Apologies for the thread jump, I did not want to discuss Azm on the JF17 blk3 thread.
To your comment:
Create small, enabled teams of capable engineers to work on various aspects - totally agreed, that this should be done.
What is then the stumbling block? HR, infrastructure, and redtape.
1. HR
Fact: AvRID hires people on one-year renewable contracts.
What AvRID engineers have told me: People join AvRID is a temporary place to work at while they get more secure jobs at AWC etc. As a result there are people constantly coming in and going out.
Majority of the people that AvRID has been able to hire are fresh undergrads with little to no experience. The number of people with Master's degrees is small, and PhDs are a handful. I am not claiming degrees are everything, but I am claiming that 5 PhDs leading a team of 80 undergrads will not get you Azm. Undergrads can do great work, don't get me wrong. But they need direction. What people at AvRID say is the opposite of that. I am not sure what the impediment to hiring more qualified people is. Maybe they can't afford to or don't want to pay enough, or they don't want people that will question PAF babas too much - I don't know, might be a combination of both. There are certainly many Pakistani PhDs that are very capable and willing. Here's a recent ad for hiring at AvRID (not even looking for PhD's, why?):
View attachment 773542
I know how few PhDs are currently at AvRID. In this day and age, you need many many PhDs because there's research and work experience that you simply will not get with an army of undergrads that keep coming in and leaving.
2. Infrastructure
Lockmart is one of the biggest aerospace companies in the world and has access to an amazing variety of engineering infrastructure. AvRID does not. The poor guys at AvRID haven't even done a single wind tunnel test till today because they don't have access to it - everything is compartmentalized in Pakistan, you know this. Only now are they preparing for their first wind tunnel tests.
3. Redtape
The windtunnel thing brings us nicely to redtape. You think PAC does not have access to wind tunnels? Of course they do. But AvRID (like most organizations and departments in Pakistan) is a black box which has no inflow or outflow.
So yes, Kelly Johnsons points are well taken in some regards. But Kelly Johnson didn't have deal with a workforce made of inexperienced undergrads that keep coming and going. Kelly Johnson had a lot of engineering infrastructure at his disposal that AvRID does not. Kelly Johnson was the boss of his own department and wasn't cut down to size or fired because he was threatening the supremacy of PAF babas.