can you find any pictures of a Russian series built Su-27 with really shocking protrusions and bad workmanship? Because “not as neat” does not equal “bad/unsatisfactory/unacceptable”. That’s a pure false dilemma fallacy (i.e. either/or).
How you make the plane outside does reflect how you build the plane inside. If you don’t pay attention to the outside, then you don’t have the ethic for quality. And that reflects on how you weld, rivet, screw, assemble, and bolt things in the inside. How your plane _WORKS_ is reflected on this. Will it break down? Can it maintain operability? How long will it last? Your airframe, your engines, your wiring, your linkages…
You are simply restating your original “toyota maxim” without logically demonstrating why it must be so. This is not an argument, just assertion.
Furthermore, you are exaggerating minor imperfections (that are barely visible upon inspection) with no effect on combat performance into “don’t pay attention to the outside”- that’s simply absurd.
Demonstrate the logical connection, with evidence, between “finish isn’t as smooth as x” and “must break down a lot”. It’s pure style over substance, nothing substantive there at all.
It’s not WW3 anymore by the way.
That’s the context, these weapons were designed expecting to fight it.
And even when you’re preparing for war, you must still have your standards so you can be assured that when the time comes, they will work as expected, and not break down.
Demonstrate the logical connection between “finish isn’t as smooth as x” and “must break down a lot” please.
By the way, about milling machines, machine tools and lathes, if you want to run a google search for those made in China, you will find a very long list…
So? I can think of millions of things made in China.
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