After I left Rockwell, I went to work for Rockwell. I learned a lot, and accomplished more. | After I left Rockwell, I went to work for Rockwell. I moved from Airplanes (NAAO) to Collins Radio and was working on the MILSTAR Satellite Communication Terminal: a system that was used for most of the secure military battlefield communications. Never have I worked with such a ragtag bunch of humans... and had the time of my life. It was a lifetime of experiences in 3 1/2 years. |
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2003-05-06
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Milstar
MILSTAR - AFSATCOM Transition Terminal
Specialist on Communications, INIT/BIT, Machine Code
Specs: 22,250 mile orbit, 5KW Solar Array, 51' x 116', 10K lbs. 224 secure channels.
Uplink:44 GHz EHF, 300 MHz UHF.
Downlink: 20 GHz SHF, 250 MHz UHF.
Survivability and endurability requirements are satisfied by anti-jam, hardening and system autonomy features. |
Once again, I'd decided to work through my Mom's Consulting Company; and once again it worked against me. When you walk into the interview, and someone says, "So you're Fran's kid?", you know you're in trouble. Ah stigmas.
This was the last major contract I did for my Mom (I went back to finding my own jobs, or using other agencies or contacts). The interviewer grilled me, and when he couldn't stump me, he brought in a few other seasoned engineers to grill me with questions like, "what is the difference between recursive versus reentrant", and "I'd like you to create examples of each (in assembly) language on the whiteboard" and explain your work. I did fine. It gave me a confidence after that, that someone who was obviously trying to find an excuse NOT to hire me couldn't find one (along with his team). They hired me for another "6 month contract" that last 3+ years.
Collins was working on the MILSTAR Satellite Communication Terminal. They put up a bunch of satellites to relay military communications on many frequencies and using a variety of techniques (hopping, phase and frequency modulation, and so on). Good stuff. I like the military attitude; when it absolutely, positively has to get there. This was the follow on for a previous solution called the AFSATCOM; which was just the simpler version of these satellites. Rockwell, was doing the terminal that communicated with them (from the ground) and was used for most of the secure military battlefield communications. More than just that, we had to do the transition device; not only had to speak the new protocols (MILSTAR), but also all the old protocols (AFSAT) - so that if anything happened during this transition, that the military could communicate on either or both. Which made this terminal more complex than either of the others on their own.
I started because of my Assembly language and low-level communication skills. I was given an older DataGeneral (AFSATCOM) and "newer" Rolm Micro/Mini computer. The older device had core memory. Core memory was made before you had RAM, it was little magnetic donuts, each wire-wrapped individually. It would ring when it was running, because the magnets would charge the wires and cause them to vibrate. I'm thinking, "I'm programming a fricken piano". I'd done some lower level stuff in school and home, like burning my own processors (back when you used to program them with the instructions you used to run on them) programming microcode and the like; but I had no idea that I'd actually be using this stuff. The good news about Core Memory was that you could pop a nuke next to it, and it wouldn't fry (as easily) as RAM or other chips. (It was resistant to EMP bursts).
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Not any more: You have to understand the military thinking; it can be slow, it can be expensive, and it can be old; but the damn thing has to be rugged and work. They usually design stuff to be operated by someone with not more than a 10th grade education; not because most military people are that uneducated - but just in case some are. Almost everything is made of many modules that can be replaced. That can cost money and performance, but in their minds it saves lives; which are more expensive.
To give you an idea of how far they go, we had two "processors"; which were really mini-computers. Each one was about 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet by 1 foot long. Each was made out of a single block of machined aluminum. Something about machining a solid block of aluminum was better at nuclear resistance than just bolting and welding pieces together; for only 10 times the cost. It was slower than my first home computer, but cost many tens of thousand of dollars.
So one day, the Air Force was coming by for some progress meetings. And one tech is moving two of these from one lab to another. He goes from the linoleum to the carpet with his cart; or at least that was his intent. The cart stops, and the computer keeps going, and bounces and rolls right in front of one of the Generals.
The General gets pissed, under the illusion that this guy works for him, and bellows; "That's a $50K piece of hardware you just let fall off the cart." This laid back surfer looking lab tech gives him a casual look and says, "Not any more". In truth, the processor turned out to be fine, despite the pratfall; and I can't imaging throwing another 100lb mini computer around, and having it still work afterwards.
This was in front of my cube, and I had to bite my cheek hard, to stop from laughing. While the computer was fine; the technician got reamed. The Air Force doesn't like it when you manhandle their toys, or don't treat them with proper respect. The surfer tech didn't get fired, but he was clearly explained the error of his ways. |
Collins, Tasks • [3 items]
| Collins: Bootstrap
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| My first job at Rockwell Collins was they needed to write something to load the computer from nothing; the bootstrap. This comes from the concept of "lifting yourself up by the bootstraps": you have to write the code, to load the software, which loads the rest of the computer's Operating System/Applications.
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| Collins:Network
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| My second job at Rockwell Collins was to write the network (communications) between the two processors that made up the terminal (secure and insecure halves). This meant all secure communications ran across my a packet protocol stack that I had to invent/create (similar to TCP/IP or more like IBM's SNA, since I knew that better from Pertec). But I solved a prolbem that many others had failed at.
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| Collins:Init-Bit
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| Since I had solved two impossible problems (that others had failed on), my third job at Rockwell Collins was to write all the initialization and built-in test code (INIT/BIT), and as a 22 year old contractor, to manage 2 other 40-something year old employee engineers that hated each other (and didn't like consultants). So I just wrote all the code, gave them the credit, everyone was happy, and we completed on time.
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Collins, Lessons • [6 items]
| Collins: Hacking
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| I had been a bit of a grey-hat hacker in High School and College(s). I was never the worst/best, both because I could be lazy about it, and because I had better things to do. But broke into many system (non-maliciously). But after a few friends got arrested by the FBI, I had to have a reason to not leave well enough alone. I was having too much fun getting paid to be criminal about things. Until one day...
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| Collins: Permission
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| As a consultant you were paid to get things done. Over, under, around or through: problems will be solved. Permission was politics for the employees: I either solved problems or they would bring in better contractors who could. It made me far more productive than the employees, but resented when they had to follow the rules and clean up the politcal messes made by those that didn't.
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| Collins: Space Shuttle Challenger
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| We watched the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on the live feed at Rockwell that morning. When it blew up, there was a bit of stunned silence. After a while, I walked back to my desk, and thought about the lives lost, and the politically correct environment, and what it would mean. Then I used a big red canceled stamp across a poster that was on my cubical wall: turns out, that was not a politically correct move.
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| Collins: Sushi
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| Two Girls, a Guy, and a Sushi Place. Actually, a few more than that. At Collins, Sushi became a weekly ritual. I've tried lots of foods; frogs legs, snails, game animals, snakes, and just about anything. After all, if God didn't want us to eat Animals, he wouldn't have made them taste so good. Back in the 1980's Sushi was exotic, and this was before "Sexual Harassment" stifled people's bawdy talk during the two martini (or beer) lunches.
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| Military Acquisition Costs: why do things cost so much?
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| If you hear someone claim "that military screwdriver cost $500", or something like that, then you know that person is gullible, or a polemic. The truth is far more nuanced. When politicians get involved, bureaucracy will increase -- and those costs will be absorbed and passed on to the consumer. So you get what you pay for, and we're paying for political waste.
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| Tools to make tools
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| Since I was using 3 different systems at the same time, to avoid errors/confusion, I just implemented my own command line (macros) that worked on all 3. It made me faster/more productive. And I will never do that again. The cost was after years of use, being less productive on anything but my own system.
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Collins, People • [3 items]
| Collins: Dave Quigley
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| I've had a somewhat interesting life, as have many people I've known. Since we are the sum of our experience, the hope is learning from others (and sharing ours), can give us a taste of immortality -- and make us wiser, and less likely to have to learn everything the hard way. Dave Quigley had many stories and life lessons to learn from: some "how not to", some reminders that, "Life is fleeting, enjoy while you can".
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| Collins: Mihn & Klaus
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| Since I had solved two impossible problems (that others had failed on), my third job at Rockwell Collins was to write all the initialization and built-in test code (INIT/BIT), and as a 22 year old contractor, to manage 2 other 40-something year old employee engineers that hated each other (and didn't like consultants). So I just wrote all the code, gave them the credit, everyone was happy, and we completed on time.
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| Collins: Roger Parks
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| I've been one of those people that things happen to or happen around. I wouldn't wish many of them on others, but I learned from them. Many are skeptical of that much happening to one person (even with witnesses, evidence). But I pretty bland life compared to some I know, like Dr. Roger Parks.
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| Another job, another 3+ years on a 6-month contract. And again, it turned out I made many friends and one enemy -- but one wrong enemy is all it takes (especially as a consultant). So I left on less than optimum terms: with one enemy and many friends. But when they tried to make me look bad after I was gone, it backlashed, and Karma exposed my detractors as not very bight big-mouths.
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Life is about experiences; and Collins gave me lots of them. After around a decade in Aerospace, I was ready to see what else life had to offer. I went back and did some follow-on contracts in Aerospace here and there; but they were all a few months here, maybe half a year there. I was ready to move on, and see what else life had to teach me. Talking with folks that stayed in the sector, it mellowed a little, but didn't really change. I preferred the pace of commercial over government by proxy.
🔗 More
Me
This section is all about me (Ari Sabouni). The initial founder/creator of the site.
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Work Experiences
Work experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. Or at least I learn more from those kind.
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Military
Stories about the Military, or working around them in Aerospace.
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Tags: Me Work Experiences Aerospace
