Boeing may be now well and truly fucked

http://havecoffeewillwrite.com/?p=67929

by neverminder • 7 years ago

24 34 7 years ago

havecoffeewillwrite.com

mimixco2• 7 years ago

Consumer confidence in the DC-10 disappeared after its closely-spaced and related fatal crashes. This led to the plane being relegated to cargo duties and, eventually, to McDonnell Douglas's financial failure and sale to Boeing.

The TL;DR? If people don't want to fly the MAX, there's nothing Boeing can do to fix it. They're better off abandoning the design and doing the clean sheet plane they should have done from the beginning.

flowersjeff• 7 years ago

Don't know why you're getting the downvotes.

Thanks for the TL;DR - as the site didn't work for me. Also, the analysis is spot on.

mimixco2• 7 years ago

Here's Nader's original:

https://nader.org/2019/04/04/boeings-homicide-will-give-way-...

philjohn2• 7 years ago

http://web.archive.org/web/20190426150157/http://havecoffeew...

skybrian• 7 years ago

I've read elsewhere that there aren't a whole lot of choices since competitors have limited capacity to ramp up? Also, some choices are also built by Boeing. (Such as other 737's.)

vkou2• 7 years ago

Other 737s aren't inheritantly unstable airframes that need software hacks to keep them flying.

Mind you, the entire MCAS issue would be mitigated, if the plane were re-certified.

Aloha2• 7 years ago

That's not really accurate - the DC-10 was moved out of passenger operations because of operating costs - TriJets (DC-10/MD-11/L-1011) soldiered on in passenger roles until the mid-90's when better fuel performance from twin-jets and natural age based attrition moved them into freight roles.

philjohn2• 7 years ago

ETOPS allowing dual engined aircraft to do routes that previously needed >2 engines sealed their fate.

crgwbr• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, from what I understand, it’s more like MCD bought Boeing with Boeing’s money. Officially, Boeing bought MCD, but MCD executives, leadership, and design process replaced a lot of their Boeing redundancies.

icodemuch• 7 years ago

Site doesn't work for me

agumonkey2• 7 years ago

same,

- google cache has no entry

- printfriendly fails on the same error

- can't try archive.is right now

fjarlq• 7 years ago

Workaround: https://web.archive.org/web/20190426150157/http://havecoffee...

blarg12• 7 years ago

Using only one operating sensor (Airbus A320neo has three sensors)

I thought the boeing plane only needed the system because their engines were positioned so far forward, and that the airbus plane didn't have that problem, so shouldn't airbus not need the stall system?

_fizz_buzz_• 7 years ago

Many planes have angle of attack sensors. Normally it is just a warning system. Boeing used theirs as input for their control loop of the MCAS system.

cptskippy• 7 years ago

And most have redundant systems.

treis3• 7 years ago

Airbus and Boeing take different approaches towards flight control. Airbus will override pilot inputs to keep the plane from stalling or otherwise flying out of the envelope. Boeing allows pilots to override the plane even if the plane thinks it's a dangerous maneuver. Airbus's system needs to be more reliable since a malfunctioning sensor will cause the plane to crash itself.

jarfil• 7 years ago

Wasn't the problem that Boeing requires pilots to keep overriding the system in the case of a failure, while not training them to do so, or even mentioning the fact in the documentation?

blarg12• 7 years ago

I see, though for the airbus I'd have thought a warning system would be better to implement than more complicated to implement control system.

brianpgordon• 7 years ago

Do you know exactly how fly-by-wire Airbus planes are? In an emergency, if the avionics computer goes crazy and starts making the plane do barrel rolls, can the pilot override it and take manual control?

gharper• 7 years ago

Most aircraft have the stall sensors for warnings, right down to small private planes.

The 737 Max 8 is different because the MCAS system actually overrides the pilot's input, rather than just sounding a warning to alert the pilot to a potentially dangerous situation.

atonse• 7 years ago

I've gone from admiring Boeing all my life to completely not trusting anything today's Boeing says after this scandal.

It's very likely that they are overrun by a bunch of MBA-ridden suits rather than engineers (not claiming all engineers are benevolent but that cultural shift always results in an erosion of quality), like most companies of its type. And no good decisions will be made.

I have always said (although without any supporting data), that the safest time to fly is probably after a plane crash because most airlines are probably double and triple checking their planes to be safe.

But that's not true of the 737-MAX. You can't fix what they've screwed up. Because the fundamental design change was borne out of greed, and not good engineering. I'll continue to avoid the 737-MAX like I'm sure many others will.

Aloha2• 7 years ago

the 737max is not really any more unsafe than any other fly-by-wire aircraft - aerodynamically unstable aircraft are not really unusual, and this one isnt even really unstable in 99% of its flight envelope, just one specific place - and its not even unstable, it just handles differently than other 737's.

I agree with you, Boeing should have done a clean sheet redesign of the aircraft for this segment, not patch up the 737 for another decade of production - but I cant really tell them the reasons they made this choice are bad - airlines like and want more 737's, a completely new type creates a bunch of extra costs on all parts - so a choice was made, and now Boeing will live with the consequences.

hackandtrip• 7 years ago

We all will avoid the 373 MAX luckily, because it's blocked by every Airline right now.

agumonkey2• 7 years ago

It's crazy how anything in the universe grows and decays.. even when said thing is somehow sentient and knows about this

GiorgioG• 7 years ago

I don't care what Boeing does, I won't fly the Max going forward unless it gets a triple-redundant redesign for MCAS. Yep, triple-redundant can also fail, but I expect Boeing to over-design the fix to raise consumer confidence.

evmar• 7 years ago

This is just a copy-paste of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19758373 (which is the original source and on a site that isn't down)

yread• 7 years ago

Boeing still has Outperform rating from Leeham and others. It will be interesting who will be right: random bloggers or financial "analysts"

https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/24/initial-analyst-reaction-t...

peteretep• 7 years ago

The entire article is blogspam for this article:

https://nader.org/2019/04/04/boeings-homicide-will-give-way-...