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Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

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351–360 of 367 posts

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#351
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the airframe was different and didn't handle the same way as the old one. In order to hide that, Boeing implemented in a terribly negligent way MCAS. Had they accepted it's a different one, and had a different type rating, all would have been fine.

The 737 airframe reached a point where it was not compatible anymore with modern engines. When the 737 was designed, engines where a lot smaller, the nwer turbofans simply don't fit under the wings of a 737 anymore, so they had to be moved forward. That changed flight characteristics, Boeing used MCAS to compensate for that. If I remember correctly, on-board systems of 737 had issues with handling a second sensor for…

> Had they just done all the proper testing and development they did after the aircraft losses upfront none of that would have happened

This is a textbook example of how the most expensive point to make a change is after the product ships.

An extreme example, perhaps, but a good one.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#352
post #164

It is important to note that Boeing settled for 2.5 billion in which it is agreed that "...the misconduct by its former employees was “neither pervasive across the organization, nor undertaken by a large number of employees, nor facilitated by senior management". ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-reaches-2-5-billion-sett... ). So remember, when push comes to shove, the technical lead always gets thrown to the wol…

It's possible this is the initial charge to get them in the door with search warrants and subpoenas and testimony because someone dropped a dime with some info that there were criminal acts not know to the government at the time, not covered by the settlement. I doubt the settlement was a "you're pardoned for ALL acts related to 737 MAX." A refresher since this happened so long ago: Airbus was eating Boeing's 737 sal…

They only put one sensor in cause they knew that more sensors would require additional training.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're unable to understand LattleLazy's point it's probably best to refrain from responding to them until you do.

Attacking the poster is not moving the discussion forward!

how droll.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#355
post #335
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So you take half the staff and put them on testing a second plane. Then each individual plane takes 10 years to test instead. (Remember that you don't gain person-hours for free just by shuffling people around.) What would this accomplish? Instead of a total system time average of 10 years, you now get an average testing time of 10 years to which you still need to add the queuing time, so you're even worse off…

... or increase the staffing[1] to a degree where you can do more than the absolute bare minimum when lives are on the line 1: https://www.aviationtoday.com/2021/06/03/faa-asks-budget-inc... . When there's a defined process that appears to run in isolation, I don't see why there should be only one queue in this case, considering that the task length cannot be easily reduced.

I'm all for increasing the FAA budget so they can do their jobs better. I think that's a net positive for the industry.

What I was saying with my previous comments was that giving the current budget levels, it doesn't help to shuffle people around (without some strong assumptions on the process, which in my experience rarely are true in practise.)

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#356
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So you take half the staff and put them on testing a second plane. Then each individual plane takes 10 years to test instead. (Remember that you don't gain person-hours for free just by shuffling people around.) What would this accomplish? Instead of a total system time average of 10 years, you now get an average testing time of 10 years to which you still need to add the queuing time, so you're even worse off…

Only if the workload doesn't shake out favorably in light of Amdahl's law. Most mechanical processes aren't necessarily conducive to parallelization. Verification and information processing on the other hand can do favorably in the presence of non-reliance on a physical system-under-test. Which subsystem vetting arguably is. If you're talking vetting specs.

Yes, there are some circumstances under which it makes sense to parallelise some of the work.

I'm assuming the FAA does this already. Human organisations have a bias to parallelise to a fault. Increasing the parallelism level beyond this does not improve lead times.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and for most of the agencies, it's not that their budget is small or the agency itself is incompetent: it's what's required by law and they can't override it unless Congress decides to change the laws.

You don't want regulatory agencies creating law on their own though. Not only is that unconstitutional but the reason its unconstitutional is because you would inevitably end up with some busybody who is not accountable to the people massively over stepping their power and creating tyranny.

It's called rule making authority. Normal, necessary, obviously correct form of governance.

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#359
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want regulatory agencies creating law on their own though. Not only is that unconstitutional but the reason its unconstitutional is because you would inevitably end up with some busybody who is not accountable to the people massively over stepping their power and creating tyranny.

Regulatory agencies create "laws" all the time. When Congress creates legislation, they rarely spell out all the details and implementations. This is left to the agency to interpret, and they have a wide latitude in both interpretation and enforcement.

You're referring to Chevron deference and/or Auer deference, and it is worth noting that those are in the long process of being curtailed/attacked heavily. :(

Re: Former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud

#360
post #359
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulatory agencies create "laws" all the time. When Congress creates legislation, they rarely spell out all the details and implementations. This is left to the agency to interpret, and they have a wide latitude in both interpretation and enforcement.

You're referring to Chevron deference and/or Auer deference, and it is worth noting that those are in the long process of being curtailed/attacked heavily. :(

Chevron defense is separate and distinct from Auer defense. The Chevron defense applies to Congressional legislation, Auer is applied to an agency's own vague regulations. I have no issue with restricting the Auer defense. If an agency issues vague regulations, then that's their own fault. You're correct that they're both being attacked, but the underlying issue won't go away; Congress can't/won't dictate every detail of legislation especially when it comes to general/vague legislation. They have neither the inclination nor domain knowledge to do so.
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