91–100 of 454 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think this a technical problem - it’s a matter of changing culture.
Exactly - management culture and engineering culture are opposite ends of a spectrum.
And that’s the crux of the problem. They actually need one another but the egos on both sides refuse to acknowledge that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For distance traveled flying is safer than any other form of transportation (maybe except trains?). I wonder however, what the stats are for time spent. How much safer is time spent flying, compared to other forms of transportation? Is it about equal, a bit safer or an order of magnitude safer?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety By hours, flying is substantially safer than car or foot, on par with trains. By quantity of trips, substantially less safe than walking.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Building airplanes it a bit like running a restaurant... it's a business no sane person would willingly go in to. Other people with a similar perspective about rockets tried to convince Musk that as well. Thankfully he didn’t listen. You’re never going to realize gains that surpass the return on the S&P if you don’t take risks in business.
Musk is an interesting standards bearer for sanity.
Think what you will about Musk, but SpaceX has completely revolutionized space travel and will be in the history books a hundred years from now.
I've read in a different place that the many problems could be a result of uncareful and miscoordinated outsourcing, particularly in the software domain. Is there any good information / insight on this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your own link doesn't back that up. A Delta Connections commuter flight killed 49 in Lexington, KY in 2013.
"Delta Connection" isn't a "major" airline. It's a regional airline that Delta relabels. It's different airlines in different parts of the country. (And it's not just Delta. United does this too, and I'm fairly sure American does.) So, the word "major" means that the GP was at least technically correct. (You can argue that it doesn't matter, because if Delta relabeled it, they should own the results...)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is irrational. Since November 2001, there has been one death aboard a major airline operating in the U.S.[1]. That was a Southwest flight where an entire engine self-destructed. It was an issue with the CFM engine, Not with anything Boeing did. You might choose to include one more. An Asiana flight tumbled end over end after arriving short at SFO. Everyone survived the crash, but a passenger was killed when an eme…
Your own link doesn't back that up. A Delta Connections commuter flight killed 49 in Lexington, KY in 2013.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_airlines_of_the_United_S...
I do get the impression that the current Boeing CEO is attempting to turn the culture around, to a more "admit the problem and fix it" kind of attitude. The problem is that, if you are doing this after many years of "deny the problem and ship it", the number of apparent problems is actually going to go up for a while. I wonder if Boeing's customers and shareholders will have enough patience for him to complete the tr…
Boeing needs to dump the CEO and install someone from an engineering lineage if they want to build their reputation back. An engineering company run by a longtime manager with a background in accounting is in large part how Boeing got here. Fire the guy and get someone with a technical background in there.
The CEO may set the culture, as much as that is set from the top down, but by the time a company actually starts having problems visible to the outside, its entire suite of executives, VPs, etc, have optimized their career for the sort of problematic attitude the previous CEOs demanded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Delta Connection" isn't a "major" airline. It's a regional airline that Delta relabels. It's different airlines in different parts of the country. (And it's not just Delta. United does this too, and I'm fairly sure American does.) So, the word "major" means that the GP was at least technically correct. (You can argue that it doesn't matter, because if Delta relabeled it, they should own the results...)
That's a hell of a lot of goal post moving. Comair is (and was at the time) a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta. It counts.
I do get the impression that the current Boeing CEO is attempting to turn the culture around, to a more "admit the problem and fix it" kind of attitude. The problem is that, if you are doing this after many years of "deny the problem and ship it", the number of apparent problems is actually going to go up for a while. I wonder if Boeing's customers and shareholders will have enough patience for him to complete the tr…
I said this in a previous thread, a QA/QC/SOP firm either has a culture where nobody would dare violate SOP or it doesn’t. It’s not about “admitting” a problem, they already have the SOPs and inspection protocols that reveal defects and proscribe ways to identify, document and address any defect. But as the QA guys where I work say, they are a cost center. There are two real questions here, can Boeing strictly follow…
Boeing has gotten Too Big To Fail, way too much military/space contracts. The US government can't let them fail because then the only remaining space capability would be SpaceX who can't fulfil everything (and is under control of an increasingly erratic billionaire).
What should happen is that the government should do it just like with the banks in the late '00s: assume control over Boeing+Spirit Aerosystems if not outright nationalize it (without compensation to shareholders, to incentivize other shareholders of other companies to make sure their leadership doesn't prioritize profits over safety), enact sweeping changes, and then after a few years either sell the remains off again or keep it under government control.