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American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

zdnet.com

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Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#171

Post by Schiendelman »

dahart wrote: post #71
Schiendelman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear that’s true. Flying doesn’t appear to be causing covid to spread.

How did covid get to Europe or the Americas? I realize you were trying to talk only about person-to-person contact while on the plane, but don't forget why covid spread so quickly to all the other countries on earth in the first place, that's part of what parent was referring to.

Yeah, people can have it, travel, and spread it elsewhere, certainly. I mean that person to person contact. If you're being safe at each end, flying doesn't appear to be causing an impact.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#172

Post by Schiendelman »

larrik wrote: post #70
Schiendelman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear that’s true. Flying doesn’t appear to be causing covid to spread.

Anecdote! One of my co-workers appears to have gotten covid from flying.

I am sure it happens sometimes! But not enough for there to be news stories about it, like we see when groups of people that large gather elsewhere.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#173

Post by salex89 »

AniseAbyss wrote: post #102
salex89 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all airline accidents in modern days are "freak" accidents, but I personally consider AF447 one of the freakiest of the freaks. The long wait to figure out what was wrong probably amplifies the feeling.

I'm not an expert but I do watch aircrash investigation and many of the accidents are caused by mistakes from pilots, airtraffic controllers and or mechanics. Thats why this crash bothers me. A design flaw in a production aircraft is not something you expect in the modern age.

Maybe you should re-watch the episode :) . This was much more than a "design flaw". There was an issue with the pitot tube design, but it was enough to bring the airliner down like a rock.

A combination of route planning, misunderstanding of what is happening, CRM, poor UX, and at the end, incompetence were also a factor.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#174

Post by salawat »

acqq wrote: post #162
Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

737MAX is not nor never has been dynamically/aerodynamically unstable. Full stop. No airliner is permitted to be unstable by FAA regulations. At no point in the flight envelope will the aircraft pitch up into a stall without pitch-up inputs, thus it is not unstable. MCAS was used to augment flight stick characteristics, namely to simulate a linear relationship between flight-stick input force and pitch-up/AoA. This w…

Wait, wasn't MCAS used to fix two completely different flying issues, and weren't the changes introduced in the MCAS software twice, for two different points in the flight? Wasn't at least one crash caused by MCAS activation in the phase of the flight that was not even described in most of MCAS explanations initially (which reflected the decision behind the initial introduction of MCAS, not the later modifications)?…

MCAS was introduced to handle slackening Control surface response force at high AoA in high speed high AoA situations (Wind-up turns) and low speed high AoA situations (generally landing). That type of slackening would normally disqualify an airframe from use as a Civil Transport aircraft according to the FAA final report on the matter.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#175

Post by js2 »

gecko wrote: post #152
js2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a "you're holding it wrong" argument. There are always human factors, no matter how well trained. So while the errors these pilots made shouldn't have happened if they were better trained, at least one of the errors, fighting over who was controlling the plane w/o realizing it, is impossible in a Boeing cockpit.

The thing is, in all aircraft (very much including this Airbus), there are procedures you're supposed to follow for certain failure conditions. They're generally in something called the Quick Reference Handbook, or QRH, but there are also simple flows that crews are supposed to be trained for. One thing that is key in this situation is to announce "my plane" if you are the one flying...which never happened. The Airbu…

Oh, I agree. My original comment way up thread was based on my perception of the Airbus cockpit to the pre-Max Boeing cockpit.

Since the 737 Max incidents, my perception has changed and my preference now is to fly Antonov. :-)

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#176

Post by js2 »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #151
js2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a "you're holding it wrong" argument. There are always human factors, no matter how well trained. So while the errors these pilots made shouldn't have happened if they were better trained, at least one of the errors, fighting over who was controlling the plane w/o realizing it, is impossible in a Boeing cockpit.

No its not. The point of these reports is to get to the "primary causes" of the accident and include design decisions that contribute to an accident. These are trained pilots who did not follow their training. They didn't follow procedures that were in place for these types of events. They did not follow cockpit management procedures. They didnt know how to properly deal with stall conditions, a fundamental piloting…

That's fair. Thank you for elaborating.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#177

Post by FabHK »

dingaling wrote: post #107
js2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pitot tubes had iced-over and it wasn't the first time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Pitot_tu... But that's not what made me nervous about Airbus. Rather, that's when I learned that Airbuses are flown by side-sticks that aren't mechanically linked while Boeings are flown by yokes which are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Side-sti... The idea that two pilots can provide…

> while Boeings are flown by yokes which are [mechanically linked] They can still be disconnected with sufficient opposite force, there's a shearable torque tube between them.

Indeed, but you'd definitely notice (unlike on the Airbus). Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, you'd then have a split elevator (one side up, one side down), while the Airbus just averages the two inputs and sets the elevator there, conceptually.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#178

Post by sjg007 »

tuna-piano wrote: post #12

737Max is certainly tainted now. But will that last forever? And do non-HN-aviation-geek consumers really care enough to check the model of the plane they'll be flying on, let alone make a flight decision based on the model? Certainly another crash could be devastating to the model. But was the 737Max a poorly designed death trap rushed to production or a super safe airplane with a single fatal flaw? Time will tell..…

Another crash will probably mean the end of Boeing as we know it.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#179

Post by throwaway201103 »

tuna-piano wrote: post #12

737Max is certainly tainted now. But will that last forever? And do non-HN-aviation-geek consumers really care enough to check the model of the plane they'll be flying on, let alone make a flight decision based on the model? Certainly another crash could be devastating to the model. But was the 737Max a poorly designed death trap rushed to production or a super safe airplane with a single fatal flaw? Time will tell..…

DC-10s continued to fly after several notorious crashes. They are still flying today, though not in commercial passenger service.

Re: American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

#180

Post by bruckie »

cpgxiii wrote: post #33
jdc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not an intrinsically imbalanced aircraft?

No it is not. No regulators has yet been prepared to certify a fixed-wing aircraft that is intrinsically unstable, even after decades of proven fly-by-wire development. The 737 Max has different yoke force during pitch-up than predecessor 737 models, such that at higher angles of attack it does not natively require increasing yoke force to continue to pitch up. That doesn't mean it would pitch up uncontrollably. MCAS…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxed_stability#Unstable_air... indicates that the MD-11 (which regulators certified) is aerodynamically unstable. (That plane has a compensation system, similar to the 737-MAX.) Is "intrinsically unstable" different from "relaxed stability" in some subtle way?

And while military planes are quite different from commercial planes, many (most at this point?) military jets are aerodynamically unstable.

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