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“I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

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Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#201

Post by mindslight »

PaulHoule wrote: post #101
ozmaverick72 wrote: post #31

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…

A new type rating wouldn't be punishment, but the bare minimum of common sense. It only seems like it would be unreasonably onerous for Boeing (et al) because Boeing set themselves in this position to call the FAA's bluff TBTF-style.

What should really happen, in the free market creative destruction paradigm, is that the entire design should be scrapped - designated as non-airworthy by the FAA. Since the design goals seem to have revolved around hacking FAA regulations, as opposed to good faith engineering, how can any of the results be trusted?

A reasonable pick-up-the-pieces approach would see the MAX grounded for a minimum of three years for an overall design review with no getting out of a new type cert, with production halted in case hardware changes are needed.

But what's reasonable can never happen politically, because Airbus, headquartered in that entirely non-allied and utterly foreign country France, would benefit. Mon Dieu!

Which is the general setup for Too Big Too Fail - ignore regulations/prudence, skim profit short term profits, and then make sure it is everyone's problem when the sham inevitably blows up. The Boeing executives that forewent actually designing a modern plane are the ones responsible for not having kept up with Airbus, and should frankly end up in prison for mismanaging a TBTF (ie quasi-government) entity.

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#202

Post by jet_32951 »

Pigo wrote: post #125

I contracted with a branch of Lockheed. While I couldn't/shouldn't talk about any of the technology involved, I can attest to the culture I witnessed. I always assumed it was horrible because of the government affiliation. But I think that mostly affected their focus, in that most of the branch was dedicated to wasting money so they could ask for more money. However, the culture itself was stagnate by design. Most of…

At the last place I worked, Fortune 50 systems integrator, you can find yourself in a program where risk is increasing and schedule is galloping to the right, yet people are getting shuffled to other projects in the classic matrix organization move to "save the budget". Maybe this is because higher management is gambling that another component of the program is going to be late and therefore there's no pressure anyhow, but this doesn't get communicated downward and there's jerky and inconsistent progress for reasons that don't otherwise make sense. After a time, people get tired of the idea that they are pawns in a financial game and whether they do good, mediocre or bad work isn't important or perhaps even relevant to company goals.

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#203

Post by starpilot »

In his other comments, he walks back on his remarks:

> Also, in all fairness to my hated former employer, air travel is still by far the safest form of travel. Even with the shitshow at Boeing, Boeing planes manage to be incredibly safe. I'm really not sure how, but they are.

> And it might be because I grew up around Boeing, but I'd still fly Boeing over Airbus, to be perfectly honest. Airbus makes good planes, but that reliance on computers over pilots just makes me nervous.

> Even the 787, despite all the horrible issues with the initial run, is probably going to be an exceptionally safe plane due to the carbon fiber construction.

So it sounds like much of his commentary is of the "how the sausage is made" nature that is common to the gestation of many (all?) complex products. You probably have nothing to worry about with air travel.

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#204

Post by VBprogrammer »

cheerlessbog wrote: post #172
mcguire wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loss of one engine at low speed will leave a twin uncontrollable. See Vmc ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_speeds?wprov=sfla1 ).

If you promptly shut off the other engine, does it become equivalent to single engine failure?

Not really. Twin engine aircraft don't have to meet the same crash worthiness standards and usually have higher stall speeds (in this case minimum crash speeds).

To be fair the statistics are swayed slightly by a number of factors, training accidents and different risk profiles of the flights.

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#205

Post by tempguy9999 »

dotancohen wrote: post #166
PaulHoule wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 737 predates the 747 and the Concorde, and both of those are out of passenger service. The circular cross-section, for one thing, makes it like the old American cars that were huge on the outside and small on the inside. The only way you'll really understand this is ride on an modern plane such as the E175 or A220 -- you'll get that you hate to fly not because you hate to fly but you hate to fly on a 737 and neve…

Why is this downvoted? It is 100% true. The 737 has the _fundamental_ problem of having wings very low to the ground during ground operations. Taller landing gear is not an option, in fact the 737-max has slightly-extending landing gear to resolve this issue. It is part of the reason the plane is called "max" - they maxed out things like ground clearance, fuselage length, wing chord, and other parameters. Back to the…

> Taller landing gear is not an option

Why?

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#206

Post by foldr »

salawat wrote: post #156
foldr wrote: post #87

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.

> you were at positive AoA, reduced thrust would impart a negative AoA moment

I don't think that is correct. I think you're still thinking of the angle of the plane with respect to the horizon, not the AoA.

If reducing thrust reduced AoA, then you could recover from a stall by reducing thrust. In reality, the opposite is the case. The only way to recover from a stall by manipulating engine thrust is to increase it (though this won't always be sufficient by itself).

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#207

Post by starpilot »

dmonagha wrote: post #136
Pigo wrote: post #125

I contracted with a branch of Lockheed. While I couldn't/shouldn't talk about any of the technology involved, I can attest to the culture I witnessed. I always assumed it was horrible because of the government affiliation. But I think that mostly affected their focus, in that most of the branch was dedicated to wasting money so they could ask for more money. However, the culture itself was stagnate by design. Most of…

I worked at a similar large aerospace contractor just in the past couple years. I can attest 100% to what you've said. They estimated they would need to replace 40% of their workforce within the next 10 years just to stay afloat. Recently at my old site they hired 1000 people. Within a year, 800 had quit. These are software engineers, mechanical engineers, etc. I watched people just play on their phones, keep their f…

This is kind of why SpaceX is so efficient. That kind of dead wood doesn't really exist there, plus their actual aerospace/mechanical engineers are cream of the crop from the best universities.

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#208

Post by sctb »

guatepeor4 wrote: post #113
noncoml wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brilliant engineers are still there. We haven’t gotten stupider as a species in 30 years. It’s the economics that changed. As people say “They don’t build stuff like they used too anymore”. First we started going cheap on the materials. Now we are going cheap on the engineers too. Why pay a senior “brilliant” engineer $$$$ when a fresh out of college “average” engineer can write the “same piece of code” for $$

Probably a lot of diversity hires too, with lower IQ. Maybe some womynz who tech are in the management roles. It's amusing to watch how a culture piously self-desructs.

Obviously we've banned this account.

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#209

Post by logfromblammo »

dmonagha wrote: post #136
Pigo wrote: post #125

I contracted with a branch of Lockheed. While I couldn't/shouldn't talk about any of the technology involved, I can attest to the culture I witnessed. I always assumed it was horrible because of the government affiliation. But I think that mostly affected their focus, in that most of the branch was dedicated to wasting money so they could ask for more money. However, the culture itself was stagnate by design. Most of…

I worked at a similar large aerospace contractor just in the past couple years. I can attest 100% to what you've said. They estimated they would need to replace 40% of their workforce within the next 10 years just to stay afloat. Recently at my old site they hired 1000 people. Within a year, 800 had quit. These are software engineers, mechanical engineers, etc. I watched people just play on their phones, keep their f…

Here's a story that I received secondhand, so I cannot verify its authenticity.

A man exited the Navy, and got a new job with a private Navy-supporting contractor. He reports for work, and his manager tells him what he'll be working on. So he gets right to it, sets up a cot, and hammers away for a few days, until the problem is completely fixed. As one does when trained by the Navy.

He then tells his manager that he's finished. Manager just goes berserk, and tells him to not show his face at the worksite again; just fill out the time card remotely, until instructed otherwise. So he toddles off, to go SCUBA diving every day, for about six months, until the work hours allocated to the project were finally used up. After that, he played the game correctly.

This story aligns perfectly with my anecdotal experience, though it is not uniform across all contractor companies, or even across different work groups within the same company. Even the estimates for the work required to pad the estimates are padded.

Re: “I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

#210

Post by starpilot »

pornel wrote: post #174
Pigo wrote: post #125

I contracted with a branch of Lockheed. While I couldn't/shouldn't talk about any of the technology involved, I can attest to the culture I witnessed. I always assumed it was horrible because of the government affiliation. But I think that mostly affected their focus, in that most of the branch was dedicated to wasting money so they could ask for more money. However, the culture itself was stagnate by design. Most of…

How come we end up with ineffective duopolies? Why isn't market competition finding a way around these failing companies?

In rockets, we have SpaceX. Commercial aviation has a higher regulatory barrier for entry, both in technical knowledge and facilities. You don't just spin up a gigantic, cavernous assembly line with thousands of technicians and billions of dollars in tooling overnight. I wouldn't be surprised if in 10-20 years though, someone backed by Google tried building a self-piloted, subsonic blended-wing-body 200-300 pax jetliner. Google right now has Kitty Hawk, but I think their ambitions are far greater.
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