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

LondonJohn said:
Well firstly, the 737 Max is only one aircraft size/configuration. Its Airbus competitor type is the A320/A320Neo. Boeing's big company bet is still the Dreamliner (and rumoured multiple size variants in a future Dreamliner series).

Plus the 737 Max was nothing more than an iteration of the 737 model (though of course it's one part of that iteration which has caused all the problems). It's still entirely based on the basic 737 platform though. So in fact - and especially given that the previous iterations of the 737 have been the most popular, and among the most profitable, commercial aircraft in history - it would be entirely feasible for Boeing to revert back to making the previous version of the 737 (the 737 NextGen) on the same line, and retro-converting the existing inventory of 737 Max aircraft to the same previous spec.

There seems little doubt in the industry that Boeing has medium-term plans to abandon the 737 marque (and after all, the basic airframe design is now over 50 years old!!) in favour of a ground-up-designed new model with similar capacity, range and intended usage. It would actually be a huge surprise if Boeing is not already in (confidential, of course) advanced development of such an aircraft; it's likely that the 737 Max was only intended as a stop-gap marginal improvement to the 737 while development of the new aircraft was taking place.

Boeing has without doubt taken a big reputational hit over this - not only for the flaws in the design itself, but also (and probably moreso) for its long refusal to admit to faults/problems until its hand was forced. But reputations can be restored, and it will take a lot more than this for Boeing to concede any sector of the commercial aviation market (let alone all of it) to Airbus or anyone else.
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Boeing can have all the plans they want. However, their customers still have the same dual demands for the newer, larger engines and low retraining costs for their pilots.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
 
LondonJohn said:
There seems little doubt in the industry that Boeing has medium-term plans to abandon the 737 marque (and after all, the basic airframe design is now over 50 years old!!) in favour of a ground-up-designed new model with similar capacity, range and intended usage. It would actually be a huge surprise if Boeing is not already in (confidential, of course) advanced development of such an aircraft; it's likely that the 737 Max was only intended as a stop-gap marginal improvement to the 737 while development of the new aircraft was taking place.
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I was, in fact, working on development of such a replacement from 2005 to 2010. It was tough to make the business case come together.
 
Trebuchet said:
I was, in fact, working on development of such a replacement from 2005 to 2010. It was tough to make the business case come together.
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That's interesting. Why? There was clearly a market for a different plane; that's why they built and sold the Max. And Airbus doesn't seem to have any trouble making money with new planes. Like some other businesses, did Boeing want to make too much money too fast, or did they not want to spend money on R&D, or what? In retrospect, it looks like a bad decision.
 
Basically, trying to incorporate all the 787 technology on an airplane that would have to sell for much less just wasn't working.
Oh, and the project didn't stop in 2010, that's just when I retired.
 
Trebuchet said:
I was, in fact, working on development of such a replacement from 2005 to 2010. It was tough to make the business case come together.
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I have read that same claim at other forums as well. I have to ask if the risk of not building the NSA was adequately factored into the business case. A risk such as the one that has raised it's ugly head in the form of MCAS.
 
Trebuchet said:
Basically, trying to incorporate all the 787 technology on an airplane that would have to sell for much less just wasn't working.
Oh, and the project didn't stop in 2010, that's just when I retired.
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If it only has to compete with the A320 then wouldn't it only have to be a bit better than that? A kind of 80/20 thing?
 
I live in Renton. There are a lot of people walking around with long faces, just in time for the holidays. It's not as bad for the whole Puget Sound area as other big Boeing catastrophes, like the shutdown of the SST project - at the time Boeing was *the* big employer in the area and it devastated the Seattle economy.

But it's still pretty bad locally, and I'm sure it will be the last straw for some businesses that were already struggling. I doubt it will make any difference for the Fry's store by the plant, because it appears to be on its last legs anyway, we went in there a couple of weeks ago and whole sections of the store were completely empty of merchandise. What little stuff they had was spread out in multiple places to give the illusion of stocked shelves.
 
Bob001 said:
That's interesting. Why? There was clearly a market for a different plane; that's why they built and sold the Max. And Airbus doesn't seem to have any trouble making money with new planes. Like some other businesses, did Boeing want to make too much money too fast, or did they not want to spend money on R&D, or what? In retrospect, it looks like a bad decision.
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Delphic Oracle said:
Boeing can have all the plans they want. However, their customers still have the same dual demands for the newer, larger engines and low retraining costs for their pilots.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
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Check out the Mentour vid (if you haven't already) he goes into some of the plus and minuses.
 
quadraginta said:
The eternal problem.

Cheap. Good. Quick.

Pick two.
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Actually, it's more like:

Let me pick a deadline out of my ass so short as to be completely unrealistic given the problems that were experienced with the last project, but I'll just say something off the top of my head without consulting any "teams" for input and even though no one at this stage even asked for a deadline, I'll just blurt out something along the lines of however long the last project took divided in half. After all, didn't "we" learn so much with the last project that this project will take less time?

This project is going to be so amazing that it's going to be both cheap AND good. Someone have a 2'x8' banner printed out that says CHEAP AND GOOD for the shop floor! That'll make all the difference!
 
a_unique_person said:
I have read that same claim at other forums as well. I have to ask if the risk of not building the NSA was adequately factored into the business case. A risk such as the one that has raised it's ugly head in the form of MCAS.
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Clearly not. It was Y1 in those days, BTW. And then "737 Replacement Study; and DON'T call it '737RS'". Everyone did.

a_unique_person said:
If it only has to compete with the A320 then wouldn't it only have to be a bit better than that? A kind of 80/20 thing?
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I suppose, but that wasn't what we were charged with.
 


Another video from Mentour Pilot. He gives a history lesson on the issues, says certain things are not known and gives his prediction that it will be back.
 
I don't think he is the first head actually. They shook up the corporate airline division a couple months ago.


ETA: Which I just noticed is mentioned near the bottom of the article you provided. Boeing Commercial Airplanes is apparently the correct name for the division he headed.
 
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RecoveringYuppy said:
I don't think he is the first head actually. They shook up the corporate airline division a couple months ago.


ETA: Which I just noticed is mentioned near the bottom of the article you provided. Boeing Commercial Airplanes is apparently the correct name for the division he headed.
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That's correct.

New guy is Dave Calhoun, formerly non-executive chairman.

I find this sentence from the Wikipedia article troubling:
He was previously the vice chairman of General Electric and CEO of GE Infrastructure, a GE division with $50 billion in revenues and 120,000 employees
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GE -- perhaps I should say Jack Welch -- is the root cause of all Boeing's problems over the last 20 years, first inflicting their corporate culture on McDonnell-Douglas and then on Boeing.

Muilenburg was at least a "legacy Boeing" guy.
 
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