Staff emails claim Boeing 777X ‘shares Max problem’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Staff emails claim Boeing 777X ‘shares Max problem’

#81

Post by dTal » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

stopads wrote: post #80

dTal wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>MCAS is the dumb bandaid they invented to save money on pilot retraining. No, the MCAS is to make the plane certifiable, full stop. It's less "handling characteristics of the previous model" and more "handling characteristics permissible on commercial aircraft".

I don't understand the distinction? Why is it important?

The distinction is important because if they could have forgone the MCAS and sacrificed the type rating, the story becomes about cutting small corners to pinch pennies. In actual fact, however, the MCAS was vital to the aircraft, which was rushed out to compete with Airbus - and so it becomes about cutting BIG corners, to save the company.

Re: Staff emails claim Boeing 777X ‘shares Max problem’

#82

Post by lamontcg » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #62

dehrmann wrote: post #3

That's a disingenuous headline (I blame the Telegraph). > In an email from June 2018, before the first Max crash, one Boeing worker wrote: “Best part is we are re-starting this whole thing with the 777X with the same supplier and have signed up to an even more aggressive schedule.” > Another member of staff warns about a relentless cost focus... > Last September, the 777X suffered a setback when it failed a ground te…

The "Max problem" is not the specific engineering defect that happened to manifest with the 737 Max. Instead, the "Max problem" is the set of organizational, cultural and managerial issues that cut corners, misled regulators and prioritized profits over safety. MCAS defects are not the problem, they're a symptom of the problem. And these messages about the 777X are more symptoms of the same problem.

Yeah the problem with the Challenger explosion can either be diagnosed as O-rings or NASA culture.

The former clearly was not involved in the Columbia accident, the latter certainly still was.

Re: Staff emails claim Boeing 777X ‘shares Max problem’

#83

Post by stopads » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 12:48 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #81

stopads wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the distinction? Why is it important?

The distinction is important because if they could have forgone the MCAS and sacrificed the type rating, the story becomes about cutting small corners to pinch pennies. In actual fact, however, the MCAS was vital to the aircraft, which was rushed out to compete with Airbus - and so it becomes about cutting BIG corners, to save the company.

So you're arguing that we'd all be better off without MCAS? And that this whole thing is the fault of regulators?

If so, this line of thinking is utterly absurd.

Re: Staff emails claim Boeing 777X ‘shares Max problem’

#84

Post by dTal » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 10:02 AM UTC

stopads wrote: post #83

dTal wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction is important because if they could have forgone the MCAS and sacrificed the type rating, the story becomes about cutting small corners to pinch pennies. In actual fact, however, the MCAS was vital to the aircraft, which was rushed out to compete with Airbus - and so it becomes about cutting BIG corners, to save the company.

So you're arguing that we'd all be better off without MCAS? And that this whole thing is the fault of regulators? If so, this line of thinking is utterly absurd.

I don't know where you got that from because it bears no relation whatsoever to what I was saying.

The point is you can't just take the MCAS out of a MAX and retrain pilots - it's a vital fix for handling characteristics that were unsafe to fly, full stop. Without the MCAS, it - quite rightly - wouldn't have been allowed to carry passengers at all. It's an important distinction with wide implications.

(However, it does strike me that an MCAS-like device, an automated trim to paper over the inability of the airframe to fly stably under all flight regimes, is a fundamentally unsafe device and should never have been allowed in the first place, let alone with such a poor sensor suite. The MAX is an irredeemably unsafe plane, a result of bolting new engines on an ancient airframe that was not designed for them, and the resultant pile of hacks.)