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Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

reuters.com

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

#71

Post by ExoticPearTree »

jsjohnst wrote: post #7

> Boeing said late on Monday "while we are confident that the proposed time-limited exemption for that system follows established FAA processes to ensure safe operation, we will instead incorporate an engineering solution that will be completed during the certification process." Anybody else get the exact opposite of a warm fuzzy feeling about the specific wording choice used by Boeing there?

What I don't understand is why the 737-Max 7 is having problems with the anti-icing system for the engines. What "improvements" did they make to the engines that turned it into a problem?

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

#72

Post by ExoticPearTree »

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…

You should try a flight on an A350 with seats over the wing or as forward as you can get them. It is so much quieter than the 787. So far it is the quietest plane I've flown on.

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

#73

Post by ZaoLahma »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #63
ZaoLahma wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Before iphone was launched someone could have made the same point about Nokia's smartphones.

For my question the phone-equivalent would be someone asking today in 2024 what is the difference between a Nokia of 2006 and an iPhone of 2024, when only knowing that you can make calls with both of them.

I genuinely didn't know that the modern 737s are so much of a hack to get around regulations and save cost on R&D, and thought they were just good aircraft that were worth iterating on.

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

#74

Post by agsnu »

kd5bjo wrote: post #65
kalleboo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Isn't that mostly through mobile stairs though? Airstairs are specifically the foldable stairs built into the plane, which enforce a stricter limit on the height that the door can be from the ground. I'm sure Ryanair uses them to save on ground handling fees, but if you were designing a plane from scratch these days you wouldn't include them.

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

#75

Post by Gravityloss »

ZaoLahma wrote: post #61
kalleboo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The aircraft world has its peculiarities.

Lots of cases in light aviation where some crashed plane is rebuilt basically from scratch but it's cheaper from regulatory perspective to say it's the same plane, just repaired, ie reuse the tail number.

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

#76

Post by ExoticPearTree »

kd5bjo wrote: post #65
kalleboo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

+ it is more expensive to park the plane at a jet bridge. Most low cost airlines prefer the air stairs + bus option because it is the cheapest option.

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

#77

Post by s1dev »

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?

A few things come to mind from more modern aircraft like the 787/A350: Fly by wire (flight envelope protection), electronically actuated control surfaces (less hydraulics / reduced complexity), bleedless engines (greater efficiency), greater use of composites (less weight), modern wing design using computational modeling/optimization (possibly more efficient), and essentially as large of a turbofan fan as you would like

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

#79

Post by nottorp »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #63
ZaoLahma wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> We simply didn't know what was possible

I'm sure a few PalmOS owners wondered why they don't make the scroll bars fingerable and add a cell phone ;)

But points to Apple for figuring out you don't need a stylus to write either and you can scroll from anywhere. And for, you know, building a device. I thought of a primitive form of it but it never occured to me to do it.

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

#80

Post by chippiewill »

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…

Risk is hypothetical and Boeing will have had to submit various documents to the FAA describing the possible outcomes and the likelihood of those happening. Risk can also be managed by pilots doing manual checks.

Boeing got an exemption for the existing MAX-8 and MAX-9 planes with the same issue, and are allowed to continue shipping new planes of those with the issue. This isn't really that big of a deal IMO, planes fly with stuff broken all the time, it's why they have minimum equipment lists. Planes are enormously complex with thousands of systems onboard, it would be kind of surprising if everything worked all of the time.

To not allow shipping MAX 7s with the same issue would be a bit odd, if it's serious enough the planes should either be grounded across the board, or at least not shipping new MAX 8s and MAX 9s.

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