Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Outsource This! Boeing and Lockheed Martin war bling 'full of fake Chinese parts'

Telegraph : Thousands of U.S. warplanes, ships and missiles contain fake electronic components from China, leaving them open to malfunction, according to a US Senate committee.
In total, the committee said it had found more than a million fake parts had made their way into warplanes such as the Boeing C-17 transport jet and the Lockheed Martin C-130J "Super Hercules".
... each of which Canada has recently signed on to buy more of : a $1.4-billion contract for 17 Lockheed Martin C-130J-30s, and a $869-million for four Boeing C-17s.

No worries though - the Senate Armed Services Committee 'discovered' exactly this same Chinese fake parts racket back in 2005, and again in 2008, and everyone on the committee had a cow both of those times as well but nothing came of it. 
"As electronics manufacturing migrated to China, the US has been less and less able to control the quality of its military hardware. Some of the fake chips are bought by the Pentagon on the open market .... These chips are often salvaged by Chinese scrap merchants from the dumps of electronic waste that have accumulated in the south of the country "
... where they are burned off old computer circuit boards, sanded down, repainted, and voilĂ  - the new F-35 chop shop war bling!

" 'Ello, I wish register a complaint about this plane which I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique."
" Ah yes, the F-35. Remarkable plane, the F-35, beautiful fuselage. What's wrong with it?"
"Well if you scrape away the loose paint just here, you'll see that underneath it says "Hello Kitty".

It's your own fault, said 'a former Peoples' Liberation Army officer who has become a commentator in the Chinese media' : 
"The US has been dismantling its factories since the 1960s," he said. 
.

9 comments:

West End Bob said...

Excellent - And chuckles included! - Thanx!

Guess stevie and petey will prob'ly get a break on the price now, huh ? ? ? ?

Anonymous said...

Hello! Hello Kitty is Japanese.

Alison said...

Hello and it's Made in China

West End Bob said...

Touché, Alison . . . . ;-)

ricky said...

Now that is just plain silly! I guess when you close down good paying union jobs in the US, you end up getting what you pay for!

Beijing York said...

I wonder if General Dynamics is using "My Little Pony" parts to meet their comprehensive LAV upgrade contract (worth approximately $1 billion).

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/index/display/article-display.articles.military-aerospace-electronics.online-news-2.2011.10.general-dynamics_awarded1.QP129867.dcmp=rss.page=1.html

Alison said...

BY's link

My Little Pony ;-)

And given that fake components were also found in the Theatre High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system, how's about a Skynet iPhone?

With their access to a trillion dollar military budget, it's probably cheaper for defence contractors to buy senators than the right parts.

Dr.Dawg said...

Revell--authentic kit.

kootcoot said...

This should work out well if Canada or the US get involved militarily against China, over N. Korea, Tibet, India/Pakistan or what ever. For China that is, they could pre-program F-35s to target say Edmonton, Calgary and 24 Sussex......(but read out that they were aiming for Beijing).

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