TFX CONTRACT INVESTIGATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP66B00403R000100300005-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 10, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Content Type: TRANS

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/12/13: CIA-RDP66B00403R000100300005-1
APPENDIX A
TFX CONTRACT INVESTIGATION
Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the
Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate
Pages 2339 - 2340
MR. ADLERMAN. Dr. Charyk, you say you looked at the B oeing proposal.
What did you ask in the Boeing proposal?
DR. CHARYK. I looked at sections that dealt with the materials of
primary interest to me; namely, the question of titanium.
MR. ADLERMAN. Did you look at the drawings?
DR. CHARYK. I saw, as I recall, a sketch which showed the structural
design of the wing.
MR. ADLERMAN. At what thicknesses were they using titanium?
DR. CHARYK. My recollection is that they were somewhere around
three-quarters of an inch or an inch.
MR. ADLERMAN. Are you familiar which way they were using the
titanium?
DR. CHARYK. They were used in the main wing carriage structure.
MR. ADLERMAN. What did you criticize in that, that the thickness
was too thick?
DR. CHARYK. That Boeing had no experience upon which to base the
use of titanium in thicknesses that large in highly stressed members.
One would anticipate that if one were proposing the use of a material
in the way that it had never been used before, that one would go into
considerable analysis to justify the use of that material.
In other words, the structural characteristics of the material are
completely different. Boeing had switched from the use of steel to the
use of titanium. The structural characteristics of the material are
quite different. The wings will deflect in a different manner. Further-
more, when the aircraft or the wings are exposed to dynamic forces
you are going to have flutter problems, you are going to have all kinds
of structural dynamic problems, you are going to have fatigue problems.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/12/13: CIA-RDP66B00403R000100300005-1
? Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/12/13: CIA-RDP66B00403R000100300005-1
These can be very critical. As we have seen in the B-52 the use of a
material which was a very common material resulted in cracks which
were very serious. They resulted in the loss of life, the loss of one
or more of our B-52's, a major remodification program costing the
better part of a quarter of a billion dollars. This is using materials
that we are reasonably familiar with.
MR. ADLERMAN. The B-52 had no part of titanium as far as we are
concerned.
DR. CHARYK. I am simply saying here is a material with which we
were familiar and we had not anticipated the kinds of problems that
could occur. It led to the loss of life and it led to the cost of the Air
Force and the taxpayers of something of the order of a quarter of a
billion dollars. Here we are talking about a brandnew airplane. We
are talking about a material being used in a fashion never used before.
We are faced with the lack of supporting analysis. It seems to me that this
was a very serious deficiency in the proposal.
THE CHAIRMAN. Doctor, you mean in this one particular piece that
it had never been used before? It has been used in about everything else
in an airplane, has it not?
DR. CHARYK. It had never been used in major structural. members
at this thickness at these stress levels.
THE CHAIRMAN. Are you sure of that?
DR. CHARYK. I am sure of that Senator.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/12/13: CIA-RDP66B00403R000100300005-1
Declassified andApproved For Release 2012/12/13 : CIA-RDP66B00403R000100300005-1
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