I don't think the focus was on pilot training - more to modify an existing plane so they didn't have to engage in a long R&D project that would have left them "behind" Airbus and basically losing participation in a key market for 5 or so years.
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I thought it was pilot training, plus ground crew, plus maintenance. Ryanair and Southwest have lower costs not just because their pilots are interchangeable and only need to know one plane, but because of everyone in the entire structure; plus, presumably, all the replacement parts...Comment
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There is a big value to ecosystem capture, for sure. The Max development was a reaction to being slow to move and being caught out by the base of this NY Times story I remember back when (there is some wonderful arrogance from Boeing in that story). They committed to build an efficient plane in 6 years, which basically forced them into a 737 modification rather than a new build.
The NY Times has continued to push this narrative through the summer, though also did a big report on how bad training practices are in Indonesia and other discount carrier markets.Comment
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Interesting. That's a different narrative to the one I was familiar with - which was that it was essential to keep 737-only carriers as 737-only, because once a carrier diversified to have more than one plane in the fleet they lose the cost savings and then might as well shop around.Comment
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How the 737 has changed in fifty years. 1969:
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2019 - illustrates the problem with the positioning of the engines compared to the originals. I’m sure it’s been done up thread but as I understand it it’s somethi like:- Turbofans are fatter than turbojets
- Thus if turbofans sat under the wings, they would be a problem at takeoff and landing without having enormous undercarriage
- Answer - push engines forward of the wings so they can be mounted higher
- Result, plane is unbalanced and wants to drop its nose
- Solution - software to adjust the plane’s behaviour
Edit: or rather, the software thought the plane was flying level when it was in fact diving, and the pilots couldn’t override?Last edited by Sits; 24-12-2019, 00:28.Comment
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I think more "when the pilot is not made aware of the software adjustment" is where the problem came. The training was definitely underdone / almost overlooked as part of the sales pitch. But the true problem was the greed / fear of missing out on the new fuel sensitive world of flight.
There probably ought to be Boeing folk going to prison over this.Comment
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He had to be pushed because he wouldn't jump then.Comment
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Was probably negotiating his severance package.Comment
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Yeah, there were many reasons to not bother to move to a new platform, not just pilot training (as I might have suggested).Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
Unfortunately they also went full on pretending that no pilot training was needed in the new model and didn't even bother telling pilots about the MCAS.
A Scandinavian Airlines (or Norwegian?) pilot on YouTube says that the 737 Max would fly fine without MCAS, but that it would feel like a completely different plane, thus requiring retraining. He says the purpose of the MCAS is to make the plane feel like a 737-800. Don't know how true that is, he might be talking shite.Last edited by anton pulisov; 24-12-2019, 10:36.Comment
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MCAS or no MCAS, it's just another example of "we'll fix it in software". If you build a car that pulls to the left, you don't fix it in software, you stop it pulling to the left.
If it was just faulty MCAS and if it was fixed by adding in more AoA sensors then the 737 MAX would be much closer to flying. But Boeing have produced a plane that is fundamentally broken.
Software is seen as the cure for all ills and even the most basic software is at best massively inefficient and has bugs in it. Scale that up to tens or hundreds of developers across massively complex systems that have to cope with an incredible number of parameters and variables and frankly, its a miracle this stuff doesn't happen more often and that's before you put a physically broken design into the equation.
It's like Teslas. Now I like Teslas and I like what they have done in the car industry. But when they released the Model 3, it had a problem with emergency braking. Tesla threw out an OTA software update than decreased the braking distance by over 10%. And everyone goes "ooh, that's clever". No it isn't! it's bloody terrifying. They didn't actually physically test this? They throw out things like Autopilot and say that drivers can effectively hand control of a vehicle off to a computer and they didn't even make sure the brakes were working as well as they could? And then go "Meh, we'll throw out a patch".
It's madness.Comment
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interesting thing here about the 777X coming up 1% short on the mandated physical stress test. The article says that Boeing proposes to do a fix according to a computer model analysis of the failure. I don't get that. I assume the computer model predicted it wouldn't fail the test in the first place...
I remember that back in the day Boeing would show off how their planes exceeded the requirements of the test. They'd do the stress test, exceed the requirements, and then stress the thing for it fun until broke well beyond the test requirements, just to see how far they could go. Nowadays they are doing the test, hoping to just pass it, and not purposely stressing to beyond breaking point, because they hope to sell the prototype. Cost savings have taken hold all throughout the process.
Last edited by anton pulisov; 24-12-2019, 13:11.Comment
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In addition to what Snake says, the sensors and software to fly the plane properly came as optional extras rather than the standard spec.
Anton, is this because older planes had a dual purpose, commercial as well as military variants. So would need to exceed expectations as they would need to be able to fly when being shot at.Comment
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I managed to run the battery down on the Prius. It is actually scary how much of the pedal operation is actually based on software - they barely move until you get a charge in the thing.Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
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Yeps, that's correct AP, the original purpose of MCAS was to give the 737 MAX the same feel for the pilots as the 737-800, thus obviating the need for pilot re-training for the new type.Originally posted by anton pulisov View Post
I'm struggling to remember the precise details, but what follows goes something like this. Prototype flight testing found some kind of problem (potential stalling? - I'm not certain) that Boeing decided to tackle by modifying MCAS, burdening it with a task for which it was never initially designed. This was botched to such an extent that MCAS was transformed from an unassuming background system to something far more aggressive.
If I recall correctly, on the previous page of this thread ursus linked to a couple of articles that contain a lot of information. For those that are interested, I've also found Juan Brown's blancolirio channel on youtube helpful.
This isn't right, TG. Two AoA sensors and MCAS are standard kit on all 737 MAX aeroplanes. The optional extra was the indicator light showing when the two sensors gave radically different readings. Yeah, I know, it's all a bit academic when the actual implementation was as bad as it was, and the pilots had sod all knowledge of MCAS anyway.Originally posted by Tactical Genius View PostComment
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This wouldn't have helped their CEO. Not one little bit.
It turns out that shoddy coding and untested sensors aren't just a feature of boeing planes. Essentially this is supposed to be one of the two ways for NASA to get people to the ISS. The Rocket, which worked flawlessly, got the capsule to orbit. The Capsule was supposed to get itself to the ISS, unfortunately it seems like someone had set some of the clocks wrong, and the main engine didn't fire when it was supposed to, however the capsule fought like a bastard to keep itself pointing the right direction, as though the engine was firing, which meant that when they figured out what was happening, they didn't have enough fuel to dock with the ISS. It landed safely yesterday, so that much of it works. The big issue here is are NASA going to require Boeing to actually fly another test to show that this works. That would cost Boeing a hell of a lot of money, because the rocket it flies on is at least $150 million, and there's a lot involved in preparing a test. This event alone is likely to cost them the guts of $300-$400 million if they have to do it again.
This could cause boeing further problems down the line. Essentially the Shuttle-Coalition Senators who are in charge of NASA's Budget, have been shovelling more and more money to Boeing to build their huge, incredibly expensive SLS rocket, and all of this happens on the back of Boeing's track record as the Manufacturer of stuff for NASA. They're the people who built all the ISS components, they have the contract to operate it, they bought the people who built the Shuttle. The response of the Senate to the massive cost overruns and the incredible delays to the SLS project, has been to contract boeing to build six of them, money no object. Fucking up this capsule so badly puts a lot of that reputation in the woodchipper. It's one thing to kill some Ethiopians. Kill some astronauts, and you might actually get into some actual trouble.Comment
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I wonder if this means that they've reduced and/or gotten rid of MCAS so much that the plane no longer drives like a 737-800.Comment
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"designed by clowns who are supervised by monkeys"
https://www.theguardian.com/business...ernal-messagesComment
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It's probably still worth it to them.Comment
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Maybe for a thread of its own but penalties and deferred prosecution agreements have lost their charm. When I first read about them it seemed positive that corporations were paying something for crimes rather than officers spending years in court to get off.
But now it's just the cost of doing business. No one is responsible, no one has any incentive to obey the rules. Companies aren't going to go bust. And these agreements always seem to be couched in terms that say the company admits no wrongdoing.
But I guess, it's nigh on impossible to properly identify who did what on a corporation from the outside if the organisation doesn't want you to know. Would it be better if some low to mid ranking employees got sent to jail for doing what their bosses asked them to do?Comment
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Also, what would have happened if the two crashes had been United and Delta instead of Ethiopian and Indonesian.Comment
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