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

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

#281

Post by cwkoss » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #227

pornel wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I give this a lot of honest thought all the time. My conclusion is this: it's easy to say "well, because the government is picking winners and losers." And it's true. But let's assume government will always be here (anarcho-capitalists are generally imbeciles) and it will generally rely on big industry. So it's not necessarily a market failure. The businesses have a steady stream of income they can rely on because, w…

I like the idea of progressive corporate taxes. Concentration of power is bad for society and should be taxed commensurately.

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

#282

Post by okmokmz » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

silvermast wrote: post #280

okmokmz wrote: post #180

I'm currently working at Boeing, and had a very similar experience to him getting onboarded as a contractor on a major project. Just as an example, I'm going to outline the steps it took to get me a proper badge 1. Filled out badge request form and gave it to my manager who gave it to the person who would be my manager at boeing 2. 4 months later have to refill out form because they lost it 3. 1.5 months later I rece…

Dude we had totally different experiences. When I got my grey badge, I walked in, gave them my forms I was told via email they would need, was then told to wait 3 hours and left to go hang out at the lake. Sunbathed for 2 hours. Came back. Got my badge. No issues. My team was very underutilized... We got legitimately excited when we came in and there was real work for us to do instead of sitting around and being 'ava…

I did get a badge the first time, but it didn't have the chip I needed to access certain things required for my job so I could get in the building and lab but not really do much. Apparently it also has to do with the location, because another person that was getting onboarded for the same project at another location also didn't get a chip but they immediately issued a new card when he walked back in without the hassle I went through. Seems to be pretty hit or miss, but I haven't had any luck

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

#283

Post by silvermast » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

okmokmz wrote: post #282

silvermast wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude we had totally different experiences. When I got my grey badge, I walked in, gave them my forms I was told via email they would need, was then told to wait 3 hours and left to go hang out at the lake. Sunbathed for 2 hours. Came back. Got my badge. No issues. My team was very underutilized... We got legitimately excited when we came in and there was real work for us to do instead of sitting around and being 'ava…

I did get a badge the first time, but it didn't have the chip I needed to access certain things required for my job so I could get in the building and lab but not really do much. Apparently it also has to do with the location, because another person that was getting onboarded for the same project at another location also didn't get a chip but they immediately issued a new card when he walked back in without the hassl…

Right, and I neglected to mention that I did get the chip with no issue. My point was just that the system can work well, sometimes.

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

#284

Post by cmurf » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #81

Scarblac wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than having one sensor, the chance that one of two breaks is larger than that just a single one breaks. And by alternating you ensure that the broken sensor will be used.

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…

For my commercial MEL training, most of the time was spent on assymetric thrust handling due to a single powerplant failure. When both are working, or neither are working, the plane handles about the same as a single engine.

When one engine fails, while you've lost 50% horsepower, you've lost more like 90% of excess horsepower which is what you need to accelerate and to climb. And assymmetric thrust is dangerous at slow airspeed. You must react exactly correctly and quickly. Failure on takeoff roll means an immediate abort. Failure at takeoff with runway remaining means cutting power and landing on what remains. Failure once airborne and you must quickly identify the failed engine, apply full opposite rudder (toward the good engine), if you don't do this while in a full power low airspeed climb the airplane will absolutely roll over. Many accidents are the result of continuing when they should have aborted, and being anemic or slow with corrective rudder.

Turbine powered airplanes are way different, they have a lot more excess thrust available so powerplant failure is not dire. They have so much more power that they will still easily accelerate to a safe single engine takeoff speed and climb away for a circle to land, which is safer than aborting after certain speeds that smaller twins won't get to on takeoff. That's all part of the computation for "balanced field length".

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

#285

Post by linuxftw » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 11:31 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #270

linuxftw wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Use inputs from both AOA sensors, if they disagree by 5.5 degrees, disable MCAS This can only mean that MCAS is disabled even more frequently. This is a terrible idea. This is like RAID0. The failure mode will increase greatly in complexity. MCAS might cut in and out, the plane might behave erratically. What the need to do is add a damn switch for 'disable MCAS' and tell people how and when to use the damn thing…

No, they can't do that, because then they'd have to retrain the pilots, or maybe even have a different type rating, which would make them uncompetitive against the Airbus and Bombardier planes. Remember, profits are more important than passengers' lives.

Just booked a flight. Price between two major carriers was about the same. One was a Boeing, the other Airbus. Guess who got my business?

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

#286

Post by notoriousjpg » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:06 AM UTC

I've had similar experiences with Airbus when we conducted technical feasibility on one of their maintenance mobility products. Couldn't get any technical documentation for the life of us, and once the product was presented, the design assumptions were so clearly flawed it was laughable. Authentication was implemented using iPad name. Yes, that name anyone can edit to be anything. No password. The assumption was just that everyone on the corporate network could be trusted.

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

#287

Post by dilyevsky » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 1:08 AM UTC

philpem wrote: post #108

hacknat wrote: post #92

I lived in Seattle for 7 years and got to know some Boeing project managers. The stories they told are very similar to this one. Apparently the life of a Boeing PM or Engineer is endless meetings, I asked one of my friends why this was the case. His response? A good chunk of the managers at Boeing won’t use email.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a liability thing. You can't subpoena a conversation unless it was recorded...

It’s standard practice for big corp to auto-erase emails after N months for this reason (well officially they dress it as cost saving measure).

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

#288

Post by ahartmetz » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 3:36 AM UTC

coupdejarnac wrote: post #163

puranjay wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen a more incompetent redesign in my life, especially for a "unicorn". That new redesign completely falls apart on Chrome on my mobile (a OnePlus 5T). Comment threads get squished together so much that by the 5th comment in a thread, all words are basically vertically arranged. If I switch to "desktop site" on Chrome, any text I enter gets automatically erased after hitting a certain number of characte…

I'm pretty sure the mobile website is designed to be as awful as possible to force users to use the mobile app.

i.reddit.com is nice on mobile. Please nobody tell management that it still exists...

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

#289

Post by anotheryou » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 6:50 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #52

> To this day, I refuse to fly on a 787. I'm sure that the Dreamliners that came off the assembly line after about a year or so were fine but there's that first year of production that, as far as I'm concerned, are ticking time bombs. I talked to many engineers who had worked on that program to know just how badly they rushed that initial production. Ouch. Anybody know where to get a list of who’s operating the plane…

yes, it's possible, but only on a very short notice e.g. via https://www.flightradar24.com/airport/phl/departures

I think there was a way to find the info without paying premium, but I forgot what of these names to put on to google to get more info on the specific plane.

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

#290

Post by m_mueller » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 7:06 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #151

jacobush wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still probably impossible to fire enough sneaky missiles to disable enough ICBM silos. I think they are an interesting development, but I don't think they are meant as first strike weapons against another major nuclear, at least not without excepting a full lobby back. They are terrifying against a state without a "nuclear umbrella". A few of these sneaky nukes could take out any ability to strike back conventionally…

As long as nuclear subs are a thing there is no possibility to take out the other side's ability to attack first.

Think about how quickly drone technology will evolve. The amount of explosives needed to destroy a sub is fairly small I presume. That means it should be feasible to mass produce underwater drones to cover coastal area, such that missiles launched from subs should be outside the zone that's too close to defend. I think AI / drone technology will completely change the military landscape fairly soon, as producing them will be cheaper than defending against them.