Raytheon has called in retired engineers to teach employees how to build the US-made FIM-92 Stinger man-portable air-defense systems and restart the production of missiles, Raytheon President Wesley Kremer has said.
"Stinger's been out of production for 20 years, and all of a sudden in the first 48 hours [of Russia's special military operation], it's the star of the show and everybody wants more ... We were bringing back retired employees that are in their 70s … to teach our new employees how to actually build a Stinger ... We're pulling test equipment out of warehouses and blowing the spider webs off of them," Kremer said in an interview with the Defense One news portal last week at the Paris Air Show.
He added that it was impossible to use 3D printers and automation to speed up the manufacturing process as it would require redesigning the weapon and a lengthy weapon certification process.
"You'd have to redesign the entire seeker in order to automate it," he said, adding that the company must assemble the weapons by hand - the same way they were built four decades ago.