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Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

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Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#181

Post by carlmr »

bobthepanda wrote: post #165
ethbro wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case American would have bought exclusively new A320neo's. Boeing was caught flat-footed and underinvested in a new product in 2011. So while Boeing management could have said "No" to their largest (?) customer, that would have been a hard decision to make. And probably would have led to the board chopping C* heads for breach of fiduciary duty.

It's not as if the current situation, in which Boeing is currently causing all their customers lots of financial pain each day the MAX is grounded, and the CEO of the commercial division has been fired, is any better. The Airbus order backlog is almost a decade out as it is, so American just shoving it all into A320neos that would take longer to show up wouldn't exactly be realistic either. Boeing should've just gone…

>It's not as if the current situation, in which Boeing is currently causing all their customers lots of financial pain each day the MAX is grounded, and the CEO of the commercial division has been fired, is any better.

Hindsight is 20/20. The CEO chose a risky payoff (Boeing remaining competitive with the Max) over certain loss (Boeing losing many contracts to competition).

If the CEO didn't expect jail time (which given our history of such incidents is unlikely), he chose rationally in his own self interest.

If you want a different outcome you need to disincentivize this kind of behavior. E.g. if CEOs "taking responsibility" (because that's usually the reasoning for their insane income) meant they get locked up in prison without parole for 20 years. Then rational actors may become more careful.

Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#182

Post by carlmr »

ajnin wrote: post #68
akersten wrote: post #2

These should not fly for a decade. They're rewriting the avionics from scratch. This should require a years-long process of testing, external auditing, and approvals. I'd even go so far as to say in flight, we should require competitor review. That's right, no trade secrets. If you want your Hello World up in the air, you better let your competitor vet the source code. This is an engineering boondoggle and an embarra…

An extensive rewrite in only a few months (they expect a return to service by the end of the year), involving a whole new paradigm of 2 computers monitoring each other vs the old failover mechanism. I'm sure the aviation industry has extremely stringent coding standards, but that's just not realistic and asking for bugs (aka risks to the safety of passengers and crew).

>involving a whole new paradigm of 2 computers monitoring each other

If I read this article correctly that was already the case.

Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#183

Post by SQueeeeeL »

thfuran wrote: post #128
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion courses wouldn't change behavior, modern computer science is designed to infantalize coders and make them interchangeable. Think of all the effort startups put into marketing themselves as "COOL TO WORK FOR"/"WE HAVE BEER ON FRIDAYS". These reinforce the idea that you are small and need management to tell you exactly what to do everyday, because you're a dumb idiot who spends all day watching anime and…

Given >marketing themselves as "COOL TO WORK FOR"/"WE HAVE BEER ON FRIDAYS", "the idea that you are small and need management to tell you exactly what to do everyday, because you're a dumb idiot who spends all day watching anime and playing video games" does not follow.

They make efforts to cast the coders as young people who can be swayed by marketing gimmicks instead of real workplace concerns like benefits, livability, consistent work/life balance. That culture permiates the entire engineering culture

Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#185

Post by bdavis__ »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #141
zaroth wrote: post #12

The can of worms has been officially opened, and this may turn out to be a case study in how bad software and outsourcing your centers of excellence can bankrupt a company. If TFA is to believed, Boeing has embarked on a project to take what is currently a master-slave failover design and jury-rig it into a master-master real-time system. This is based on bad performance in the simulator—not because of MCAS—but while…

tl;dr : The Kruger-Dunning effect is most visible in the upper-management circles, where politics and charismatic talents are necessary skills. Former engineering powerhouses like HP, Boeing, and IBM slowly get hollowed-out into incompetence when it’s assumed that Engineering and technical skills don’t require a considerable depth of knowledge and experience.

profound!

could it also be the normal generational rotation of people through the organization?

Everyone grew at a tremendous rate since the 1960's. Many, many more engineers. And then they retired.

Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#186

Post by bdavis__ »

Xixi wrote: post #84
xvf22 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four engines are generally way more inefficient than two big ones. That's why they're being phased out. A340,B747,A380, BA146, etc.

Contrary to popular belief, quad engine planes are not inefficient [1], at least not in terms of fuel consumption (we are talking 1% to 2% difference). In terms of dispatch reliability however I think they are doing somewhat worse than twins, as they are more likely to have one engine out of service. And it not a small problem: a plane flying revenue passengers is an asset, but a plane not flying is a liability. At l…

The transition from 4 engines to 2 was accompanied by a great increase in systems reliability. Look up ETOPS for details. The trade off between safety (loss of airframe) and reliability( plane has all engines functioning ) is complex. A 2 engine aircraft is more reliable than a 4 engine aircraft, but a 4 engine aircraft can still fly safely with less than 4 engines. ETOPS made the design margins increase such that 2 engines would have identical safety and reliability.

Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#187

Post by bdavis__ »

kyleblarson wrote: post #93

Possibly stupid question but will they be able to apply these fixes remotely? Or will Boeing have to fly engineers / mechanics to every grounded 737 Max in the world?

Commercial aircraft have a large support staff that 'touch' the aircraft ever day (week). Certified mechanics and technicians. A software update is something they do on a regular (yearly maybe()) basis. By following instructions provided by the OEM. Upgrading hardware is also done by the customer. People are trained and qualified to do this work all over the world.

Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#188

Post by situational87 »

macspoofing wrote: post #37
situational87 wrote: post #19

Are the simulators run by Boeing or the FAA? Are the test pilots employed by Boeing? What changes have been made to the regulatory framework to prevent Boeing from signing off on their own safety tests? What changes has the FAA made to bring more public transparency to the flight certification process? When is the sentencing date for Boeing executives? They are not getting a plea deal I hope? I'm not worried about th…

I'm not sure the FAA is at fault here. From a big-picture perspective, the industry has never been safer. Obviously, continuous improvement is a core part of quality, and the FAA can always learn and improve their processes, but you can't expect a regulator to shoulder the core responsibility of certifying a plane. The primary responsibility is always going to be on the manufacturer because no regulator will ever hav…

Yes, I agree that the aviation industry hiding behind the streak of years of no accidents has contributed to how bad Boeing became. They were using that statistic as a shield and a hammer to justify further deregulation.

This is a great example of how looking at the world through the prism of stats really limits your understanding of what's actually happening.

Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#189

Post by macspoofing »

situational87 wrote: post #188
macspoofing wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the FAA is at fault here. From a big-picture perspective, the industry has never been safer. Obviously, continuous improvement is a core part of quality, and the FAA can always learn and improve their processes, but you can't expect a regulator to shoulder the core responsibility of certifying a plane. The primary responsibility is always going to be on the manufacturer because no regulator will ever hav…

Yes, I agree that the aviation industry hiding behind the streak of years of no accidents has contributed to how bad Boeing became. They were using that statistic as a shield and a hammer to justify further deregulation. This is a great example of how looking at the world through the prism of stats really limits your understanding of what's actually happening.

That is a cynical way of interpreting the situation, and let's be clear, you have no basis for claiming this.

Re: Delays in Boeing Max Return Began with Near-Crash in Simulator

#190

Post by mannykannot »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #173
mannykannot wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that, without MCAS or some other design change to fix its unacceptble handling characteristics near the stall, the 737 MAX would have been uncertifiable even as a new type. It is the way that Boeing went about implementing that fix, in an attempt to avoid an additional training requirement, that has caused all the trouble.

Let's be clear here, though: it's the airlines who refuse to buy an aircraft with additional training requirements. Pilots can only fly one aircraft type, and retraining to a different type is an expensive proposition. If Boeing could make an aircraft that fit under the 737 type, they really had no choice but to do it. They also probably could have succeeded, too, if not for other systemic problems within the company…

It is not clear to me that they probably could have succeeded in satisfying all these conflicting goals, if not for other systemic problems in the company. Even now, with (one hopes) everything in the open and the systemic problems pushed aside, they are having trouble getting it done.

You say Boeing had no choice, but one choice was to acknowledge the problems, aim to keep the type certification with additional training, and negotiate with its potential customers on that basis. There is no law of mankind or nature that says Boeing is entitled to a certain number of sales at a particular profit.

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