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The Coming Boeing Bailout?

mattstoller.substack.com

151–160 of 189 posts

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#151

Not a viewpoint I agree with. Boeing has plenty of business. 737 MAX sales may suffer, but that will not kill the Boeing Company. Aviation is a deadly serious business. Design is done by people, which are highly flawed cogs in the system. The system was broken. (meaning design, verification, and certification process). The system can be fixed. Incompetence at some levels; perhaps. Not murder and not criminal behavior…

"Given a crew that has experienced an AOA sensor failure during MCAS operation in the simulator, I would fly on a 737 MAX as it was delivered. Without concern."

Make sure your pilot is a bodybuilder or something.

"But Lemme said the Ethiopian pilots most likely were unable to carry out that last instruction in the Boeing emergency procedure — because they simply couldn’t physically move that wheel against the heavy forces acting on the tail."

“The forces on the tail could have been too great,” Lemme said. “They couldn’t turn the manual trim wheel.”

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#152

The problem is that corruption has already reached the core. The military-industry complex, the revolving door scheme, pretty much everything. I mean the system still works because the United States, so far, is still the most powerful country. But for how long? The elites are not doing their job, so the people should pick up from here. But the thing is, the people are not able to do this either.

> because the United States, so far, is still the most powerful country. ... But for how long? What would be the competition to the US other than China (which is insular, nationalist to the extreme and protectionist to the extreme)? If China is the only superpower competitor, then the structure you just described will continue to work perpetually as there is no alternative. There is a common fantasy that the US is su…

"The US still has 19 of the world's top 20 universities"

Nope.

"and 40x of the top 50."

Nope.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin...

But nice try.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly talking rubbish but: a 286 is simple, well understood both in terms of its spec and its performance (no fancy pipelines, no cache, so very predictable performance), is fabbed probably in the order of a micrometer so highly resistant to cosmic rays (assuming CRs do affect circuitry), inerface to memory that is equally 'boring', those 286s are perhaps hardened and quite possibly still produced for this purpose…

It's probably also certified, and has been in the 737 for a very long time. Usually, if you see something old in a plane it's a matter of certification as it's a long and really, really expensive process. If the chip has enough power to do what is needed, the only reason to change it is that procurement for new parts become more expensive than recertification. Given the price of certification, companies make sure the…

expensive, yah. After I posted I did a little digging.

"The RAD750 is a radiation-hardened single board computer manufactured by BAE" and "The RAD750 system has a price that is comparable to the RAD6000 which is US$200,000 per board (per 2002 reference)" " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750>

More general info here, inc. use of an 8086 and a MIPS R3000: "The CPUs of Spacecraft Computers in Space" " rel="nofollow">http://www.cpushack.com/space-craft-cpu.html> which backs up the chip cost mentioned above. Generally interesting.

Completely agree that if it's fast enough, why change it.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government in my country will use that to take the shares, then do corruption from inside and fattening their wallets. Im against shareholder is immune because of bailout, but I don't think government handling business can be better.

Agreed, as little trust as you might have in stockholders, hold not much more for your government.

That's sad. If you can't trust your government who you elected and represent you who do you trust?

I trust my government and in the controls around it, even when parties that I didn't vote for were in power.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere in the [original reporting][1] does it say that MCAS was outsourced. This article (The Coming Boeing Bailout?) wrongly asserts that MCAS was outsourced. There's no corroboration for that. Mind you, I'm not on Boeing's side. I'm just clarifying what's been reported so far. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-... >In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max. >The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing.…

Nowhere in that quote does it say that:

1. HCL wrote the code for MCAS; or

2. HCL wrote all the code of the Max.

But again, I'm not defending Boeing. I think they made some (deadly) mistakes. But so far there's no proof that the MCAS software was outsourced.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given America-first and China-first attitudes, smaller countries will have to band together into trade blocs, either minimalist like the TPP, or maximalist like the EU, in order to get fair treatment. It’s the principle reason why Brexit is a disaster for the UK.

You mean walking away from and souring our relationship with the largest trading bloc in the world just as two major powers are gearing up to fight a massive economic fight for supremacy is a bad idea (not to mention all the others). I wish someone had put that on the side of the bus, maybe then my compatriots would have believed it. It's just a shame that "While the EU is not perfect and probably does need some refo…

The best chance of reforming EU would be with UK still in it :-( Brexit is just a loose for everyone. Well except Russia of course.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#157
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They put a plane into the air that flies itself automatically into the ground after all, with no opportunity for the pilots to save the plane. You can't fuck up more. Though Boeing has significant contribution, if you read the report on the Ethiopian Air 737-Max crash, I think it's easy to see several places where there was ample opportunity for the pilots to save the plane, particularly in light of the LionAir cra…

You _have_ to be kidding me. The air plane, as proven by two crashes that killed every occupant in the plane, was fatally flawed. Boeing is negligent and the executives who ARE ultimately accountable should pay the cost.

He did not claim otherwise. He just corrected a statement of mine which could be interpreted in a way to be factual incorrect.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#158
post #10

How did Boeing make miracles in civilian aircraft? In short, the the civilian engineers were in charge. And it fell apart because the company, due to a merger, killed its engineering-first culture Uhm, this makes me think about the engineering-first of Google. I wonder if Google will end in the same path...

Companies can come back after the HBS MBAs/bizdevs take over, they must return to product/engineering/creative focused though and it is tough, usually it takes a near failure for the problem to be recognized. Apple survived when Jobs came back and focused on products/engineering/creativity. Microsoft survived post-Ballmer after returning to product/engineering led decision making and power structures. Amazon is top o…

>> Companies can come back after the HBS MBAs/bizdevs take over, they must return to product/engineering/creative focused though and it is tough, usually it takes a near failure for the problem to be recognized.

I'd also point to AMD. After AMD64 came out, Ruiz focused on marketing and cut back in engineering. He also bought ATI, which was a good long term but cost a lot of money at the time. They only turned around after betting the company on Zen, but it took 3-4 years to get the design to market. They seem to be pretty focused on engineering now - even adding staff to support Linux drivers.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The duties were also overturned in the end, but not before Bombardier gifted 50.01% of the C-Series program to Airbus so it had a chance of survival. The net result was Airbus rebranded the program the A220, committed to building US-destination A220 jets within the US to avoid tariffs anyways and while they significantly weakened one [small] competitor (Bombardier and by extension Investissement Québec) they massivel…

"To be clear, Bombardier wasn't sold to Airbus" To be more clear. Bombardier WAS indeed sold to airbus. 50.1% for 1 Dollar.

Not Bombardier, the C-series program. Bombardier makes trains / rolling stock too, and I guarantee you Airbus didn't want a piece of that.

Re: The Coming Boeing Bailout?

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the United States, so far, is still the most powerful country. ... But for how long? What would be the competition to the US other than China (which is insular, nationalist to the extreme and protectionist to the extreme)? If China is the only superpower competitor, then the structure you just described will continue to work perpetually as there is no alternative. There is a common fantasy that the US is su…

"The US still has 19 of the world's top 20 universities" Nope. "and 40x of the top 50." Nope. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... But nice try.

The crux of GP’s comment stands despite quibbling on a few details. The US is the most powerful country on the planet and no one else is close.
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