Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 173 posts

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#61

Post by ZaoLahma »

kalleboo wrote: post #55
ZaoLahma wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is what I'm curious about. I can't imagine much of the original design would be left in the aircraft except for the overall shape of it. I'm guessing (remember now, basically zero aircraft development knowledge) that most tech has been updated to modern equivalents. Engines, controls, computers, ...? So what would be changed in a complete overhaul of the aircraft?

> overall shape of it That's the problem. It was designed for 60s-style boarding via air-stairs on the ground (rather than modern jetways from the terminal) so it's too low down. This requires doing funky things to fit modern, large, energy-efficient engines, starting with those weird flat-bottom cowlings and ending in moving the engines back and changing their angle, which changes the flight characteristics of the p…

Huh, I see. So keeping it around for so long was mostly for avoiding expensive R&D and pilot re-training, and not so much for the 737 being the perfect platform to keep iterating on.

Interesting.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#62

Post by eastbound »

wokwokwok wrote: post #32
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They did not acknowledge and admit wrong doing. Of course not. Wouldn't it just open them up to legal liability and additional lawsuits if they admitted wrong doing? It seems like saying "we have updated our plan and will now focus on an engineered solution" is exactly the kind of language I would expect from a large corporation that has made such visible failures as to be very vulnerable to lawsuits. I am not even…

...mm... but they didnt say "we have updated our plan and will now focus on an engineered solution". That's not even a paraphrase of what they said. They said: > we are confident that the proposed time-limited exemption for that system follows established FAA processes When we know that: 1) The established FAA processes resulted in a variation of this aircraft that crashed. 2) The established FAA processes resulted i…

The FAA is 10x more guilty than Boeing. Boeing is not ignoring them, Boeing has benefited from corrupting the FAA.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#63

Post by perryizgr8 »

ZaoLahma wrote: post #43
Animats wrote: post #35

The trouble is, Boeing hasn't built a new single-aisle transport since the 757, which first flew in 1982. There was supposed to be a 797 by now, but it keeps slipping into the far future. So they're still cranking out 737 variants, a 1960s design. This is pathetic. Boeing could end up losing out to the COMAC C919, which, although years late, is finally flying a few routes.

Why is it troublesome? As someone with very limited knowledge in aircraft development, I'm genuinely curious about what more modern designs would bring to the table compared to the modern 737s, which I assume are heavily updated versions of the original 1960s design?

> more modern designs would bring to the table

How would we know unless they do it? Before iphone was launched someone could have made the same point about Nokia's smartphones. They were heavily updated designs of their massively popular Symbian phones. We simply didn't know what was possible until someone put in the work and innovated and came up with an entirely new design.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#64

Post by jfoster »

I love flying on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It is the most comfortable plane I've flown on in terms of how the air quality feels, and it has had 0 hull losses & 0 fatalities; almost as good a safety record as you could hope for as a passenger. I think there are many who agree with me about Dreamliners being the most comfortable planes to fly on.

I hope never to fly on another Boeing 737, because of all the accidents and safety drama that has been happening & is ongoing. It's become vogue to hate Boeing as a result, but I still prefer the 787 over any other plane.

I am guessing that entirely different teams were responsible for what's been happening with each model, but I'm surprised that Boeing's culture has led to two quite different results with these two types of planes. Can anyone explain that?

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#65

Post by kd5bjo »

kalleboo wrote: post #55
ZaoLahma wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is what I'm curious about. I can't imagine much of the original design would be left in the aircraft except for the overall shape of it. I'm guessing (remember now, basically zero aircraft development knowledge) that most tech has been updated to modern equivalents. Engines, controls, computers, ...? So what would be changed in a complete overhaul of the aircraft?

> overall shape of it That's the problem. It was designed for 60s-style boarding via air-stairs on the ground (rather than modern jetways from the terminal) so it's too low down. This requires doing funky things to fit modern, large, energy-efficient engines, starting with those weird flat-bottom cowlings and ending in moving the engines back and changing their angle, which changes the flight characteristics of the p…

> It was designed for 60s-style boarding via air-stairs on the ground (rather than modern jetways from the terminal)

Note that boarding a plane in the middle of the tarmac via bus+stairs is still quite common at many major European airports. Using jet bridges exclusively requires the planes to all be parked in one long line beside a building, which can never be as space-efficient as a 2D-grid parking lot.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#66

Post by rob74 »

ZaoLahma wrote: post #43
Animats wrote: post #35

The trouble is, Boeing hasn't built a new single-aisle transport since the 757, which first flew in 1982. There was supposed to be a 797 by now, but it keeps slipping into the far future. So they're still cranking out 737 variants, a 1960s design. This is pathetic. Boeing could end up losing out to the COMAC C919, which, although years late, is finally flying a few routes.

Why is it troublesome? As someone with very limited knowledge in aircraft development, I'm genuinely curious about what more modern designs would bring to the table compared to the modern 737s, which I assume are heavily updated versions of the original 1960s design?

The original 737 was the smallest aircraft in Boeing's passenger jet family, behind the four-engine 707 (which was already becoming obsolete at the time and was eventually replaced by the 747) and the three-engine 727. I mean, this was the original 737 model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#/media/File:Boeing_... - Lufthansa used it as a "CityJet", which is its regional brand! That's why the 737 sits so low to the ground, so it can be loaded and unloaded with simple equipment (or even without equipment) at small regional airports. And that proved a major issue when more efficient turbofan engines with ever higher bypass ratios (-> bigger diameters) came about, so they had to use various tricks to acommodate these engines, and the latest trick (MCAS) then backfired tragically. Besides that, the things Boeing can do to update the 737 are limited, or else the FAA might come along and say "this is not your grandfather's 737 anymore, it needs a new type certificate!".

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#67

Post by yukkuri »

rkagerer wrote: post #44
jsnell wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MAX 8 and 9 have the same issue[0], and have a temporary exemption with guidance to the pilots on when not to use the deicing. I think the idea is that this is an issue that can be managed, and the cost of grounding hundreds of planes for such an issue is substantially higher than the cost of delaying deliveries for a plane with no existing fleet. That different cost also leads to a different tradeoff for the two…

I hear what you're saying, but "because we have so many of these planes out there" isn't a rationale that gives me a lot of confidence for justifying a waiver. In the grand scheme of things I'd rather see them stop building shitty planes.

But that gets in the way of making the little line on the graph go up every quarter which means top execs don't get as big of bonuses so shitty planes it is!

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#68

Post by charles_f »

fbdab103 wrote: post #4
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #2

I honestly don’t even know anymore if I’m living in a cracked / badly modded version of the sims, how can one wake up in the morning and seek for a safety exemption regarding I quote the article: She noted the exemption Boeing had sought "involves an anti-ice system that can overheat and cause the engine nacelle to break apart and fall off. This could generate fuselage-penetrating debris, which could endanger passeng…

A $20 toaster has overheat detection technology. Presumably other planes are doing this already. I am not understanding how there is a novel engineering problem to solve that could not be incorporated into the release.

From what I read elsewhere the problem is not entirely an engineering issue, but the fact that this creates new procedures to be followed by pilots, and relying on the pilots memory for these rare, but statistically significant occurrences is yet another risk on top of a plane that's already caveat-rich

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#69

Post by sugarkjube »

ramesh31 wrote: post #57
anon-sre-srm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will try to MacGyver some shit together last minute. The irony is the 707 replaced then De Havilland Comet 4, which is much like the 737 MAX today. The difference being Boeing is a strategic defense contractor that is "too big to fail". There are enormous pressures on the FAA to let Boeing slide with a stern warning again.

The DeHavilland Comet was the first practical civil jet airliner ever produced. It literally invented the systems that were onboard. The 737 is a 60 year old design with a stellar safety record up to this point. It's not comparable at all. The only reason those planes fell apart is rotten management.

> The 737 is a 60 year old design with a stellar safety record

It isn't. Or at least the max isn't. It's a big change from the original 737, a change that makes the type IMHO unairworthy beyond repair.

But that is not even the biggest issue, its the fact that boeing thinks they should withold essential information (such as the existence of an MCAS) from the pilots, who ultimaltely bear the responsibility of the safety of hundreds of passagers. Even now, in the light of what happened, apparently boeing still hasn't changed policy.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#70

Post by fcsp »

jfoster wrote: post #64

I love flying on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It is the most comfortable plane I've flown on in terms of how the air quality feels, and it has had 0 hull losses & 0 fatalities; almost as good a safety record as you could hope for as a passenger. I think there are many who agree with me about Dreamliners being the most comfortable planes to fly on. I hope never to fly on another Boeing 737, because of all the accidents…

Currently reading "Flying Blind", which was recommended on another recent Boeing thread. Not done yet, but I think it boils down to

- Boeing had a pretty strong engineering driven culture for a long time

- In the 90s, McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money and McDD management took over, which was a mostly Jack Welch inspired bunch of value extraction types

- Engineering culture started decaying, drastic cost cutting, outsourcing and value extraction started taking place, with Boeing spending up to 80% of free cash on stock buybacks instead of investments

- Dreamliner program started in the early 2000s, 737 MAX several years later

I think it boils down to the erosion of the company not having progressed as far when the Dreamliner was being designed

Post reply on HN