The Coming Boeing Bailout? • Hacker News Board

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#61

Post by mmargerum » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

The Max software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs.

Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably India.

In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max.

Don't feel sorry for them and hope the govt doesnt give them a penny.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#62

Post by fooster » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #21

onli wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would actually have to try really hard to fuck this up. Murdering 350 civilians with lies and negligence for profit and "shareholder value" just might suffice. They put a plane into the air that flies itself automatically into the ground after all, with no opportunity for the pilots to save the plane. You can't fuck up more. > It would be amusing if the US government gives them money though. The US is already g…

> They put a plane into the air that flies itself automatically into the ground after all, with no opportunity for the pilots to save the plane. You can't fuck up more. Though Boeing has significant contribution, if you read the report on the Ethiopian Air 737-Max crash, I think it's easy to see several places where there was ample opportunity for the pilots to save the plane, particularly in light of the LionAir cra…

You _have_ to be kidding me. The air plane, as proven by two crashes that killed every occupant in the plane, was fatally flawed. Boeing is negligent and the executives who ARE ultimately accountable should pay the cost.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#63

Post by xmichael999 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

leemailll wrote: post #25

Boeing still has more than 5000 planes orders to be delivered ( http://investors.boeing.com/investors/fact-sheets/default.as... ), I don't think they will try to change any time soon when things seem going well albeit 737max.

The cancellations haven't officially taken place, but you can be damn sure everyone other than committed 737 fleets like Southwest have unofficially already cancelled their orders of MAX's. Air Canada is the perfect example, it's the first time to introduce 737's to their fleet - they are waiting for the dust to settle but you can be damn sure the 737's they already own will be sold and Boeing will largely give them their money back too and the rest of their order will never be completed.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#64

Post by mannykannot » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

This article repeats the claim that the MCAS software was faulty, but is there any evidence of coding-level errors? There is the systems engineering failure of not comparing the two available AofA sensors to detect faults, if not going for at least triple-redundancy, but the root cause there is not a coding error.

It has been suggested that high AofA readings should have been rejected unconditionally, but that approach can have its own problems, as in AF447 where the stall warnings stopped as the airplane became more deeply stalled. One should not leave the decision as whether to do that up to the programmer's discretion.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#65

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #60

arcticbull wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The duties were also overturned in the end, but not before Bombardier gifted 50.01% of the C-Series program to Airbus so it had a chance of survival. The net result was Airbus rebranded the program the A220, committed to building US-destination A220 jets within the US to avoid tariffs anyways and while they significantly weakened one [small] competitor (Bombardier and by extension Investissement Québec) they massivel…

Both the 2nd generation E-Jets and the A220 beat the pants of the 737 with the caveat that they are smaller planes that carry fewer passengers. They also are smaller planes that have better comfort than the 737 in most respects; it is like the Japanese cars of the 1970s which were big on the inside and small on the outside compared to American cars of the time. You have to fly it to believe it. I could see these eati…

The crazy thing is that Boeing hasn't designed a new clean-sheet small jet since 1967, when the 737 came out. Prior to that they were iterating on a pretty rapid cadence, with the 707, 717, 720, and 727, and then they just got stuck in an absolute rut and have been increasingly paying the consequences as the 737 no longer stacks up favorably against the much newer clean-sheet designs put out by their competitors. To give an idea of how antiquated the 737 is, one of its primary design considerations was that it could land at primitive airports -- its low ground clearance is caused by the need to be able to fit a folding staircase inside the aircraft itself. It didn't even require a stair car, let alone the ubiquitous jetways that we see everywhere nowadays. And this design consideration is the main cause of the 737 MAX problem.

I wonder, if the merger hadn't happened and Boeing hadn't been taken over by penny-pinchers, what would Boeing's small jet offering look like now? Would they still be iterating on the same obsolete design? Was there some new replacement small jet already in the early design stages that got canned?

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#66

Post by nabla9 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

FigBug wrote: post #39

nabla9 wrote: post #16

Governments should have predatory practice towards shareholders in these cases. If company can't be allowed to fail (strategically important or government regulated sector like banking) there should be 'fluid bankruptcy' option. When they default or fail their obligations, the next day the government owns them without operations being disrupted. Shareholders lose everything overnight and any private debt would have s…

Isn't that pretty much what happened with GM? The stocks and bonds were all wiped out. And then the new GM was owned by the government / union until they did an IPO a few years later?

Yes, eventually.

First the auto industry asked and revived $25 billion in TARP money and $5 billion in loans for auto industry suppliers. That was not enough and they asked another $25 billion and this time the government refused. Only after that GM and Chrysler went bankrupt.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#67

Post by bdavis__ » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #64

This article repeats the claim that the MCAS software was faulty, but is there any evidence of coding-level errors? There is the systems engineering failure of not comparing the two available AofA sensors to detect faults, if not going for at least triple-redundancy, but the root cause there is not a coding error. It has been suggested that high AofA readings should have been rejected unconditionally, but that approa…

kind of depends on how you name it. my understanding is the code 'worked per requirements', meaning it did everything that it was supposed to, as defined by the requirements allocated to it.

for things like this, there is a layer of 'systems engineering', that decides (hopefully using an engineering process) how the airplane will work. this is codified into a 'specification', that is then handed over to software to implement.

if you are a software engineer given this task, you implement it per the specification. nothing more and nothing less. of course, if you have a concern, you bring it up (both informally and formally). there is no 'discretion' by the programmer.

The number of AOA sensors, how much control authority, how often the inputs are applied, are all decided by systems engineers (with aeronautical engineers input and analysis). the software engineer cannot 'second guess' if AOA failure has been considered and change the implementation.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#68

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

xmichael999 wrote: post #57

Let's not forget yesterday Boeing announce a human life is worth $289,017 https://www.slashgear.com/boeing-reveals-100m-737-max-victim...

That's quite pathetic, given that the actuarial value of a life is actually around $5-10M (in the US anyway). They're going to end up paying out a lot more money in the lawsuits though, so we don't know the final total number yet.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#69

Post by bradleyjg » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

FigBug wrote: post #39

nabla9 wrote: post #16

Governments should have predatory practice towards shareholders in these cases. If company can't be allowed to fail (strategically important or government regulated sector like banking) there should be 'fluid bankruptcy' option. When they default or fail their obligations, the next day the government owns them without operations being disrupted. Shareholders lose everything overnight and any private debt would have s…

Isn't that pretty much what happened with GM? The stocks and bonds were all wiped out. And then the new GM was owned by the government / union until they did an IPO a few years later?

I don’t believe the bondholders were wiped out, though they did get a haircut. The controversy there was that the government changed the ordinary priority of debtors to save politically influential pensioners from the consequences of bankruptcy.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#70

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

MobileVet wrote: post #7

While Boeing clearly participates in a duopoly... cash flow may necessitate a bailout. Cash on hand is going to get hammered by penalties for out of service planes and lost revenues due to the inability to deliver new planes. Outside of that, it will be interesting to see how endemic the issues were. Here is hoping that this was an isolated incident. The nightmare scenario would be multiple models suffering from a wi…

> The nightmare scenario would be multiple models suffering from a wide range of issues.

Fortunately, Boeing has no other new plane besides the 737 MAX. The 787 is their second newest, but it's already been flying for eight years with no loss of life. If there were some undiscovered fundamental problems with that design they would've made themselves known by now (like with the Li-ion batteries that were fixed).

People are really going to be looking closely at whatever comes next after the 737 MAX, though.