181–190 of 313 posts
Well a decades-long oligopoly of two companies is similar to central planning in many aspects and his story indeed rings a lot of bells.
In the last 50 years, fatalities per miles travelled have been reduced by a factor of 100. If that’s an oligopoly at work, I want to try a monopoly and see if it’s even better.
"I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period and I can absolutely guarantee this happened." was in response to this comment: "I would be very surprised if in a few years from today a bunch of engineers don't testify that ample of warning was given to management about this. " Reddit doesn't make it easy to find what they replied to.
Just click parent
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was talking to my flight instructor about twin engine planes. He was adamant that they were LESS safe than single engines because 1) you are twice as likely to have an engine failure and 2) the statistics indicate (non-intuitively) that an engine-out in a twin is more likely to lead to fatalities. He said the insurance companies used to think twins were safer but they have adjusted their rates after looking at actual…
Yeah, there's a pilot proverb about how having a second engine "helps you get to the crash site faster".
As outlined above, you double the probability that a mechanical problem occurs. (For p small, 1-(1-p)^2 is around 2p).
Now, if the pilots are very much on top of things (well trained and current), then they can control things and safely land at the nearest suitable airport. However, if they make a mistake (and that's surprisingly easy [1]), it could easily be fatal.
A single-engine plane with an engine failure, in contrast, becomes a bad glider, with a decent chance of surviving the ensuing forced landing.
[1] For example, the TransAsia ATR 72 twin turbo prop clipping a bridge in Taiwan after the crew erroneously shut down the "good" engine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The software fixes as described sound sensible and it's hard to believe they were not in the original design. Unfortunately I don't see how these changes will allow them to keep a common type rating with the 737 NG. After the updated MCAS has made its one shot trim adjustment you will now be flying an aircraft with different handling characteristics if you keep increasing the angle of attack into the stall. Surely th…
Having a new type rating is a fair punishment, I think, for Boeing and the airlines who have been stringing along this obsolete airliner for way too long. Note the 737 MAX was rushed out not just to fight the A320neo but also to counter this kind of jet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220 which is cheaper to run than the 737 MAX but also has much better passenger comfort than the 737. I was in the similar http…
Delta Air Lines
JetBlue Airways
Hawaiian
Spirit Airlines
Allegiant Travel
Mesa Air Group
Skywest
I have been flying Delta a lot and came away impressed anyway.
edit: formatting problem
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reducing thrust will increase angle of attack. The angle of attack is the angle of the wing relative to the airflow, not the angle of the plane relative to the horizon.
Yes conceptually, no because of signage error. If you were in a position MCAS would have to kick in, you were at positive AoA, reduced thrust would impart a negative AoA moment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. People tend to forget that as each problem is solved, the next problem is typically more complex.
I like to say we never solve problems, we try to replace bigger ones with smaller ones.
For example, the door to the cockpit is locked now to keep terrorists out - which allows a suicidal co-pilot to fly the machine into a mountain undisturbed. (Having said that, a suicidal pilot can take down the machine one way or the other, so maybe locking the doors was a pareto improvement.)
> When I showed up at my first day of work, the first words out of my supervisor's mouth were, "I don't know why you are here, we have no need for programmers." (The Boeing interview process is done so that at no point, do you ever have contact or communication with the team you will be working with.)
My first job out of college in 1984 was with Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage Long Island. I was hired by a college recruiter and didn't speak to anyone on the team I would be on 'til my first day of work.
They had no work for us to do. I left after exactly one year. I wrote some utility programs to format compiler errors just for fun.
They had these "cost plus" contracts with the Navy and they could make a few extra dollars by making a small profit charging for some junior workers on a project. The F-14D project was canceled a few years after I left.
I used to work for a large company in the aerospace sector (not an aircraft maker) where software was a big part of what they did. I was in the safety assurance part of the company, and on a couple of occasions I had to tell management that the software wasn't up to scratch. One of them was The Big Project On Which Everything Depends.
Management didn't even blink. They went straight back to the supplier and spent the next several weeks in tough negotiations about timescale and how the additional costs were going to be split. The project was delayed, and I got zero blowback. They didn't even argue with me. The nearest I got to argument was some careful review of my report, which was perfectly reasonable given the amount of money at stake.
I'm posting anonymously here and not naming names because I stand by my duty of confidentiality. But I am proud to have worked there.
I worked at Boeing on a large satellite program back in this same time frame (2008-2011). I worked on the software simulator for the satellite that was used to test flight code and the ground system (i.e., give the ground control software simulated satellites to talk to, and to ring out procedures). Anyway, as the final configuration for this satellite was still being tweaked, I needed to get updated mass properties…