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Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

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Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest tell will be just how over budget the development process becomes. Another issue in large companies trying to build something new is the scope creep which leads to committees and then decision by committee. If the folks leading this effort in Boeing are smart, they will keep the size of the team as small as possible. Maybe they will even hire some people back to lead this effort... assuming they can find…

>If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines. The manufacturers don't actually have a ton of say over this. At the end of the day, it's the airlines who decide how many seats in what configuration the aircraft will use - not the manufacturer of the plane. And airlines only pack so tightly because competition is fierce and flyers almost exclusively on…

The number of passengers you can fit in a commercial plane is based on how quickly you can evacuate them, with the doors being a major bottleneck. Many ULCCs in Europe have planes that are right up against that limit.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#142

It'll be interesting to see if they still can design and build a new ground-up airplane design. The last all-new design was the 787, initiated in 2003 and launched in 2009, and its design was fraught with problems. Before then was the 777 in the early 90s (pre-McDonnell takeover), and the 757/767 in the early 80s. There's a phenomena that ofter occurs with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybod…

One of the reasons the 787 was fraught with problems is because it was peak decision-making by finance and accounting people. Specifically, Boeing outsourced everything for the 787s. There were layers of subcontractors upon subcontractors to produce the different parts because, you know, outsourcing was "cheaper" or "more efficient". So of course the logistics pipeline is hellishly complicated.

All because Boeing just didn't want to employ people directly who can build up expertise.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest tell will be just how over budget the development process becomes. Another issue in large companies trying to build something new is the scope creep which leads to committees and then decision by committee. If the folks leading this effort in Boeing are smart, they will keep the size of the team as small as possible. Maybe they will even hire some people back to lead this effort... assuming they can find…

> If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines. Isn't that something that's more the responsibility of the airlines, who decide how many seats are put in a plane, following the limits of the aircraft? Like if you want more legroom you take a more expensive ticket from a company that doesn't try to cram as many passengers in each plane

Pretty much. You can outfit pretty much any airframe you want to be business class only seating but not enough people will buy when it pops up on Expedia at 2+ times the price of the alternative.

I don't love Economy on long flights either but I'm mostly not willing to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for a more comfortable alternative for 8 hours or so.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not great, the MAX would have been fine if Boeing (and their airlines) had not clung so hard to the type rating. Without that, MCAS could have been left out entirely alongside its utterly botched implementation. But that would have required a heavier certification process, and some pilot re-training. And they couldn't have that. Of course that wouldn't have freed Boeing from the rest of its dismal record (MCAS…

This is at best a Boeing talking-point. We don't have any data that states it is safe to operate the MAX without MCAS. It's quite possible that probable scenarios would result in stall faster than a human can react.

Afaik all analysis of the max’s design have come to the conclusion that its natural behaviour was nothing special or dangerous. It’s just that in some edge cases the nose would lift faster than on an NG, and that was not acceptable if it was sold as a 737 with no retraining.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might have the chain of causality mixed up. From what I've seen, the sheer scale of the company creates large committees because you've got lots of managers and they all know that getting involved in the project is essential to their career advancement. And then that creates scope creep. Partially due to design by committee effects, but also because the manager in charge of flobnix realizes their opportun…

>why is the Lunar Gateway such an essential part of the Artemis project's mission architecture when we didn't need anything like that for Apollo? The explicit reason is: Why would we pay another $200 billion to just do Apollo again? People were bored of Apollo before it even finished its original set of missions.

We'd pay $xxx billion to have a permanent moon base, something Apollo never had. If that can't efforts excite people enough to keep funding flowing I doubt a space station in lunar orbit will move the needle

To add another data point: the Chinese lunar program also plans to land humans on the moon and later establish a manned research outpost on the surface. But there don't seem to be any plans for an orbital stations, despite China having very successful space stations in LEO

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#149
post #47

It'll be interesting to see if they still can design and build a new ground-up airplane design. The last all-new design was the 787, initiated in 2003 and launched in 2009, and its design was fraught with problems. Before then was the 777 in the early 90s (pre-McDonnell takeover), and the 757/767 in the early 80s. There's a phenomena that ofter occurs with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybod…

> with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets It's not just building a product end-to-end. Tim Cook is a supply-chain guy. He knows how to build a product. What he doesn't know how is how to design a new one. This is the reason that all of the "new" stuff that has com…

My work laptop (Mac) needed an OS upgrade recently, top of the release notes was "added 8 emojis" - what? Why is this an OS level feature worth calling out
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