Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future • Hacker News Board

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#31

Post by toast0 » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 6:44 PM UTC

domlebo70 wrote: post #29

zaroth wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be an S&P500-N fund where you can select up to N specific companies you want to exclude, and they give you a dynamic ticker which tracks that sub-set. I wonder if it’s technically feasible without absurd transaction costs, to either explicitly or effectively net out specific company exposure from an S&P500 basket. Even just a calculator which could tell you, for every share of SPY of you want to not have…

Not a finance expert, but I don't think the transaction costs would factor would they? You would own "units" in the fund, rather than the underlying security itself. The makeup of the unit however, would be dynamic

A fully realized s&p 500 ex-FOO fund for every company (or every combination of two or three companies) would probably not have sufficient demand to make it efficient.

You would need to have some sort of clever accounting to make it work, although, while retail commissions are at zero, and fractional shares may become available, assembling your own index fund may be possible with only a significant time cost.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#32

Post by hansthehorse » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

phyek wrote: post #13

golergka wrote: post #3

Americans don't understand how lucky they are, to live in a system where less than a thousand civilian deaths is enough to so severely damage one of the country's most powerful corporations, with very close ties to the military.

Boeing is a 100 year old company in the business of building airplanes that transports hundreds of millions of passengers annually. Rushing to introduce this plane was absolutely unacceptable. It took Boeing decades to build its stellar reputation, but after something like this, their reputation is ruined in a matter of days.

Boeing stopped being Boeing when they bought McDonald Douglas and inherited a bunch of Jack Welch trained managers. They took the company from an engineering company to a commodity company where what they were selling didn't matter, it's all just widgets in the end. One of their first actions was to gut the various engineering departments.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#33

Post by sterlind » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

awill wrote: post #27

Hang on a minute. From the article, 'Mark Forkner, the chief technical pilot for the 737 Max...' then later, 'Forkner told Gustavsson that MCAS was “running rampant in the sim on me,” referring to simulator tests of the aircraft. “Granted, I suck at flying, but even this was egregious.”' So Boeing's chief technical pilot admits he sucks at flying???? then later,'Forkner is now a pilot at Southwest Airlines Co., the c…

you sort of want someone who sucks at flying but has their wings. if you test with only ace pilots, you're likely to overestimate the skills of the average user. indeed, Boeing had assumed pilots would be quick-thinking enough to breeze through a checklist and compensate for MCAS in seconds, which wasn't the case even for seasoned pilots.

also, I imagine the job of a technical pilot is more to assess the behavior of the hardware through a series of tests, rather than regular flying. like how QA testers of a CAD software might not be CAD wizards, but know the product inside and out.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#34

Post by jessaustin » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

largbae wrote: post #12

jessaustin wrote: post #5

TFA doesn't seem to go far enough. Does anyone know the particulars of the simulator experiences that inspired these comments? Was the simulator that inspired those comments an accurate reflection of the real plane? Was it the same simulator that was used by airline pilots? If not, which was more accurate? Can the programmers of the simulator be made available to investigators? If the point is just to stir the pot a…

The simulators themselves are generally quite thorough, wherever feasible they run the same software as the plane on simulated instrument input (which can also be broken for simulation purposes). Newer planes are more and more often fly-by-wire with shakers and motors to provide the "feel" of the controls. This only makes the simulators more realistic. Note that the engineer wasn't jumping to the conclusion that ther…

In theory simulators are very accurate. In reality they might be. I'd expect the simulator for an existing airframe with decades of service (like your 747-400) to be more accurate than that for a new airframe. The primary purpose of simulators is training, not testing. While both the airframe and its simulator are under development, substantial inaccuracies wouldn't surprise me. TFA quotes this dude's attorney thus: "The simulator was not reading right and had to be fixed to fly like the real plane." Is that true? Is that ass-covering? How are we going to find out from this dude's testimony? Other evidence must be examined.

TFA says this pilot had a hard time with the simulator. We also know that these planes crash very often. We can't just put those two propositions together to prove that the simulator predicted these planes would often crash in this particular way.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#35

Post by redis_mlc » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #25

situational87 wrote: post #9

So the chief test pilot for the MAX project complained about this system making the plane uncontrollable and this was all swept under the rug? People need to be put in prison over this. This is negligent homicide.

The whole FAA needs to be shitcanned is what needs to happen. Their job is to test these planes. It's not like there's 100s of models coming out every year. The 737 is America's best selling and most used plane - bar none. And that one hasn't been tested by the FAA? They just believed Boeing and stamped their approval on it? Well...

> Their job is to test these planes.

No the FAA certifies airplanes, which is largely a paperwork exercise. They do not have airline designers and test pilots sitting around.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#36

Post by redis_mlc » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

situational87 wrote: post #9

So the chief test pilot for the MAX project complained about this system making the plane uncontrollable and this was all swept under the rug? People need to be put in prison over this. This is negligent homicide.

The pilot mentioned was a technical pilot, not a test pilot.

So he was a pilot with additional duties of writing and verifying checklists and manuals, and vendor and client meetings. He would also do acceptance testing, like the MCAS sim test. There could be several of these.

A test pilot is a whole level (world actually) beyond that, with an extra $1-2 million in training (hence almost always ex-military) and assigned to major aircraft development programs. Usually only 1 or 2 are assigned to a development program.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#37

Post by tim333 » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #24

hunterjrj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the plane itself is salvageable. You're probably right. From an engineering perspective. Would you fly in a 737MAX post-fix? We have an engineering mindset here on HN and so I would expect many of us to answer "Yes". But ask this same question to the general public? How is Boeing going to repair the damage to both it's brand and this plane's reputation, and convince the general public to fly on this model?

I wouldn't. That's because I DO have an engineering mindset. A bad platform with tons of hacks to make it work and a severe bug/wrong design hack that has been 'fixed' doesn't imply there isn't more of those we're just not aware of.

I probably would. I'm the kind who looks at the probabilities. I imagine by the time they've fixed this the plane will be pretty safe.

Just ripping out the MCAS and telling the pilots to push the nose down manually at high angles of attack would probably do it for me.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#38

Post by ilaksh » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

awill wrote: post #27

Hang on a minute. From the article, 'Mark Forkner, the chief technical pilot for the 737 Max...' then later, 'Forkner told Gustavsson that MCAS was “running rampant in the sim on me,” referring to simulator tests of the aircraft. “Granted, I suck at flying, but even this was egregious.”' So Boeing's chief technical pilot admits he sucks at flying???? then later,'Forkner is now a pilot at Southwest Airlines Co., the c…

Yeah, you missed something. What he showed there was called "humility" and it's something you will more often see with people who are actually extremely confident in their skills. It was just a way of qualifying his statement to reflect that the operation of the simulator, which is variable, affects the outcome.

Of course he is an excellent pilot.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#39

Post by ilaksh » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 8:58 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #4

So this Forkner guy was the chief test pilot for the 737. He sends emails saying the MCAS is out of control. He also is the one that tells the FAA MCAS should not be included in flight materials, and he later emails them to remind them to remove it when they include it anyway. His attorney says he's a nice guy and was under pressure from others. Great. Indict him, bring him in, and have him testify under oath who the…

I don't think it said he was driving to have it removed. I think he reminded the FAA that it was not included even though it seemed substantial. In other words suggesting they should review that decision.

Re: Boeing Pilot’s 2016 Worry on ‘Egregious’ Max Roils Jet’s Future

#40

Post by chopin » Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #14

cletus wrote: post #2

I wouldn't be that surprised if the 737 Max never flies again. So the DoJ has a criminal investigation ongoing. That's one thing. But the airlines and the families of the victims of the two fatal crashes have standing to sue Boeing over this. This will take a long time to play out. The problem for Boeing here is that these civil suits will have an extensive discovery phase. All they really need is an exchange like th…

I don't see how this is unsalvagable, unless there's some other issue with the planes that hasn't leaked yet. Maybe stuff a third AoA sensor somewhere and add sensor voting. At least read both sensors and complain. But, most importantly, clearly indicate when MCAS is activating and allow the pilots to disable it without disabling electric trim, and train the pilots.

The problem is not to fix MCAS. The problem is are there more questionable design decisions? I personally will try to avoid the plane.