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FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

theregister.com

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Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

#101

Post by LunaSea »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #75
swarnie wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make the smart choice, fly Airbus.

Do the Europeans still allow their aerospace companies to bribe/kickback to win contracts? I know that was allowed a decade ago. I know multiple nations fleets (not at the airbus/boeing level) were chosen based on kickbacks. I know we were the originally winning bid, but that it was not extended to us because we wouldn't do kickbacks (they are illegal for US companies but at the time not for Europeans). Personally I'…

> Personally I'd rather the fly on the best aircraft

Is that the one crashing down from the sky every few months?

Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

#102

Post by rkagerer »

user_7832 wrote: post #47

If you're wondering - hey, that sounds terrible, why doesn't the FAA do anything about it? Answer, because it practically can't without maybe a 10x or more budget boost that's practically impossible. Why? Copying from another comment I made on this thread: (Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash an…

After their abysmal track record, how about making Boeing pay for outside (unaffiliated) engineers to certify the safety? Like the engineering equivalent of an audit?

I'm struggling to reconcile how you can give a company & self-certification system that failed so egregiously another chance.

Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

#104

Post by SR2Z »

M95D wrote: post #96
EdwardKrayer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

falsified paperwork is better than no paper trail in the event planes start falling out of the sky - spotting one moderate falsification could very well lead to further verification when it comes to investigations deemed important by the public.

Ah, yes, no paperwork, I completely forgot about that. It's even more common than fake doing stuff. Don't be so confident that falsification can be spotted. It usually can't. Or require very time-consuming cross-checks that I never saw happen in my entire 20y career, such as comparing the number times an internal control was run vs. the quantity of consumables used in the process that were bought. In case of Boeing,…

But when the plane finally crashes, wouldn't it be obvious in the investigation? Wouldn't that lead to further inspections of other planes?

Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

#105

Post by kayfox »

salawat wrote: post #61
user_7832 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash and FAA's lapse, so my memory is a bit foggy.) The short answer is that unfortunately it's practically almost impossible to do this any other way, short of massively increasing funding for the FAA (which is presumably politically not going to be done.) The lo…

>You end up with the engineers at Boeing et al, and the regulatory folk at FAA etc. Incorrect. The engineers acting as FAA delegates are paid by Boeing , not the FAA. Toxic incentive. Stop shining that apple Leroy, plane needs to get shipped, and bossman is getting testy. As far as your arguments on the information propagation front go, MCAS was deliberately designed against industry best practices and perception man…

You seem to want a system where the regulators, while embedded at Boeing, are just wandering around and looking at things. What we have in aviation is a system where engineers, the people wearing the rings, with an ethical and moral obligation to prevent harm to other people, are charged with identifying issues and escalating them as far as the FAA if needed as they work on their day-to-day tasks.

The latter is a much better system to find issues than the former, you get a chance to see a lot more issues when your actively working on the systems where the issues would be than if your walking around and looking at paperwork.

Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

#106

Post by _DeadFred_ »

t_mann wrote: post #67
user_7832 wrote: post #47

If you're wondering - hey, that sounds terrible, why doesn't the FAA do anything about it? Answer, because it practically can't without maybe a 10x or more budget boost that's practically impossible. Why? Copying from another comment I made on this thread: (Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash an…

Do you know how it works in other places where planes get built, eg Europe, Brazil? The incumbents on both sides will always tell you that there's no other way things could be done. Looking at how they get done elsewhere seems like a good sanity check.

They get done the same? Embraer works with lots of Americans.

Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

#107

Post by lesuorac »

chmod775 wrote: post #89
user_7832 wrote: post #47

If you're wondering - hey, that sounds terrible, why doesn't the FAA do anything about it? Answer, because it practically can't without maybe a 10x or more budget boost that's practically impossible. Why? Copying from another comment I made on this thread: (Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash an…

The FAA has a budget of USD ~23,000m. Surely you can fit in some experts there. EASA fills a similar role on a budget a 100 times smaller (in USD it's ~300m), paying for ~800 personnel. The main difference is that EASA doesn't handle ATC, but it shows that the aspect of the FTC's duties we are talking about here really can't be that expensive. If you'd 10x the budget of the FAA, it would have the same budget as the e…

> If you'd 10x the budget of the FAA, it would have the same budget as the entire EU or 4x Airbus/Boeing's revenue. That's ridiculous.

10x is a bit ridiculous but I'm not sure it's that ridiculous for the FAA to have more expenditures than Boeing.

Sure, FAA (requested) budget is 22 Billion [1] while Boeing's revenue is 66 Billion [2]. However, United Airlines revenue is 57 Billion [3]. The FAA doesn't just manage Boeing so if we start adding up _every_ airline, airport, etc revenue I think that a budget of 66 Billion won't look as silly anymore. I mean they can't properly staff ATC currently so very trivially their current expenditures is too low.

[1]: https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2025-05/F...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines

Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

#109

Post by gte525u »

FWIW - I work in aerospace. I believe this is talking about their FAA Designated Engineering Representatives (DERs). They are employed directly by the company or are consultants - they are subject matter experts in their domain. They act as the FAA delegate within the company. They generally have authority that goes well beyond the typical employee or QA person.

The ones I have worked with have no problem telling management to go pound sand when they are pushing schedule.

Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness

#110

Post by addcommitpush »

kayfox wrote: post #105
salawat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You end up with the engineers at Boeing et al, and the regulatory folk at FAA etc. Incorrect. The engineers acting as FAA delegates are paid by Boeing , not the FAA. Toxic incentive. Stop shining that apple Leroy, plane needs to get shipped, and bossman is getting testy. As far as your arguments on the information propagation front go, MCAS was deliberately designed against industry best practices and perception man…

You seem to want a system where the regulators, while embedded at Boeing, are just wandering around and looking at things. What we have in aviation is a system where engineers, the people wearing the rings, with an ethical and moral obligation to prevent harm to other people, are charged with identifying issues and escalating them as far as the FAA if needed as they work on their day-to-day tasks. The latter is a muc…

Would the same system work for other industries, e.g. banks or medical research?
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