Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes • Hacker News Board

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#81

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #40

stopads wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost there, after reading about how much Boeing has spent on stock buybacks (5x all of R&D over the past six years) I think I'm going to start looking into which model typically services a route and avoid all modern Boeing planes. Boeing made a lot of executives super rich with buybacks and equity compensation, this led directly to the shoddy engineering choices.

> avoid all modern Boeing planes First, if you think Airbus is any better, you should think again. Second, what do you mean by "all modern Boeing planes"? If you just mean "planes designed after the merger with McDonnell Douglas", that's just the 787 and the 737 Max. The latter is grounded and the former only flies select long haul routes. For the average US business traveler they're a non-issue.

[deleted]

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#82

Post by fred_is_fred » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

According to the article Boeing has halted production, but this leaves the door open to producing them again in the future after design updates. I predict they'll try to rename the model and fly it again after making changes and certifying. That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as.

They could rebrand it as the 737 Cargo since I think a lot of potential passengers feel just like you.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#83

Post by samstave » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

ELI5: why can’t the auto safety system be removed and the plane be sound?

Is the design so flawed that it can’t be safely flown by a human without this system that causes random catastrophic failures?

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#84

Post by hhas01 » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

madengr wrote: post #30

BitwiseFool wrote: post #2

According to the article Boeing has halted production, but this leaves the door open to producing them again in the future after design updates. I predict they'll try to rename the model and fly it again after making changes and certifying. That being said, I never want to fly on a 737 Max or whatever they plan to rebrand it as.

This will probably be the safest plane to fly on, considering the amount of scrutiny the FAA is now applying.

MAX is Defective by Design. Leave the aerodynamically unstable designs for the hotshot fighter planes; everyone else just wants to get from A to B without cratering into the ground inbetween.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#85

Post by hhas01 » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:44 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #59

madengr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that reactor had an inherent instability that could not be fixed. The MCAS has an issue with redundant AOA sensors; that specifically needs to be fixed. The MCAS caused problems on other flights, but the pilots knew to disable it by flipping the circuit breaker. The pilots on the crashed planes did not know to disable it. That is a training issue. Fix the redundant AOA and provide training to disable the MCAS, an…

>No, that reactor had an inherent instability that could not be fixed. Interesting maybe could have been fixed with software. I am thinking of Reactor Characteristics Augmentation System, or RCAS. Also, Chernobyl exploded because they pressed the halt button at a very bad time. This also sounds like something that can be fixed in software.

Take your damned “Like”, you magnificent bastard.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#86

Post by kawfey » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

hatchnyc wrote: post #71

asah wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's fine - but 99% of everybody else will fly a 737 Max for $x less and after 1-3 months of no reported incidents.

How many people even check what kind of equipment they are flying on before booking a ticket? I know a lot of people who are not even vaguely aware which manufacturer the plane they are flying on was made by.

I'm willing to bet airliners are going to remove any indication of what aircraft submodel is planned for the flight prior to ticketing, if not aggressively debating that move.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#87

Post by mzs » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

>Boeing is in talks with banks to secure a loan of $10 billion or more…

…

>Banks that have already committed to contribute to the loan include Citigroup, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan…

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/20/737-max-crisis-boeing-seeks-...

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#88

Post by kawfey » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

hhas01 wrote: post #84

madengr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will probably be the safest plane to fly on, considering the amount of scrutiny the FAA is now applying.

MAX is Defective by Design. Leave the aerodynamically unstable designs for the hotshot fighter planes; everyone else just wants to get from A to B without cratering into the ground inbetween.

It's not aerodynamically unstable. It's aerodynamically different than the 737-800 but Boeing decided instead of new pilot training and possibly re-certification, they would address the difference in it's flight characteristics by automatically adjusting the elevator trim when the aircraft is in a specific off-nominal situation such that the 737 MAX 8 feels and behaves just like the 737-800 (MCAS). That's not a bad engineering design decision IMO, but the follow-on decisions (or mistakes) made by Boeing (one AoA truth source instead of two, no extra training, zero indications, basically don't tell anyone about it) is the problem. Once those problems are fixed, no 737 MAX 8 will ever fail due to MCAS again. In fact it's going to be one of the - if not the - most scrutinized (and thereby safer) aircraft ever made.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#89

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

kawfey wrote: post #86

hatchnyc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people even check what kind of equipment they are flying on before booking a ticket? I know a lot of people who are not even vaguely aware which manufacturer the plane they are flying on was made by.

I'm willing to bet airliners are going to remove any indication of what aircraft submodel is planned for the flight prior to ticketing, if not aggressively debating that move.

Great opportunity for a "SkySafe" app; filter out known flight/tail numbers based on the equipment (with data from public FAA feed). Can't lie about your equipment in flight plans to the FAA.

Re: Boeing has temporarily stopped making 737 Max airplanes

#90

Post by wang_li » Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

hhas01 wrote: post #84

madengr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will probably be the safest plane to fly on, considering the amount of scrutiny the FAA is now applying.

MAX is Defective by Design. Leave the aerodynamically unstable designs for the hotshot fighter planes; everyone else just wants to get from A to B without cratering into the ground inbetween.

Is it unstable? I thought the problem was that they didn't want to require retraining so they built in a flight control system that made it seem like the previous generation plane from a flight dynamics pov. That system would only take inputs from a single sensor on any given flight. If that sensor had issues then the flight control system would misbehave. If they had gone the retraining route and not included MCAS, then the plane would be fine. At least that was my understanding.