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Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

seattletimes.com

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Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#51

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dd36 wrote: post #6
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the lessons learned is that the FAA is no longer a credible institution.

Gotta love deregulation. How many institutions are left? Any? CFPB, EPA, HUD, Interior are all run by people that don’t believe in their missions. It’s all about undermining from inside. Who protects the public when private rights of collective action are forbidden by arbitration agreements and the government has been captured by private interests?

EPA has been a joke for at least two, I want to say three, administrations now. Now they're just a joke that doesn't impede business quite so much.

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#52

Post by nikofeyn »

skybrian wrote: post #49
djsumdog wrote: post #28

What is the endgame now for 737 MAX planes? Every airline using them has had several weeks to totally reorganize to deal with these huge missing parts of their fleets. Boeing keeps talking about fixing them and putting them back in the air, but I dunno. At this point, it should be agreed the fundamental design flaws are serious, and Boeing should have simply made a brand new plane, with much more modern controls and…

It's rather weird to ask a huge number of mostly-good airplanes to be thrown away for PR reasons, rather than fixing them. (Not to mention that these planes have never crashed in most countries, even with an admittedly serious bug.)

it’s not just pr reasons. they tried to hot patch this airplane design with software, and now they are hot patching that fix. it seems it is a fundamentally flawed design that they tried to hide and get away with rather than doing the right thing. i know i don’t want to fly on a 737 max ever, and this whole ordeal with boeing and the faa has made me less confident in the airline industry as a whole.

your parenthetical still shows some finger pointing towards “poor” countries’ pilots and ignores the number of crashes and reports for as young as this plane is and the numbers in use.

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#53

Post by alexis_fr »

djsumdog wrote: post #33
rtempaccount1 wrote: post #8

One thing that appears concerning in the series of articles being written about the 737 Max incidents is that they suggest a culture at Boeing of speed/cost over safety. Now we can assume that the Max won't re-enter service until this issue is completely solved (I'm sure regulators will be extra-scrupulous here and customers will want cast iron re-assurance). However, is anyone going over all the other safety decisio…

I'm actually wondering if the 737 MAX will make it back into service. Every single one of these planes will need to be flow back to one of their maintenance centers (like the one south of Seattle) and undergo retrofits. Hopefully it will result in Bowing being required to make this a new plane and a lot of pilot re-certification. If it does return to the market, I wonder if they'll be forced to rebrand it. It's obvio…

Bugs tend to appear in Poisson law of probability: 2 big bugs immediately, 2 others a few weeks later, but that means there are hundreds of them to discover over a period of 5 years (until the D-check).

So, in all probability, we don’t even know the list of fatal flaws even yet!

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#54

Post by jdsully »

stingraycharles wrote: post #41
salawat wrote: post #5

>A cynical man could be inclined to think that with this change, they casually removed a possibility of pilots/airlines realizing the existence of MCAS: "we have thrown off the right switch to unlink the autopilot from the trim motor and there is still something making automated stabilizer inputs, what could it be?" It's worse actually. They've taken a procedure, and are raising it on a pedestal as if to say "See, th…

It's fair to recognize this is not entirely Boeing's fault either: it was the airline industries that don't want to re-train their pilots and wanted this type of plane (American Airlines was specifically keen on getting Boeing to manufacture this plane [1]), so they were kind of told "we want you to make exactly $this, otherwise we switch to Airbus". [1] https://www.vox.com/2019/4/5/18296646/boeing-737-max-mcas-so...

From AA’s point of view they were passing on working and proven airplanes from Airbus for something not even on the drawing board yet. For them to agree to this Boeing had to offer them an amazing deal.

I don’t blame AA for taking a good offer. They did not force Boeing to do this.

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#55

Post by CamperBob2 »

jeremyjh wrote: post #42
CamperBob2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing declined to detail the specific functionality of the two switches It seems like that's really the crux of the problem. They made changes that they didn't feel it was necessary to tell their customers about. Just another step along the "I know you bought this product from us, but it's still our product at the end of the day" timeline that we're stuck on. Further, I'll bet that it transpires that no one entity i…

When a culture becomes this defective, the top people need to end their careers in disgrace. This provides the necessary context, clearance and incentives for others to pick up the pieces and make substantial reforms.

Actually what it provides is the necessary context for fear-based decisionmaking, misallocation of resources, metastatic bureaucracy, R&D stagnation, and ultimately departure of talent.

There is a reason why the aviation industry focuses on fixing the problem rather than the blame. A witch hunt makes everybody feel better in the short term but provides no guarantee of actual forward progress.

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#56

Post by blattimwind »

staunch wrote: post #47
djsumdog wrote: post #28

What is the endgame now for 737 MAX planes? Every airline using them has had several weeks to totally reorganize to deal with these huge missing parts of their fleets. Boeing keeps talking about fixing them and putting them back in the air, but I dunno. At this point, it should be agreed the fundamental design flaws are serious, and Boeing should have simply made a brand new plane, with much more modern controls and…

Now imagine if Boeing had created a brand new design instead of the 737 MAX and it had some mysterious fatal flaw as well? Second System Syndrome is something every engineer should understand. There's just no good reason to suspect a brand new design would've been bug free or easier to debug than the 737 MAX. The 787s or A320neos could start dropping out of the sky at any minute. Maybe their carbon fiber panels start…

> There's just no good reason to suspect a brand new design would've been bug free or easier to debug than the 737 MAX.

A brand new design actually supporting the engines used would not have aerodynamic issues that place the airframe outside the limits set forth by regulations.

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#57

Post by deskamess »

erentz wrote: post #32
mcsoft wrote: post #20

It strikes me how a seemingly insignificant decision at the time - to position fuselage slightly higher above the ground - gave Airbus a strategic advantage 50 years later. It forced the competitor into a services of unexplainable and reckless decisions that break basic principles of reliable engineering. Which in turn led to a very visible disastrous business consequences: Boeing had to silently reduce 737 MAX produ…

Had Boeing built the 737 at the time Airbus built the A320 they would've had a taller undercarriage also. For example the narrow body 757 built around the time of the A320 does have this. When the 737 was built back in the 60s it was intended to be a small regional jet, not the continent and ocean crossing aircraft it evolved into over the years since. It originally came with a retractable staircase for passengers to…

Why would they not have gone with a, say, 757 MAX - it seems to fit the bill spec wise. Is it that global pilot pool is not as great for the 757 as 737?

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#58

Post by alexis_fr »

stingraycharles wrote: post #41
salawat wrote: post #5

>A cynical man could be inclined to think that with this change, they casually removed a possibility of pilots/airlines realizing the existence of MCAS: "we have thrown off the right switch to unlink the autopilot from the trim motor and there is still something making automated stabilizer inputs, what could it be?" It's worse actually. They've taken a procedure, and are raising it on a pedestal as if to say "See, th…

It's fair to recognize this is not entirely Boeing's fault either: it was the airline industries that don't want to re-train their pilots and wanted this type of plane (American Airlines was specifically keen on getting Boeing to manufacture this plane [1]), so they were kind of told "we want you to make exactly $this, otherwise we switch to Airbus". [1] https://www.vox.com/2019/4/5/18296646/boeing-737-max-mcas-so...

> “We want you to make exactly $this, otherwise we switch to Airbus”

Airbus sold 98 A320Neo to American Airlines, totalling 413 Airbus (the biggest fleet in the world).

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#59

Post by oldmantaiter »

Off topic, but oh man does that website embody everything that is wrong with display advertising. Left the site open for 6 minutes: 8000 requests, 100MB transferred and a memory footprint of 700MB for that tab and climbing. Absolute garbage.

Re: Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS

#60

Post by peteradio »

jsjohnst wrote: post #34
JorgeGT wrote: post #2

So they removed a useful, granular functionality (switching off autopilot trim input while retaining electric-assisted manual trim) and made one switch simply a redundant backup, merging the previously separated functions without clear explanation. A cynical man could be inclined to think that with this change, they casually removed a possibility of pilots/airlines realizing the existence of MCAS: "we have thrown off…

> So they removed a useful, granular functionality ... without clear explanation I’m as negative as the next person when it comes to the 737 Max, but this is just a bit to far. Read the rest of the article and you’ll understand a logical reason why this was done and how it was communicated.

What was the reasoning?
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