For the price of a deer lease you can buy a lot more quality beef, than you will ever recover in venison. It is not the end result, it is the trip he is after.

looks like an AN/ALE-47 CMDS ... developed in Austin at Tracor Aerospace ...

[/quote]looks like an AN/ALE-47 CMDS ... developed in Austin at Tracor Aerospace ...[/quote]

Yessir.
Worked there for almost 30 years.

small world ... we likely worked together ... started here in 1985 up thru 1992 then left to go design stuff for the Super Conductive Super Collider until the government shut that down, back here 1997 and still here, just pasted my 30 years mark in Dec.

Probably did.
Started in Quality in 83 as test tech in ESS running thru end of AN/ALE 40, then we worked 24/7 for years testing AN/ALE 45, primarily in bldg 8 but supporting bldg 7.
Got bit by computer bug while there and moved to QA on floor when ESS slowed down on AN/ALE 45.
Got involved with Quality Engineering side early in AN/ALE 47 program and was QA/QE during Quality Testing and spent many hours watching tests, writing lots of TRACAFs.
Moved over to Manufacturing Advanced Engineering test department and got deeper into computers and built most of the floor and office PCs in Bldg 8 before we started buying from Dell and HP.
Was pretty heavily involved in our ISO certification process and came up with Manufacturing Web Page to help folks find documentation that helped turn the certification process around.
I showed it to my boss at time and then had to demonstrate it to our upper Management, then to the ISO auditors and it was implemented across the manufacturing floor.
During that time, before we were heavily networked, the Manufacturing 1 and 2 servers sat in my office and we ran all the LAN cables and networking in Building 8 before Corp took over.
Finished out my time there as Operations System IT, supporting all Manufacturing and go between with Corp IT.
Helped implement barcode system, created all the UID label templates and kept the UID verification system running, ran the TVs on the wall in Building 2 and 8 from my office, Database Admin for Shop Floor system and Quality reporting system, etc.

Met lots of really smart folks and tried to absorb everything I could - it was a really good education.
Got laid off in 2011 with about 85 of the old school Tracor people when Nashua started moving in the child Engineers and pushing out all of us out.
Went to school and got a degree in Computer Networking and Administration and basically retired after that in 2013.
Just been hanging out on the farm/ranch since then, doing pretty much whatever I want and having my own personal war on feral hogs!

sounds like you moved thru lots of things while here over the years. Fortunately, the "us" versus "them" between the old guard and the people from NH has drastically mellowed and we are now working pretty well together as a team instead of the butting heads for the first 10+ years after integration.

I started off in building 6 in '85, moved to building 28 ~'90-92, and been in building 28 since '97 when I came back. Been in engineering the whole time, now hardware engineering manager since '09. Some of my staff got hit in the '11 reductions and we struggled for a number of years before we started playing nice in the sandbox and work started shifting down here. Building 8 is now closed due to structural issues that happened around Christmas and everything has been relocated to building 2, 7 and 27. We are in the planning stages of building a new facility somewhere around Parmer Lane east of IH35 that is likely 2-3 years out from finished building. Fun times!

The guy that helped me get hired and one of my best friends is supposed to retire from Operations in April so I still get updates on a fairly regular basis.
He's been there since early 70's.

Building 8 always had problems....were you there when the roof started having problems and we had miles of plastic in the ceiling between roof and suspended ceiling to catch water and funnel it to buckets and drains?
That was during some of the lean times when we didn't have enough money to repair the roof.

Yeah, I observed the "us vs them" first hand.
The main focus given to me by one of the good guys over me was: Production comes first.
With that in mind, I tried to work with everybody and keep production going and make things easier for all involved.

I also lived thru the integrations in Manufacturing Operations side when we bought other companies and moved them here and when we were bought so I've seen it from all sides.
When Atlanta integrated into Austin, it was done quickly and lots of stuff got lost (computer data in particular) for a while and some probably still is.
It was sometimes a struggle and frustrations ran high but I just tried to do everything I could to help.

The BAE integration was more culture clash than anything else.
It's settling down now because those fresh outta college engineers have a few years of experience now and know it doesn't always work like the class said it would.

not many people still here from the 70s era start dates. I had one of the guys with 40+ years retire back in Feb. from my group. So that would likely be a very short list these days.

seems like I recall building 8 with a leaking roof but I wasn't spending much time over there in those days, so don't recall all the details.