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Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

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Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#71

I flied to Cyprus from Stockholm with Norwegian last week. On the plane it was written 737-800 or 737 Max. I wonder how you can tell them apart and if Norwegian uses the Max line!?

EDIT: Lol, nevermind. Go read the child comments. I failed. There are two features you can look for: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/48929/is-this-a... tl;dr on the MAX the wing tips split into two (above and below the main wing), on all previous 737s, the wingtips only curve up. Also the engine cowling has some cool looky jaggies on the trailing edge.

I was plane spotting two days ago and saw a half dozen 737NGs with split wingtips.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#72
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things are certainly looking bullish for Airbus in the aftermath of this.

There was an interesting Mentour Pilot about this, essentially the lead time for a new airplane order is in the order of years, and there are other costs as well. If you've built your business around one specific type of jet it's costly to move to the competitors, which is why the "no type rating change" was so important for the max. Perhaps for future large orders this may be a boon for Airbus, but that would be in…

> If you've built your business around one specific type of jet it's costly to move to the competitors, which is why the "no type rating change" was so important for the max.

Yes it is costly but you know what? It's BS

Because the 737 line (nor the A320 nor any other line) is not going to last forever. (Especially wrt widebodies but that's another issue as I don't know if the A330Neo and the 777X have the same type as their predecessors)

EVERY airline should be planning ahead. I'm thinking if Southwest and/or Ryanair are not thinking about keep flying their NGs and forget all about this MAX stuff for one or two years at least (FR delayed their MAX deliveries last I heard)

Now Airbus just put out the NEO and they probably have room for another refresh on that platform but probably not two refreshes. But again, it won't last forever

Though the tough part for airlines is two: pilots can't switch between 2 types and bringing another type slowly is hard. But it is something they will have to do eventually

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#73
post #65
post #40

Is anyone else extremely reluctant to fly on a Boeing plane after this? A lot of people say "It's no big deal, they just need to update the MCAS software" , but I see this entire situation as a sign of much deeper issues at Boeing, issues that can't be fixed with a simple software update and could affect every plane they make.

Flying -- even accounting for all the 737 Max crashes is still statistically by far the safest form of travel per unit of distance travelled -- the 737 Max is a blip just like 9/11.

Flying is safe. No question.

And you can make it that much more safe by doing yourself a favor and avoiding the 737 MAX.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#74
post #67
post #43

Good. Which it should have done and should from now on do for all 'self-certified' Boeing airplanes.

It still kills me that they let Boeing 'self-certify' their own airplanes. I had a diagnostic medical imaging startup. You can't even imagine the pain the FDA inflicted on our bottom line before they would give an OK on anything. But the FAA is out there just taking the word of some company's engineers that "Yeah. We're good."? I guess I just thought that all of the regulation, was like it was in the healthcare field…

Unfathomable for me either and reeking of utter corruption.

I could ALMOST understand it if they would do it in the medical field because there are so many companies small and large working in the field. But no, the FDA is indeed stringent and thorough.

But airplane manufacturing in the US? Hello? How many aircraft do they have to verify? It's not like there's 100s of manufacturers releasing 100s of plane designs.

The 787 and 737max were the only ones released in the last decade. And both were partly self-certified!

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#75
post #67
post #43

Good. Which it should have done and should from now on do for all 'self-certified' Boeing airplanes.

It still kills me that they let Boeing 'self-certify' their own airplanes. I had a diagnostic medical imaging startup. You can't even imagine the pain the FDA inflicted on our bottom line before they would give an OK on anything. But the FAA is out there just taking the word of some company's engineers that "Yeah. We're good."? I guess I just thought that all of the regulation, was like it was in the healthcare field…

On the other hand, if you can submit a "new" medical device through the 510k process, it is the device manufacturer that certifies that the new equipment is equivalent to an existing product. That is mostly comparable to what Boeing did.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#76

Good. Hold them accountable and make sure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. Although a ‘same plane’ cert was a good goal, they should have made sure it was truly accurate instead of bending the case to make it so. This may be as close to an ‘open and shut’ case for corporate gross negligence as we will find in quite a while (at least I hope so). I would hate to see them go under but it should be clear tha…

And how are they going to be held accountable? They already have several contracts which states victims can't sue the company. Maybe not everyone signed, but then it's about how much they can pay their lawyers.

Not sure what contacts you are talking about, but the civil lawsuits have started to roll in... https://in.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-airplane-lawsuit/fre...

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#77
post #40

Is anyone else extremely reluctant to fly on a Boeing plane after this? A lot of people say "It's no big deal, they just need to update the MCAS software" , but I see this entire situation as a sign of much deeper issues at Boeing, issues that can't be fixed with a simple software update and could affect every plane they make.

Nope, risks are insignificant. It's extremely irrational to be scared to fly on Boeing.

LOL what? It's at least 4 orders of magnitude more risky to fly 737 MAX compared to Airbus A320 (counting deaths per 100k takeoffs). 4 orders of magnitude are not irrational.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#78
post #2

A slap in the face to the comments that were dismissing concerns as overreactions and stating that 737-MAX would return to operation shortly. Not in EU at least.

As far as I know this is one of the rare few, read I can't recall one, occasions in which EASA didn't accept FAA certification. Usually it is cross- certification between the two. Things are getting interesting and not necessarily in a good way as cooperation is reduced. That it makes sense in this special case is only further proof.

I think EASA doesn't trust the FAA here because the FAA had less involvement in the original certification than some are comfortable with. So rather that asking the FAA to certify the entire plane and maybe risk a similar procedure (Boeing self-certifies most of it), they'll do it themselves.

What I'm curious is whether EASA has similar certification shortcu... optimizations for Airbus.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#79
post #64
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be extremely hesitant to ever fly on a 737 MAX again because, even when MCAS is fixed, software is being used to fix a fundamental physics problem. I'd fly on other Boeing planes without worry, though.

This is not the case. The 737 MAX has different handling characteristics to a regular 737, but there is nothing inherently unsafe about those handling characteristics. The purpose of MCAS was just to prevent the need for pilots to recertify by masking the difference.

Without MCAS a MAX has flight characteristics that would not pass FAA certification.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#80
post #40

Is anyone else extremely reluctant to fly on a Boeing plane after this? A lot of people say "It's no big deal, they just need to update the MCAS software" , but I see this entire situation as a sign of much deeper issues at Boeing, issues that can't be fixed with a simple software update and could affect every plane they make.

I must admit, every time I've flown recently on a 737 I've nervously checked the information card to check the exact model. I think all of our local airlines run 737-800s though.
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