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Ed 737 Max Crashes (was Shutdown caused Boeing crash.)

ponderingturtle said:
The Great Zaganza said:
that is kinda hilarious.

Boeing might be better of giving them away for free - maybe Trump can afford his airline after all!
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Why would any airline accept delivery of a grounded airliner? Until they are allowed to fly again they are not going to be delivering any of them.
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It does sound a lot like the sort of business move Trump would be attracted to.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Boeing might be better of giving them away for free - maybe Trump can afford his airline after all!
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Why would any airline accept delivery of a grounded airliner? Until they are allowed to fly again they are not going to be delivering any of them.
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He was joking about Trump.

Trump would probably fly the planes anyways (even if they were grounded), and then complain to the FAA if they crashed.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Why would any airline accept delivery of a grounded airliner? Until they are allowed to fly again they are not going to be delivering any of them.
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Indeed, as the photo shows, there's a cost of ownership - just in the storage space if nothing else.
 
smartcooky said:


"FAA representatives were present during a test flight when an MCAS problem occurred, according to a regulatory source, but approved the MAX without independently studying or testing the flight system. "​



JESUS H TAP-DANCING CHRIST!!!! REALLY?
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It's interesting. The story had been pulled.

Option A) Story was a beat up so it was pulled
Option B) Story was shut down by Boeing lawyers.
 
I have been very surprised over the past month as I've learned more and more about the increasing computerization of commercial aircraft. It is, of course, not just the Boeing 737. Many planes are programmed not only to sense and correct for conditions outside of the normal flight envelop (i.e in an emergency) but are also designed to sense the different stages of a typical flight and automatically make the "correct" control settings for that stage. Throttles in particular appear to often be automated to automatically respond to particular situations as the plane's computer perceives them. This can include automatic reductions in the throttle settings if the computer senses the plane is landing or about to land, or automatic increases in throttle setting if the computer senses the plane is taking off. These often operate outside of the auto-pilot per se and often without the explicit knowledge of the human pilots. Indeed the human pilots are often not well informed as to the existence of these programs nor are they very familiar or practiced in turning them off, leading to a variety of accidents (some fatal) as the humans wrestle with the mysterious and unexpected actions of the computer. The 737 situation is just a highly visible peak of the iceberg.

BTW: in reading about these accidents it appears to me that the inputs from the angle of attack sensors are particularly critical for the computer programs to function; it is amazing to me that Boeing felt okay eliminating any redundancy for this critical component in the 737 max redesign.
 
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I do wonder if modern distributed sensors could measure lift more directly by looking at the strain on the top surface of wings.
 
Giordano said:
I have been very surprised over the past month as I've learned more and more about the increasing computerization of commercial aircraft. It is, of course, not just the Boeing 737. Many planes are programmed not only to sense and correct for conditions outside of the normal flight envelop (i.e in an emergency) but are also designed to sense the different stages of a typical flight and automatically make the "correct" control settings for that stage. Throttles in particular appear to often be automated to automatically respond to particular situations as the plane's computer perceives them. This can include automatic reductions in the throttle settings if the computer senses the plane is landing or about to land, or automatic increases in throttle setting if the computer senses the plane is taking off. These often operate outside of the auto-pilot per se and often without the explicit knowledge of the human pilots. Indeed the human pilots are often not well informed as to the existence of these programs nor are they very familiar or practiced in turning them off, leading to a variety of accidents (some fatal) as the humans wrestle with the mysterious and unexpected actions of the computer. The 737 situation is just a highly visible peak of the iceberg.

BTW: in reading about these accidents it appears to me that the inputs from the angle of attack sensors are particularly critical for the computer programs to function; it is amazing to me that Boeing felt okay eliminating any redundancy for this critical component in the 737 max redesign.
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The problem with the Max is that it is so old it hasn't been computerised enough. The fact is pilot error is a cause of many crashes, not computer error.

The Max crashes were caused by a half baked solution to a problem that was created when large, hi- tech engines were added to a 1960's frame.

There is a joke that in the future the crew of a passenger plane will be a pilot and a dog. The pilots job will be to watch the computer fly the plane and the dogs job will be to make sure the pilot doesn't touch anything.
 
jimbob said:
I do wonder if modern distributed sensors could measure lift more directly by looking at the strain on the top surface of wings.
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A system as vital as MCAS should certainly be relying on more than one sensor to determine the aircraft's AoA. Wing strain is one way, multiple AoA sensors on the fuselage, and stall warning tabs on the wing leading edges would be another.
 
a_unique_person said:
The problem with the Max is that it is so old it hasn't been computerised enough. The fact is pilot error is a cause of many crashes, not computer error.

The Max crashes were caused by a half baked solution to a problem that was created when large, hi- tech engines were added to a 1960's frame.

<snip>
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Yes. If that solution had not been "half baked" then the crashes may well have been avoided.

This is not necessarily an indictment of the airframe itself, or of the effort to refit it with larger engines. Just that it wasn't done very well, with due consideration for process and review.

I'm not saying that it wasn't a completely misguided idea to begin with. I don't know enough to make that evaluation.

I do think that what we have learned about the cause of these crashes is not proof that the effort was misguided from the start.
 
quadraginta said:
I do think that what we have learned about the cause of these crashes is not proof that the effort was misguided from the start.
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The effort or the idea was not misguided, but the execution of that idea was abysmal.

Using a single sensor to detect AoA (and therefore stall) and delivering the resulting information to the pilot via a warning buzzer would be a bad enough idea as it was, although in a conventional aircraft, any pilot worth the name would pick up faulty indication quickly. The problem comes when you use such a risky system, and then feed the resulting information directly into the flight computer and allow it to autonomously control the aircraft.

I am still old school when it comes to flying. I believe that there ought to be a "manual override" that allows the pilots to completely bypass the flight computer and put the control stick/yoke in direct connection with the control surfaces. Had the Lion Air and the Ethiopian Airways pilots had such a system available to them, they could simply have switched out the computer and flown the aircraft themselves until they got past the danger point. Pilots should never, ever have to fight the computer for control of their aircraft.
 
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a_unique_person said:
A better solution would have been to design a new narrowbody. Boeing was due for one anyway. In the long run it would have worked out cheaper and safer.
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Agreed. Though this would have meant that many pilots would need extensive training on the new aircraft. This is what the 737 max avoided.

I hope the next aircraft from Boeing is the sort of plane where there is one pilot whose main job it is to communicate with the ground and look out for emergencies.
 
a_unique_person said:
The problem with the Max is that it is so old it hasn't been computerised enough. The fact is pilot error is a cause of many crashes, not computer error.
The Max crashes were caused by a half baked solution to a problem that was created when large, hi- tech engines were added to a 1960's frame.

There is a joke that in the future the crew of a passenger plane will be a pilot and a dog. The pilots job will be to watch the computer fly the plane and the dogs job will be to make sure the pilot doesn't touch anything.
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I respectfully, but strongly disagree with this statement. In most of the cases I have read, the pilots were actually implementing the correct procedures and the automated systems were fighting them and creating the danger, often invisibly to the pilots. In many of these cases the plots were not told of the existence of the automated intervention, they ran outside of the envelop of the situations that any automation was expected by the pilots, and they activated without clear signals that they were activated. In other cases the pilots received very minimal or obscure, hand-waving information of the existence of the automation and very brief information as to how to turn them off, which in some cases were inaccurate or, on turning off the system, did not adequately inform the pilots as to the additional procedures needed for a recovery i.e. taking into account the aerodynamic forces now present on hand-off by the computer. Amazingly even when successfully turned off by the pilots the automated systems often repeatedly turned themselves back on! As with the 737 max, the manufacturers often attempted to minimize the need for any new training for the pilots to keep expenses to the airlines down.

I think that increasing automation for aircraft is great, indeed necessary. But there entire fields of study on how to write critical code, and how to create interfaces between computers and people in these life and death situations, yet not implemented adequately by the plane manufacturers. And for now one still needs human pilots in many emergency situations and it must be obvious, easy, and definitive how the pilots can turn off an automation that is clearly endangering the plane, such as making strong nose down commands as with the 737 stretch.

Perhaps the dog should be trained to bite the appropriate computer module instead of the pilot?:)
 
What do you guys think of the impact of this whole affair on Boeing's stock price?

I'm a little shocked by how little impact it has.

Are large companies really this insulated from their mistakes by their size and market share? Or am I overestimating the importance of commercial aircraft for Boeing?
 
The commercial aircraft have been a massive source of profits for Boeing, particularly the 737. They have been building 52 a month.


The stock market just doesn't seem to believe they can fail. The MCAS screw up was due to a bloody minded management that was purely focussed on keeping the share price high. They still like that management mindset, apparently. The fix has been done and has to be approved by the global aviation authorites.



I can see Boeing facing massive fines though, similar to the fines that were levelled at VW.
 
a_unique_person said:
The commercial aircraft have been a massive source of profits for Boeing, particularly the 737. They have been building 52 a month.


The stock market just doesn't seem to believe they can fail. The MCAS screw up was due to a bloody minded management that was purely focussed on keeping the share price high. They still like that management mindset, apparently. The fix has been done and has to be approved by the global aviation authorites.



I can see Boeing facing massive fines though, similar to the fines that were levelled at VW.
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VW tanked, though.

I know someone who literally sold his apartment to invest it all plus his savings in VW at the bottom. He's a millionaire now.

The word 'diversify' is not in this dude's vocabulary.
 
Eddie Dane said:
VW tanked, though.

I know someone who literally sold his apartment to invest it all plus his savings in VW at the bottom. He's a millionaire now.

The word 'diversify' is not in this dude's vocabulary.
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There is competition in the auto market, there is a duopoly in large commercial aircraft. VW could be allowed to fail, especially in some markets. Boeing is simply to fundamental a part of infrastructure to fail.
 
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