Competitive Data - aircraft companies analysing the competition

[Stargazer]

(Lockheed report on a competitor)

No-one brought up the subject before, bu wWhat clearly stands out from this guy jmnjohn's huge set of eBay items taken from the Lockheed archives (God knows how they ended up in his hands, but that's another subject altogether) is the fact that throughout the 1940s and 1950s at least, Lockheed knew everything about their competition's projects, even some highly sensitive military aircraft programs. I wonder if the same could be said in reverse or if Lockheed had set up some elaborate system of corporate spying, but seeing hundreds of company reports from the competition with a Lockheed stamp on them is certainly odd.

 

[sferrin]

(Lockheed report on a competitor)

No-one brought up the subject before, bu wWhat clearly stands out from this guy jmnjohn's huge set of eBay items taken from the Lockheed archives (God knows how they ended up in his hands, but that's another subject altogether) is the fact that throughout the 1940s and 1950s at least, Lockheed knew everything about their competition's projects, even some highly sensitive military aircraft programs. I wonder if the same could be said in reverse or if Lockheed had set up some elaborate system of corporate spying, but seeing hundreds of company reports from the competition with a Lockheed stamp on them is certainly odd.

Maybe the guy got the contents of Kelly Johnson's garage.

 

[hesham]

X-16 drawings and basic data


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RARE-BELL-X-16-ORIGINAL-MASTER-AIRCRAFT-DESCRIPTIVE-DATA-/301018325741?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item46161722ed


(Lockheed report on a competitor)

Great find my dear Paul.

 

[sublight_]

(Lockheed report on a competitor)

No-one brought up the subject before, bu wWhat clearly stands out from this guy jmnjohn's huge set of eBay items taken from the Lockheed archives (God knows how they ended up in his hands, but that's another subject altogether) is the fact that throughout the 1940s and 1950s at least, Lockheed knew everything about their competition's projects, even some highly sensitive military aircraft programs. I wonder if the same could be said in reverse or if Lockheed had set up some elaborate system of corporate spying, but seeing hundreds of company reports from the competition with a Lockheed stamp on them is certainly odd.

It looks like what you really want are the archives of the competitive data group.

 

[Jemiba]

Close monitoring of competitors is and was very common, I think, not only in international politics, but
in all branches of industry, too. To me, stranger than the fact that such reports were made is, that they
survived up to this day. When the competition is over, they probably become more of a liability, than an
asset. Of course, there may be a fluent passage from normal competition to industrial spying.

 

[Stargazer]

It looks like what you really want are the archives of the competitive data group.

I "want" nothing. I just wonder how that "Competitive Data Group" of Lockheed's managed to obtain competitor reports, plans and the likes. It seems kind of odd to me. Did the military freely circulate the designs from one company to the next? Or were there "insiders" that passed on the reports under cover? Given the sheer amount of such documents and the fact that they contained virtually every known competitive design, the question certainly deserves to be asked.

 

[sublight_]

It looks like what you really want are the archives of the competitive data group.

I "want" nothing. I just wonder how that "Competitive Data Group" of Lockheed's managed to obtain competitor reports, plans and the likes. It seems kind of odd to me. Did the military freely circulate the designs from one company to the next? Or were there "insiders" that passed on the reports under cover? Given the sheer amount of such documents and the fact that they contained virtually every known competitive design, the question certainly deserves to be asked.

I think you misunderstand me. I think if you had access to more of the archives, it would provide insight to the questions you have. How many reports does this guy have? Does anybody know who he is so I can contact him?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Just send him a message through the ebay system. I've found him to be fairly responsive.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I just wonder how that "Competitive Data Group" of Lockheed's managed to obtain competitor reports, plans and the likes.

Lots of ways. Customers (military and civilian) might transfer reports from one competing company to another... from the customers point of view, that'd be a good thing. If Boeing and Lockheed are both bidding on Project X, and they each find out what the other has, they'll improve their design to compete better. The customer will get better designs.

And of course, competitors will spy on one another.

And sometimes a lot of this stuff is fairly openly handed out. Brochures, after all, have to have some sort of wide and open distribution; this makes it easy for competitors to see what the other guy is doing.

Lockheed was quite interested in what The Other Guy was doing. As a result of this, Other Guy Designs often wound up with CL-numbers, such as the CL-1661-2, which was actually the Convair Model 200 VTOL fighter, and the CL-1665-1, which was the McD F-18.

 

[Stargazer]

Wow. Absolutely fascinating, Scott. Thanks a lot for sharing.

 

[Jemiba]

...Customers (military and civilian) might transfer reports from one competing company to another... from the customers point of view, that'd be a good thing. If Boeing and Lockheed are both bidding on Project X, and they each find out what the other has, they'll improve their design to compete better. The customer will get better designs.

Maybe, but even a transfer between competing companies may not be out of question,as it can be used to keep
the price tag high ! Don't know about the aviation business, but in other branches of industry it is said to be quite
common. Even bids, that aren't meant to be accepted by the customer at all.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Its pretty important to verify your design against the competition if you want to win the contract. Its not unusual to use a competitor design as a baseline.

Its not just US companies. Hawker had brochures for all kinds of engines and aircraft and engineers would always be on the lookout for info on competitors. For instance, the Hawker engineer who at a meeting about avionics obviously got a sight or detailed description of the Vickers Type 559 design for F155T and drew a reasonably accurate plan view in his notes.

Sukhoi during the Cold War had a sizeable department dedicated to analysing Western aircraft. While we might imagine they would have benefitted widely from Soviet espionage, in fact relatively little hard information came from this route due to classification and ingrained habits of secrecy, so mostly they obtained information from public sources such as AIAA journals, NASA reports, and subscriptions to Aviation Week, Flight International and the like.

 

[Steve Pace]

DARPA, as I recall, didn't invite Lockheed to participate in the Have Blue program. But after it got wind of the program it went after it and finally ended up getting it. The rest they say is history. -SP

 

[Jemiba]

Wasn't it the same with the U2 ? Lobbying was always part of the system, probably in
every country !

 

[Mark S.]

It's a common occurence in the auto industry to buy your competitors product and tear it apart to see how it was built and the technology in it.

 

[AeroFranz]

I have been asked from time to time to perform competitive analysis of designs from other firms, but I can almost never count on anything more than what's in the public domain (which often times is misleading or marketing BS anyway...).
So I am surprised by the wealth of technical data that Lockheed had. I don't think Lockheed's competitors would freely hand information which is competition sensitive. God only knows they don't do it now.
Maybe it was engineers who transferred to Lockheed from other companies? Government officials doing it seems also possible, but I can assure you that we are very careful/borderline paranoid with marking stuff we give the government with "Competition sensitive" or "Proprietary" stamps all over it.
Even after a competition is over, I seldom get to find out what the other guys bid.

 

[Mat Parry]

Yep, "competitor intelligence" is a key function for lots of diverse industries. Nowadays most western companies try to play fair and only use open source information that can be demonstrated to have been found in the public domain.... Well at least that's the story.

It was not always so, At the end of the cold war there was an in-flux of ex-government spooks into the private sector... Lots of bad behaviour resulted. I'm afraid I can't be drawn into specifics, however if you watch the film "Duplicity"... it always struck me that secretly buying the waste management contract of a competitors R&D labs would allow you to learn a great deal.... Hypothetically

 

[Grey Havoc]

To paraphrase a certain famous writer; Like SIDs, everyone will admit to protecting against industrial espionage, but no one will admit to having (doing) it.

 

[jmnjohn]

GOOD EVENING ..... I AM JMNJOHN FROM EBAY .... I WAS DOING SOME RESEARCH ON LOCKHEED "COMPETITIVE DATA GROUP" AND THIS TOPIC CAME UP ..... I BOUGHT A HUGE ESTATE LAST YEAR .... THE ESTATE BELONGED TO ROBERT MUNDHENK WHO WORKED FOR LOCKHEED FROM THE LATE 30'S TO THE EARLY 70'S HE WORKED IN WEIGHT & BALANCE .... HE ALSO RAN THE "COMPETITIVE DATA DEPT" HE ALSO DID THE "COMPETITIVE DATA NEWS NOTES" (I HAVE LOTS FOR SALE) ... MR . MUNDHENK WAS ALSO A CHARTER MEMBER OF THE "SOCIETY OF AERONAUTICAL WEIGHT ENGINEERS, INC .......IN THE 60'S HE MOVED TO SUNNYVALE CA. AND WORKED FOR LMSC LOCKHEED MISSILES AND SPACE COMPANY .........................................ANY QUESTIONS FEEL FREE TO ASK .........................THX JOHN ..

 

[sublight_]

GOOD EVENING ..... I AM JMNJOHN FROM EBAY .... I WAS DOING SOME RESEARCH ON LOCKHEED "COMPETITIVE DATA GROUP" AND THIS TOPIC CAME UP ..... I BOUGHT A HUGE ESTATE LAST YEAR .... THE ESTATE BELONGED TO ROBERT MUNDHENK WHO WORKED FOR LOCKHEED FROM THE LATE 30'S TO THE EARLY 70'S HE WORKED IN WEIGHT & BALANCE .... HE ALSO RAN THE "COMPETITIVE DATA DEPT" HE ALSO DID THE "COMPETITIVE DATA NEWS NOTES" (I HAVE LOTS FOR SALE) ... MR . MUNDHENK WAS ALSO A CHARTER MEMBER OF THE "SOCIETY OF AERONAUTICAL WEIGHT ENGINEERS, INC .......IN THE 60'S HE MOVED TO SUNNYVALE CA. AND WORKED FOR LMSC LOCKHEED MISSILES AND SPACE COMPANY .........................................ANY QUESTIONS FEEL FREE TO ASK .........................THX JOHN ..

John, would you be kind enough to post an index of the "competitive data group" reports that you have as well as an index of the "competitive data news notes"??

I think that would be mutually beneficial. Thanks!

 

[jmnjohn]

GOOD EVENING ..... I FOUND A LOCKHEED FOLDER IN MY PILE OF STUFF TITLED "COMPETITIVE DATA GROUP PROCEDURES" ..... HERE ARE SOME PICS ... I WILL TRY TO ROUND UP SOME OF THE NEWS LETTERS AND POST SOME PICS LATER ........... FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME FOR MORE INFO .. jmnjohn@verizon.net.......THX JOHN ...... I TRIED TO ADD PICS BUT IT SAYS THEY ARE TO BIG AND I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO RE-SIZE THEM ...... ANY HELP WOULD BE GREAT .............THX JOHN ..

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Email them to me (paul at secretprojects.co.uk) and I'll make them smaller to post.

 

[jmnjohn]

OK.... I THANK I HAVE FIGURES OUT HOW TO RE-SIZE THE PICS (I HAD MY 4 YEAR OLD SHOW ME) .......I WILL TRY TO POST MORE PICS LATER .... THE FIRST PIC IS A LETTER EXPLAINING THE "COMPETITIVE DATA GROUP" THE OTHER ARE SOME OF THE NEWS LETTERS I HAVE ........................THX JOHN ..

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Hi John -

Great to have you onboard - you've posted some great material on EPay and you've found a good place to share the material here.

Welcome aboard! Mark

 

[jmnjohn]

THANK YOU .... I HAVE SO MUCH STUFF !!!! THE ESTATE WAS OF A RETIRED LOCKHEED ENGINEER FROM THE LATE 30'S TO THE EARLY 70'S ... HE WORKED ON THE P-38, P-80 UNDER KELLY JOHNSON AND LATER MOVED TO SUNNYVALE CALIFORNIA TO WORK FOR LOCKHEED MISSILES & SPACE COMPANY ....................................ANY REQUEST TO SHARE PICS LET ME KNOW........THX JOHN ..

 

[Stargazer]

Hi John! Glad to have you on board! For several months now I have linked to some of your sales or used some of the pics of your items to start topics on previously unknown or uncovered aircraft projects. You truly got an gold mine for any researcher and enthusiast... Waaaaaay above what I could afford in most cases but man! just browsing through your sales is a treat in itself! ;D

 

[jmnjohn]

THANK YOU ....... I HAVE ABOUT 75 BOXES OF DIFFERENT ITEMS FROM THIS ESTATE ....

 

[Stargazer]

THANK YOU ....... I HAVE ABOUT 75 BOXES OF DIFFERENT ITEMS FROM THIS ESTATE ....

I know it's probably not possible but it would have been great to have the whole thing scanned and archived properly for historical purposes. Some of the stuff you got here, the companies themselves probably don't have it in their vaults anymore, and once it's lost, it's lost!

I do agree with the suggestion that perhaps you could make an index of the stuff. Only the titles. That would be of real help! At various times in the past, some items were purchased on eBay by groups of forum members each agreeing to give a portion of the total price. I'm sure some of your treasures would be worth doing that, hence the suggestion to have an index...

 

[jmnjohn]

I AGREE ... I WILL TRY TO MAKE A LIST OF ITEMS TO POST HERE .....

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

A lot of the competitor reports are stamped:

Air Documents Division, T-2 AMC, Wright Field

Which is a big clue as to their origin:

In 1917 the United States Army Air Service established an aviation engineering section at McCook Field in Dayton, OH. In 1927 the Engineering Division, as it was then known, moved to nearby Wilbur Wright Field and there remained as the Air Force Material Division (AFMD) and Air Material Command (AMC) until Wright Field combined with Patterson Field to become Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1948. The Engineering Division was in charge of research and development for the Army Air Services and was a clearinghouse for the Army Air Services on aviation development world. Throughout its history the Engineering Division/Material Division maintained a library of relevant documents, which was turned over to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson and was later donated to the National Air and Space Museum

The collection consists of reports and other documents on a variety of aviation-related topics, including general science (aeronautics, physics, chemistry, etc); military air service personnel, organization, and equipment for both US and foreign air forces; as well as operations, and so on. Information on foreign services and equipment is usually from military intelligence reports, although some foreign documents or translations are included. The material also includes a large section of test reports from the Material Division itself

Physical Description:
464.34 cubic feet (426 records center boxes)

Date:
1915-1955

Creator
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Ohio)
Subject
United States Air Force Material Division
United States Air Material Command
McCook Field, Ohio
Wright Field, Ohio
United States Air Force
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Ohio)
Data Source
National Air and Space Museum Archives
See more items in
Wright Field Technical Documents Library
Local number
XXXX-0428
Type
Correspondence
Collection descriptions
Publications
Reports
Photographs
Topic
Military intelligence
Airplanes, Military--Flight testing
Aeronautics, Military
Aeronautics
Aeronautics, Military--Research

 

[jmnjohn]

I DO HAVE SEVERAL REPORT'S REPRODUCED BY THE "AIR DOCUMENTS DIVISION" OR "THE CENTRAL AIR DOCUMENT OFFICE" BUT A LOT OF MY ITEMS ARE FROM THE "COMPETITIVE DATA GROUP" TONS OF "CLIPPING FOLDERS" CLIPPINGS OF VINTAGE AIRCRAFT MAGAZINES, BROCHURES, AND SOME DRAWINGS ....AND TONS OF STUFF FROM LOCKHEED MISSILE AND SPACE ............. I WILL TRY TO LIST MORE SOON OR JUST LOOK AT EBAY ... MY USER NAME IS "jmnjohn" ........THX JOHN ..

 

[jmnjohn]

I found more Documents that might explain the "Competitive Data Group" ....There is 11 pics ...... enjoy..

 

[jmnjohn]

Last 4 pic's ..... enjoy..... thx John ..

 

[hesham]

Thank you John.

 

[hesham]

I just wonder how that "Competitive Data Group" of Lockheed's managed to obtain competitor reports, plans and the likes.

Lots of ways. Customers (military and civilian) might transfer reports from one competing company to another... from the customers point of view, that'd be a good thing. If Boeing and Lockheed are both bidding on Project X, and they each find out what the other has, they'll improve their design to compete better. The customer will get better designs.

And of course, competitors will spy on one another.

And sometimes a lot of this stuff is fairly openly handed out. Brochures, after all, have to have some sort of wide and open distribution; this makes it easy for competitors to see what the other guy is doing.

Lockheed was quite interested in what The Other Guy was doing. As a result of this, Other Guy Designs often wound up with CL-numbers, such as the CL-1661-2, which was actually the Convair Model 200 VTOL fighter, and the CL-1665-1, which was the McD F-18.

And from Aviationarchives site;


http://aviationarchives.blogspot.com/2015/03/lockheed-cl-1665.html

 

[riggerrob]

It's a common occurence in the auto industry to buy your competitors product and tear it apart to see how it was built and the technology in it.

...

Back during the 1990s, I worked for Rigging Innovations when the company led the parachute industry with harness innovations (e.g. hip rings). The chief designer always insisted that I chop up rejected components (until they were too small to copy) before tossing them in the trash.
I joked that our greatest revenge would be to give rejected components to competitors ... the components that "almost" fit!
Hah!
Hah!