Chinese knock-off parts in US military jets

steingar

steingar

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The Senate Armed Services Committee has reported that of 1800 cases of fake electronic parts in US military jets, that over 70% could be traced back to China. Story here.
 
steingar said:
The Senate Armed Services Committee has reported that of 1800 cases of fake electronic parts in US military jets, that over 70% could be traced back to China. Story here.
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Now this is completely unacceptable. Everything these days seems to be made in China including very vital defense industry components. When is this ever going to change?
 
Oldest trick in the book and we fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Flood the market with cheap goods until the manufacturing base is collapsed as consumers are sucked in by low prices. Workers are laid off and their skills degraded, and they become demoralized by unemployment and welfare. Then raise prices to recoup the lower prices and you have control of the entire market, and an enslaved population dependent on foreign goods.

There is no government will to stop piracy of intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Tariffs use to work to keep the playing field level, but again politicians have no will to confront the makers of the cheap goods because they are getting their payoffs too. :sad:

Seriously? No one else saw this coming? :dunno:
 
If I am reading the article right, it seems the fake parts are infiltrating the supply chain and legitimate repair/supply companies are ordering the real stuff but getting fakes from some sub-suppliers. So this appears to be a typical China activity.

HOWEVER, it also seems to indicate that absent any real failures the risk is minimual which puts in question the validity of the "original" equipment if the fakes are working and performing to "spec".
 
It could be worse. They could be supplying the military with repair tools and disable the entire US military due to stripped bolt heads.

Based on my motorcycle's OEM chinese toolkit, which I threw away centuries ago and replace it with real tools, chinese tools are 70% rubber, 20% brittle plastic and 10% low grade metal.
 
fgcason said:
It could be worse. They could be supplying the military with repair tools and disable the entire US military due to stripped bolt heads.

Based on my motorcycle's OEM chinese toolkit, which I threw away centuries ago and replace it with real tools, chinese tools are 70% rubber, 20% brittle plastic and 10% low grade metal.
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Actually they could be supplying embedding routines in chips which could do something much worse.
 
fgcason said:
It could be worse. They could be supplying the military with repair tools and disable the entire US military due to stripped bolt heads.

Based on my motorcycle's OEM chinese toolkit, which I threw away centuries ago and replace it with real tools, chinese tools are 70% rubber, 20% brittle plastic and 10% low grade metal.
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Close. Cheap Chinese tools are made of lead powder, peanut butter, and a shiny coating of mercury :).


-Jim
 
I wonder how these parts made it past the mil spec system. the same system that gave us the $100 hammer and the $300 toilet seat. mil spec is supposed to be able to trace the origin of a part down to the time the ore was mined.
 
Is this really a China problem, or is it an intermediate supplier problem?

A factory in China builds a computer chip and sells it to a supplier. The supplier knows its source. At some point between that transaction and being installed on an F-XX or a C-XY, the supplier (or a subsequent supplier) "forgets" that this is a Chinese part and dumps it into the bin with the rest of the computer chips.
 
kyleb said:
Is this really a China problem, or is it an intermediate supplier problem?

A factory in China builds a computer chip and sells it to a supplier. The supplier knows its source. At some point between that transaction and being installed on an F-XX or a C-XY, the supplier (or a subsequent supplier) "forgets" that this is a Chinese part and dumps it into the bin with the rest of the computer chips.
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It's less of an "oops" when the part labels are forged.
 
We have been struggling with this problem for quite a few years. About 5 years ago we bought 2,500 high-end $5 transistors (1-reel) for an industrial engine control we've been building for over 10 years. We buy them quarterly and from the same reputable vendor; not a broker. Parts were in the proper bag, proper tag, and proper markings on the body. Only problem was they were cheap low-end counterfeit transistors. Fortunately, our automated test stand was rigorous enough to detect the problem; this time. It is extremely difficult for the mega-firms (Boeing, Raytheon) to have counterfeit detection programs and they can afford the expensive toys like electron-microscopes. For us small manufactures we bear the liability without any feasible means of controlling the problem. We only purchase parts from reputable wholesale suppliers (Arrow, Future, Avnet, etc) who theoretically buy them directly from the manufacturer but that is clearly not good enough as our previous problem illustrated. When the manufacturer is in China, Indonesia, Vietnam or some other 3rd world location it is too easy for the criminals to break into the supply chain.
 
Cruiser said:
HOWEVER, it also seems to indicate that absent any real failures the risk is minimual which puts in question the validity of the "original" equipment if the fakes are working and performing to "spec".
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THey might be performing to spec now, but they've never been tested/verified/qualified for temperature or life expentancy. And who knows what else is in there?

jhausch said:
Close. Cheap Chinese tools are made of lead powder, peanut butter, and a shiny coating of mercury :).


-Jim
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There's one rule in our shop - "No China-made tools!" A month or two ago a guy was using wire cutters to cut a steel wire, similar to a coat hangar. The wire cutter was softer than the wire - now he has a set of wire strippers. There is a perfect half-circle notch in each of the sides of the cutter.
 
Big problems in all kinds of products. Here are some that I know of:

  • You can't trust that the "Energizer batteries" that you buy on eBay are actually Energizer or will last even 1/4 as long as a real one.
  • Lots of counterfeit pet flea control products like Frontline.
  • The scam a while back with MP3 players and flash drives spoofing their size, i.e. 2 GB sold as 8 GB.
 
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