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Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

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Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#31

Post by varjag »

PavlikPaja wrote: post #25
moandcompany wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LAX-LAS, LAX-SJC, LAX-OAK for example. Not quite 30minute flights but approaching there at ~40min and ~50min. Southwest airlines for example exclusively flies a fleet of 737-type variants. Cadence for some of these flights can be over 10x daily, in each direction. The total fleet can see 4k+ flights per day.

https://www.distance.to/ says all around one hour. Why don't you build railroads in America? Such short flights should not exist.

One hour flights are fairly typical in most of the world. Yes, also in progressive Europe.

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#32

Post by txcwpalpha »

heavyset_go wrote: post #18
kjar wrote: post #10

I’m not flying anymore. Between the GHG annual personal emissions and the stunning staggering massively deadly failures of rushed Boeing product launches. Finally I will note the whole damn process is dehumanizing and terrible.

The worst part of these revelations is that the aviation industry is exalted as the standard other industries should look up to when it comes to safety. If Boeing can't escape the perverse incentives that tempt every company, then what company can and why are we relying on this economic model to drive such a high stakes industry?

>The worst part of these revelations is that the aviation industry is exalted as the standard other industries should look up to when it comes to safety.

I don't see why that's "the worst part". Flying is the safest mode of travel, and among airliners the 737NG is one of the safest planes in aviation history. The fact that cracks have been discovered doesn't change that, and the routine inspections which have discovered these cracks and will lead to them being fixed is precisely the reason why these aircraft, and the aviation industry as a whole, are so incredibly safe.

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#33

Post by sverhagen »

ReptileMan wrote: post #11
quickthrower2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there will literally be not enough physical planes to fly in the skies. It'd be interesting - flight prices go up and people realise they didn't need to fly as much as they thought they did?

This is one of the questions I want to see answered in stimulation not in real life. There is a lot of discretionary flying, but there are place whose connection to the world is plane. You will also have route cancelations. And there will be social costs along the economical as well. All in all unpleasant situation. It will be good to have someone that understands airplanes to comment on how severe the issue is and p…

>There is a lot of discretionary flying, but there are place whose connection to the world is plane.

Are you talking about far away towns in, say, Alaska? Those may not be the kind of planes for which we're discussion scarcity, but alas.

Me and my colleagues were flown for training from Oregon to one of our offices in California, this week. So was the trainer. There's still a lot of room to optimize the need for air travel.

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#34

Post by alexis_fr »

djsumdog wrote: post #28
mieseratte wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming a proper maintenance schedule, we can reasonably reduce that time window.

How often are these particular frame components inspected for cracks or wear?

I don’t know for these. C-checks for 737NG are performed every 730 days and include corrosion/wear checks for the most stressed parts, but not all parts (which are checked at D checks): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#35

Post by Xcelerate »

kjar wrote: post #10

I’m not flying anymore. Between the GHG annual personal emissions and the stunning staggering massively deadly failures of rushed Boeing product launches. Finally I will note the whole damn process is dehumanizing and terrible.

It's weird. I never used to be afraid of flying at all, but the 737 MAX crashes sort of "triggered" the fear for me. I still fly frequently but I find the experience terrifying now.

As a data scientist, I know the odds of something going wrong are extremely low, but unfortunately I'm not able to rationally control my emotions during flight; the fear is involuntary and difficult to suppress. It also doesn't help that I work at a large tech company and see how many bugs are in the codebase (even with some of the best software engineers in the world), and the fact that airplanes are increasingly run by software makes me feel kind of queasy.

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#36

Post by gmueckl »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #32
heavyset_go wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of these revelations is that the aviation industry is exalted as the standard other industries should look up to when it comes to safety. If Boeing can't escape the perverse incentives that tempt every company, then what company can and why are we relying on this economic model to drive such a high stakes industry?

>The worst part of these revelations is that the aviation industry is exalted as the standard other industries should look up to when it comes to safety. I don't see why that's "the worst part". Flying is the safest mode of travel, and among airliners the 737NG is one of the safest planes in aviation history. The fact that cracks have been discovered doesn't change that, and the routine inspections which have discove…

In fact, finding and correcting faults in airplanes happens constantly. Up until the Boeing debacle this was just something that happend while nobody was looking. Now journalists are riding the scare wave generated by the relevations following the 737 max crashes and dragging all these fairly routine happenings out into the open with disproportionate coverage.

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#37

Post by kube-system »

heavyset_go wrote: post #18
kjar wrote: post #10

I’m not flying anymore. Between the GHG annual personal emissions and the stunning staggering massively deadly failures of rushed Boeing product launches. Finally I will note the whole damn process is dehumanizing and terrible.

The worst part of these revelations is that the aviation industry is exalted as the standard other industries should look up to when it comes to safety. If Boeing can't escape the perverse incentives that tempt every company, then what company can and why are we relying on this economic model to drive such a high stakes industry?

They are the standard. Commercial airline safety issues are uncommon enough to be newsworthy.

Boeing's customers care a lot more than most automaker's customers. 1 in 4 cars on US roads have known unresolved safety recalls.

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#38

Post by gmueckl »

varjag wrote: post #31
PavlikPaja wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.distance.to/ says all around one hour. Why don't you build railroads in America? Such short flights should not exist.

One hour flights are fairly typical in most of the world. Yes, also in progressive Europe.

Yes, they exist in Europe, they ban be dirt cheap, executed by companies run by penny pinchers and mostly superfluous. Going by train is in many cases faster because it gets you from city center toncity center without any airport overhead. But it also costs a multiple of a plane ticket, which should not be the case.

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#39

Post by brians »

samstave wrote: post #14
9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #8

For context, the 737 NG is previous iteration of the 737 (before the MAX) and among the most popular aircraft ever built, with over 7000 in service. Grounding this would absolutely cripple the airline industry. However, the NG also has an excellent safety record, and 35000 cycles is equivalent to 5 flights (takeoff & landing) every day for 10 years. So while this may lead to extra checks on older aircraft, it's highl…

What is the actual safety record of the B-52, which i subjectively consider to be the safest machine in history. How would the B-52 match up against modern commercial airliners? (Does anyone, other than boeing, even track this stat?) The calc would be something along the lines of; Date-of-design -> completion, testing, commissioning, hours in flight - accidents, crashes,pilot error, time in service, fuselage age, etc…

That’s not subjective; you just made it up.

For one thing, B-52s seem to have substantial safety externalities for nearby cities.

Re: Unexpected cracking found on critical Boeing 737 Next Generation part

#40

Post by nickjj »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #13
phire wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes they fly routes that are only 30min long. With a 30min turnaround, that could mean a flight every hour. If they kept one plane flying round trips all day, they might fit 16 flights into a day and theoretically burn through the 90,000 cycles in under 16 years.

Are there examples of routes like this you know of where a 737 is used?

With South West I took a 737 (definitely not the MAX, probably the NG) a few times from ISP (Long Island, NY) to BWI (Baltimore / Washington). It's not 30 minutes but close enough at 40-45 minutes. These flights were within the last 2 years.
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