From today's The Wall St. Journal, page 1:

"About 750,000 airplane components are manufactured, machined or assembled for Boeing Co. by workers from the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind. A Boeing spokeswoman says that the parts have an 'exceptionally low' rejection rate of one per thousand. 'Think about that the next time you hop on a 737,' says Andrew Sims, a program manager for the National Industries for the Blind."

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), February 15, 2000

Answers

Maybe that's why there are so few peanuts in those litle bags.

-- Mr Peanut (still_hungry@rear_of_coach.com), February 15, 2000.

Blind people have been working on precision production lines for near half a century, I'd guess. They're careful, they have tools and gauges set up for use by blind people, and they aren't watching stock quotes or soap operas out of the corner of their eye.

Heck, I worked with a blind computer operator who wasn't too darn shabby. I'll take a careful blind person over a sighted clockwatcher any day.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), February 15, 2000.

Lends a whole new meaning to "flying blind"

-- Hmmmmm (WonderWhatElseWeDont@Know?.com), February 15, 2000.

Eve, according to US News @ World Report 2/21/20 in an article entitled, "Trolling for Clues" (I kid you not), the crashed Alaskan Air Flight #261 had its horizontal stabilizer made in China. Boeing spokesman John Thom claimed they had no problems with their Chinese made parts.

However, the FAA does not inspect foreign parts plants, they rely on the aviation industry to police themselves.

The Chinese are making over 3,500 different parts for McDonald Douglas. Hope they aren't blind too.

-- Lurkess (Lurkess@Lurking.XNet), February 15, 2000.

1) I have known blind QC inspectors to be better than sighted ones. Some of them can tell you the thickness of a piece of thin sheet without the mic- - - and be closer than some of the sighted inspectors using mics.

2) a CNC machine really oesn't care whether the instructions come off a brail keyboard or a qwerty keyboard.

C

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 15, 2000.

SO?

Joss

-- Joss Metadi (warhammer@Pride.of.Mandeyne), February 15, 2000.

Well, it was surprising to me at first glance. Apparently it's ok.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), February 15, 2000.

Well, it was surprising to me at first glance. Apparently it's ok.

Thanks for your input, guys.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), February 15, 2000.

Sorry for the semi-double post.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), February 15, 2000.

I've seen jet engine turbine blades inspected by blind technicians who could simply "feel" blade defects that many trained sighted technicians would need precision calipers, micrometers and microscopes to detect. And those guys could put that blade on a mill and grind the defect off and then tell you the amount of weight they'd removed, all by feel.

What they may lack in sight they certainly have adjusted for to a greater degree with their other senses.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 15, 2000.

Actually, this thread has indeed been a real "eye-opener" for me! Thanks again, all.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), February 15, 2000.

I am an inspector for G.E Aircraft Engines. We make all the blades that go in any G.E. engine, I can assure you that there are no blind inspectors working on G.E. Aircraft Engines blades. We make the engines for Boeing Commercial Aircraft and a large share of military aircraft. The topic was components, not refering to actual engines.

-- Connie (DCBROWN100@AOL.COM), February 16, 2000.

Ohh Noooo. You mean my meal tray may be manufactured by someone blind. Don't they care about my safety? Hey as long its not one of those "could care less" service workers, that would truly frighten me. Its funny how we see something like this and start worrying when even the machined parts are 3 dimensional parts. Wasn't the MD-80 Jack Screw inspected by an assumed sighte person and scheduled for replacement and re-inspected by same or other assumed sighted person and left in for the final flight.

Looks like some accountant or manager "saw" the price of replacing the Jack Screw and "saw" how bad the cost would "be viewed" by the accountants "looking" over the books.

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.down.here), February 16, 2000.