by Phil Rowe
Wright-Patterson AFB in central Ohio is a busy place. It was especially so during the military build-up days of the cold war. Most aircraft-related R&D efforts for the U.S. Air Force were one way or another managed and directed from that installation. I was stationed there during the early development of the newest manned strategic bomber, the B-1.
My duties, at the start, dealt with performing avionics systems design studies and creating specifications for acquisition of the B-1 navigation, weapons delivery and defensive electronics. I was the Deputy to the Avionics Engineering Director.
Our office was on the ground floor of Building #15 at the foot of the hill on Wright Field, just a stone's throw from the now-closed flight line. Because we were frequently dealing with representatives from the aerospace and military electronics industries, the buildings and corridors connecting them were heavily trafficked by salesmen and technical experts from industry. Most of them were also involved in information quests that might prove useful to their employers.
Clearly in that hectic and highly charged competitive environment the very future of many defense contractors and suppliers depended upon their keeping abreast of what the Air Force was thinking and what technologies were of immediate or future inter est. Some of those company representatives were very skilled at engaging government people in probing conversations, knowing which people to visit and where the most reliable information might be gleaned.
Because our office was then deeply involved in preparing the technical documents associated with an upcoming solicitation to industry which could mean $100,000,000 in business for the successful bidder, we received the special and most aggressive attentions of those industry representatives.
Some of the representatives from electronics companies would come into the Avionics Engineering office, hoping to engage my boss or someone else in dialog relative to the B-1 avionics package. But our secretary-receptionist had been given clear instructions to discourage such visits as it would be unethical for any of us to intentionally or unintentionally give one prospective bidder any advantage over the others.
I also think that another of the reasons that those company representatives liked to stop at our office was because our young secretary-receptionist was a very attractive ( though married ) woman. Like bees drawn to flowers, those guys were frequently hovering around Donna's desk. Another reason though was the work that she was doing, typing documents pertinent to the B-1 avionics system and specifications.
Many of the visiting representatives were quite adept at reading things upside-down while pretending to flirt with Donna or appearing to inquire about the availability of one of our engineers. On several occasions I chanced to pass by Donna's desk while the company people were there ... and more than once inter vened to keep them away. But they kept coming to our dismay and especially to Donna'a annoyance.
One fellow, an especially aggressive representative from a West Coast electronics firm, was habitually cleaning out and consuming all of the candies which Donna kept in a small glass bowl on her desk. While chatting with her and scanning whatever paperwork might be on the desk, he would munch away at the candy. Donna was understandably perturbed by that behavior ... and soon determined to do something about it.
One day she told the people in the office that they should leave the candy alone ... suggesting that it was something we probably wouldn't like. We knew she had something special planned and heeded her warning.
Sure enough, that same morning that she had put her special new supply of candy in the glass bowl the offending company representative stopped by. And, true to form he helped himself to a large handful of what looked like small chocolates. What he didn't know however was that those were definitely NOT ordinary chocolates. They were chocolate covered laxatives, the kind one buys over the counter at a drug store.
He didn't say anything either then or later about the effects of the laxatives. But he never again helped himself to any candy that Donna kept on her desk. In fact we hardly ever saw him much after that.
Another pesky company representative was suspected of sneak ing away with copies of documents that Donna was working on. Things known to be placed by our engineers into her IN basket for typing were disappearing before she got to them. When the staff member needing the typed document would inquire whether or not it had been typed yet Donna was unable to find it. Those mysterious disappearances were soon found to be happening around the times that one particular company representative was seen in the of fice, but we couldn't prove it.
My boss and I decided to set a trap. I was asked to place a drawing or sketch in Donna's IN basket which would appear to be a description of the total B-1 avionics architecture, something that might be of special interest to a prospective bidder hoping to have a bit of inside information about what the government wanted. There were at that time a number of possible configurations for the avionics system, each with important implications to the competing companies.
The sketch that I created was an impossible description of what we wanted. It was technically incorrect and far afield from the real design approach that we favored. I stapled a small piece of paper at one corner with a little note ostensibly to my boss saying something to the effect that this was it, our final design for inclusion in the solicitation package to industry. The sketch was kept by Donna at the top of the pile of papers so that anyone stopping by her desk could peek at it.
Well, that trap apparently didn't work. The sketch did not disappear even after several weeks and available to numerous visitors. We didn't know whether to associate that with the noticeably reduced visits of the candy snatcher or any other particular change.
It wasn't until months later that we found out that someone had actually taken the bait of the erroneous sketch. During the course of our reading and evaluating industry bids responding to the solicitation, we came across what seemed to be an exact copy of that bogus system architecture sketch in one bidder's technical proposal.
Finally we had our culprit. Or ... was it just one of possibly several? In any case, it was clear that the company using that design description really didn't understand the implications of trying to build our B-1 avionics system.
To use a term apropos to the situation ... " They surely shot themselves in the foot that time ".