MrStealYoKOMs wrote:
The aerospace industry is very odd. As an engineering student, I’ve had some experience interning for a very large aerospace-defense company. From what I understand about Hambini, he works for/with Eurofighter. He probably has his hands tied due to the nature of his career about certain details and testing procedures. Engineering is very cut-throat because as the saying goes, if you’re not first, you’re last. I also don’t think Hambini did these wheel test as an official 3rd party verification. He was probably just interested in what works the best. The bike industry, and consumers as a whole, are LEAGUES behind military and NASA in terms of aerospace tech. General rule to thumb is NASA has a technology 10-15 years before consumers do.
Also, Hambini makes videos, I don’t think people want to be lectured on multi-variable calculus and NACA-2412 airfoils, because trust me... it’s boring. I don’t know much about Hambini but if he’s designing parts for Eurofighter he can probably design/machine a decent bottom bracket.
Before deciding that my path lay in entrepreneurship, I worked as an aerospace engineer on the International Space Station as a contractor to NASA. I also worked on satellites for APL and Johns Hopkins University. I can tell you that while there are some brilliant people working there, there are some complete dolts as well. Hell, they let me work there. There are brilliant people working in commercial industry too, and in cycling in particular. You think Jean-Paul Ballard doesn't know his shit about aerodynamics? Lewis Hamilton makes TWICE the salary of the CEO of Boeing. You don't think the Merc F1 team can afford the best aerodynamics experts money can buy?
As for NASA having tech 10-15 years before consumers, this is largely only true to the extent that they are willing to fund research projects for technology that no one knows if it will work because their interest is purely in research - they do not have to make a profit. Some of those technologies prove themselves out, and eventually industry invests in them and often drastically improves them. Others fail completely and we never hear about it. (edit to make it clear that i think that this is VERY valuable - just the reason for it is not because they are smarter than people that have to make money for a living)
Though I've never worked on defense stuff, I've known lots of people with security clearances. Some of them can say, yeah, I work on radar systems for the F-16, but they just can't give any more details than that. I've known others that worked on projects for which they had to have a completely unrelated cover story and no one knew what they did until years later. I can guarantee that publicly claiming to steal wind tunnel time and forging legal documents to defame companies would be a VERY quick way to lose a security clearance and your career. People with those kinds of jobs don't often do that kind of nutty stuff.
I've worked with great engineers, mediocre engineers, old, young, I've had graduate level engineers from Stanford and MIT working for me. I've worked in aerospace, trucking, powertrain and now cycling - and if challenged on their data or their solution to a problem or a design, one thing is very consistent among all of them. They respond with logic, data and math - not deflection and personal attacks.
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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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