The computers are all part of the problem with this and it's a trend I've noticed for a long time now. Regarding critical output and human input.
These same computers enable you to come online and spew this garbage.
FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
61–70 of 354 posts
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you’re just repeating the impact of the low ground clearance, rather than explaining why there still has to be low ground clearance. You’ve said they can’t have larger engines because ground clearance is low... we already know that... but why must ground clearance be low?
Because they would have to redesign the parts of the fuselage that holds the landing gear when they are retracted - as far as I know, there's not enough room to house taller landing gear.
Boeing did actually design extendable landing gear for the 737 MAX-10 model, which hadn't shipped yet. That aircraft is longer. To avoid tail strikes, the rear gear becomes longer as the aircraft is taking off.
I'm sure that costs more money. If it were on all 737 MAX aircraft, perhaps the engines could be lower. It'd be like a kneeling bus that gets lower when stopped to take on passengers.
Another option would be to make the engines move. They could be folded up or slid up-forward when driving around the airport. The FAA might have issues with this though. I don't know of any aircraft that does transformer stuff while zooming down the runway.
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Upgrades to the 737 do have a particularly constrained design space, though (due to the oft-mentioned very low ground clearance).
Why can’t they change the ground clearance and remove the constraint?
The constraint is the FAA would see it as a new aircraft and therefore have to certify a new airframe. The very in-depth review the FAA is currently doing on the MAX was the expensive (time and money) Boeing sought to avoid.
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#64I'd be pretty comfortable flying it after all this attention and review. It will probably be the best reviewed passenger plane software developed in America, if not the world once this is over. Boeing deserves a 9-figure fine though, and its shareholders should lose massively to make sure this doesn't happen again.
I'm not convinced. The pressure on Boeing to fix this ASAP is immense. That is not a good environment for writing safety critical software. Especially if they are doing a "broader software redesign". I don't believe that software quality can be enforced from the outside.
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can you practically avoid a model of plane, other than avoiding all airlines that operate them?
Just visit a flight tracking website before booking. In addition I'm sure airlines not flying the MAX will be using that fact as a marketing tool (i.e. we only fly Airbus etc) so you could limit your bookings with just those airlines. As an example of this, here in Australia I know one of the carriers is planning to fly the Max some time next year. If they go ahead with that plan, I will be making sure not to book wi…
From what I hear, at least one of the carriers here that _was_ intending to fly them this year, has cancelled all the maintenance courses for them... They aren't going to be flying them until 2025 apparently, so all the engineers booked on courses to do maintenance for the 747MAX8 are getting re-booked for Airbus courses...
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#66The FAA suffered a major loss of credibility in their handling of the first round of testing/accreditation of the MAX. The FAA can't afford another stuff up this second time around and as such I suspect they will be checking every aspect of the plane in very fine detail. That could spell more trouble for Boeing.
I think overall we should consider this process a very positive thing, FAA and Boeing (and Airbus as well) are all going to learn a lot from this process which will make air travel safer in the future. It's unfortunate that it took two tragedies to get us here but if you look at the history of aviation improvements this isn't the first and it won't be the last time.
The reason people are outraged is that "don't use a single sensor to decide that the plane should perform an uncontrollable nose-dive" isn't the outcome of new learning. That wasn't competent airworthiness seventy years ago. It's a lesson the industry thought it had already internalized. We shouldn't applaud mistakes of the distant part being repeated recklessly as some kind of improvement.
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#67I'd be pretty comfortable flying it after all this attention and review. It will probably be the best reviewed passenger plane software developed in America, if not the world once this is over. Boeing deserves a 9-figure fine though, and its shareholders should lose massively to make sure this doesn't happen again.
I bet they will be able to test the known or anticipated issues. What about the unknowns that bad hardware design introduced? Thats why people are scared of.
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The industry is pretty homogeneous and somewhat of a revolving door between the few OEMs. What are the odds that the code on this plane is orders of magnitude worse (in terms of code quality) than every other similar bit of code in the sky? Edit. I should have to say this but I'm not defending Boeing here. I'm saying it's not at al unforeseeable that the other planes, even ones by other manufacturers are just as bad.…
It's worse than other such planes. For instance, the accident on Qantas Flight 72 is superficially similar - faulty data caused the Airbus A330's flight computer to ignore pilot input and abruptly pitch down, injuring a number of passengers - but it really wasn't. The Airbus engineers knew that angle-of-attack sensors fail, so unlike Boeing they designed their system to compare the input from multiple AOA sensors and…
> That pattern shouldn't have been possible
Huh, this is new to me. I thought it was simply that two sensors failed, and their failed values outvoted the correct value in the quorum vote with the third sensor. What's the mystery about?
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#69The FAA suffered a major loss of credibility in their handling of the first round of testing/accreditation of the MAX. The FAA can't afford another stuff up this second time around and as such I suspect they will be checking every aspect of the plane in very fine detail. That could spell more trouble for Boeing.
Asking because I legitimately don't know: was the FAA failure here more attributable to the agency, or the funding (and therefore manpower*expertise) available to it?
Re: FAA Finds New Risk on 737 Max, Orders Boeing to Make Changes
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can’t they change the ground clearance and remove the constraint?
The constraint is the FAA would see it as a new aircraft and therefore have to certify a new airframe. The very in-depth review the FAA is currently doing on the MAX was the expensive (time and money) Boeing sought to avoid.
In hindsight, the in-depth reviews sound like a good idea in all circumstances. Certainly the answer is not to not do them!