The biggest difference between now and then…what makes this impossible today is not that our engineers are less capable, is not that we are more bureaucratic and is not that we’re less motivated.

The difference is that back then, we were indifferent to failure that cost lives.

And not just in development/testing. Once planes were deployed, if a plane didn’t come back from a mission it was “lost in action” independent if the wing just broke off in flight over some stretch of water. Read this excerpt from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-80_Shooting_Star#Des...:

<blockquote>The P-80 testing program proved very dangerous. Burcham was killed on 20 October 1944 while flying the third YP-80A produced, 44-83025. The “Gray Ghost” was lost on a test flight on 20 March 1945, although pilot Tony LeVier escaped. Newly promoted to chief engineering test pilot to replace Burcham, LeVier bailed out when one of the engine’s turbine blades broke, causing structural failure in the airplane’s tail. LeVier landed hard and broke his back, but returned to the test program after six months of recovery. Noted ace Major Richard Bong was also killed on an acceptance flight of a production P-80 in the United States on 6 August 1945. Both Burcham and Bong crashed as a result of main fuel pump failure. Burcham’s death was the result of a failure to brief him on a newly installed emergency fuel pump backup system, but the investigation of Bong’s crash found he had apparently forgotten to switch on the emergency fuel pump that could have prevented the accident. He bailed out when the aircraft rolled inverted but was too close to the ground for his parachute to deploy.</blockquote>

So this “no bureaucracy” craze makes no sense for modern aviation design but makes a lot of sense where lives are not at risk (as is the case with a lot of software development, but not all).

That’s my $0.02.