Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system • Hacker News Board

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#141

Post by CaptainZapp » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

mopsi wrote: post #134

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Airbus is no better. Maybe, but the report you linked does not show that. The issue with Boeing is not that a plane crashed but that planes crashed despite earlier reports that people considered these planes unsafe. No such reports came out of Airbus about the A320 as far as I'm aware. Also the regulators did not delegate certification to Airbus.

Airbus has similar long-standing issues. On ground / airborne detection logic was broken in 1993 and is still broken in 2019, to a point that it can cause loss of flight controls. Boeing, in contrast, uses simple radar altimeter. Whenever altitude reads 10 feet or less, the aircraft is considered to be "on ground" and things like thrust reversers become available. I personally avoid praising or preferring Airbus when…

Airbus has similar long-standing issues. On ground / airborne detection logic was broken in 1993 and is still broken in 2019, to a point that it can cause loss of flight controls.

So you're claiming that Airbus knowingly leaves a critical defect in their planes, which may cause the loss of flight controls and which they refreain from fixing for almost 30 years?

Either come up with a reliable source for this statement (which is extremely hard to believe) or allow me to call bullshit!

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#142

Post by CaptainZapp » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #119

selectodude wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More due to airlines demanding a new 737 instead of a new plane. Boeing already made a new 737, it’s called the 757 and nobody bought it.

This. The consternation and blame direct at Boeing, while appropriate, distracts from the real source of the problem: airlines. And Southwest Airlines was possibly one of the largest sources of the 737 MAX negative incentives, by having a contract reportedly require $1 million per airplane if a certain threshold of pilot training was exceeded. And to this day Southwest still doesn't think MAX specific simulator train…

The consternation and blame direct at Boeing, while appropriate, distracts from the real source of the problem: airlines. And Southwest Airlines was possibly one of the largest sources of the 737 MAX negative incentives, by having a contract reportedly require $1 million per airplane if a certain threshold of pilot training was exceeded

Well, in this case I'd argue that it was totally Boeing's responsibility to communicate to such customers that they couldn't do it.

Instead they nodded their heads, demanded the impossible from their engineers, demoted or fired people that questioned it and in the end offered a hacked solution, which killed over 300 people.

I don't think that your argument excuses their culpability in any way, shape or form.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#143

Post by gorgoiler » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:39 PM UTC

torgian wrote: post #120

MSeven wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just last week i heard a story from an older friend about a fighter jet crash investigation he was involved in, where the cause basically was that an engineer wired down some bolts (as required) but trimmed the ends of the wires without recovering the trimmed part. That little piece eventually found its way into the main stick mechanics, causing enough resistance at the wrong moment, preventing the pilot from recover…

This is one of the reasons we never trimmed the ends of cut wire when we tied bolts down. We just twisted them and bent them inward. No excess cuts needed, and no tiny bits of FOD that you have to dig out.

What is FOD in this context?

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#144

Post by cartoonworld » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #143

torgian wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the reasons we never trimmed the ends of cut wire when we tied bolts down. We just twisted them and bent them inward. No excess cuts needed, and no tiny bits of FOD that you have to dig out.

What is FOD in this context?

Foreign Object Debris

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#145

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

mopsi wrote: post #80

iagovar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say, as european, that all this storm of shit is good news for Airbus, but I hop on Boeing planes too, and I think competition is good news. Boeing is maybe too big to fail, but the reputation hit they are taking may lead to companies not buying their planes, thus pushing for least competition, which is bad news for everyone. Airbus being the kind of behemoth company it is, I am convinced that without Boeing'…

Airbus is no better. Investigation report about an incident in 2018 was just released: https://avherald.com/h?article=4b57c3dd/0000&opt=0 What happened there: wrong kind of oil was used in elevator and it went unnoticed because maintenance guides did not require any inspections of affected parts. Wrong oil caused delays in sensor triggering, which led to primary computers shutting down, believing that there was a pro…

[deleted]

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#146

Post by radus » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

soapboxrocket wrote: post #140

jMyles wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you make a lot of interesting points until your final paragraph. If I'm reading the details properly (and I may not be; you seem to be far more informed than I am), then the particular test in question may have detected the problem about which Mr. Barnett is complaining, where other tests might not: > Mr Barnett says that when he was decommissioning systems which had suffered minor cosmetic damage, he fo…

You are reading that correctly, but as someone who worked on the system over a decade ago, I bet he didn't have it setup exactly like the plane. I bet he tried to fire all the cylinders at once, a 25% failure rate in this configuration actually isn't bad. But on the actual aircraft they don't fire all of the cylinders at once, they are staged front to back because the power draw is too big to fire all the pyrotechnic…

Reading heavily between the lines now but I would think that this person also had enough (though maybe not as direct) experience to know to stagger the deployment, no?

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#147

Post by magduf » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #77

mrtksn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, there as an argument that it is not good for Airbus at all because it will risk the stability of duopoly between Boing and Airbus. The idea is that now Boing will be forced to actually invest tens of billions in new aircraft design, forcing Airbus to do the same instead of milking the current designs for as long as possible. Also, apparently the aircraft manufacturing is not a very flexible business and Air…

> Actually, there as an argument that it is not good for Airbus at all because it will risk the stability of duopoly between Boing and Airbus. I like thinking about this in a sort of hypothetical Sparta. Sparta had two kings from two different royal lines. Suppose you're one of two kings, and the other royal line experiences some sort of dynastic hiccup. This inevitably happens to everyone. A popular strategy through…

We'd be a lot better off with a 3rd maker of large passenger aircraft. Duopolies are never good for the market, and markets seem to do a lot better when there's 3 dominant players: with only 3, the players have very good economies of scale, but because there's 3 (and not 1 or 2), there's still a good amount of competition, while still having a lot of stability, so it balances out. Too many competitors means too little stability and too little economy of scale, too few competitors means too much power in the hands of those companies and too little competition.

Personally, I'd like to see Mitsubishi get back into the passenger plane business. They're already starting, but with a smaller regional jet.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#148

Post by notfromhere » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

altacc wrote: post #38

In the past, I've known people who refused to fly on McDonnell Douglas planes as their record was so bad. I wonder if the same has started, or will start happening, with Boeing.

Boeing merged with McDonnell, but in the shuffle MD management got all the top spots at Boeing. So ironically, Boeing inherited all the culture and org problems that made MD planes such a shitshow

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#149

Post by fapjacks » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

torgian wrote: post #28

"""On the matter of parts being lost, in early 2017 a review by the Federal Aviation Administration upheld Mr Barnett's concerns, establishing that the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown, and that they were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action""" That's not just bad; this is really, _really_ bad. In my eight years of the Navy, working on aircraft, parts and tool accounta…

This is what happens when engineering decisions are ceded to marketing wanks and MBA bros.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#150

Post by vijayr02 » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

MSeven wrote: post #110

torgian wrote: post #28

"""On the matter of parts being lost, in early 2017 a review by the Federal Aviation Administration upheld Mr Barnett's concerns, establishing that the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown, and that they were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action""" That's not just bad; this is really, _really_ bad. In my eight years of the Navy, working on aircraft, parts and tool accounta…

Just last week i heard a story from an older friend about a fighter jet crash investigation he was involved in, where the cause basically was that an engineer wired down some bolts (as required) but trimmed the ends of the wires without recovering the trimmed part. That little piece eventually found its way into the main stick mechanics, causing enough resistance at the wrong moment, preventing the pilot from recover…

This is really interesting to me, how are the crash investigators able to pinpoint the exact cause of failure in such circumstances? I'd imagine a small piece of wire would be just another miniscule piece of debris at a crash site, and unlikely to still be in the location that caused the crash.