171–180 of 494 posts
Well since the 787 program will very likely never break even, let alone turn in profit, for Boeing, the 737's replacement will be a do or die project for Boeing. They cannot afford another money-losing product.
it'll take more than financial losses to kill boeing.
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I read "Airframe" by Michael Crichton probably twenty years ago, and it was around ten years old at that time. I remember that that book talked about how the planes were unstable by design and required software to maintain proper flight characteristics, and that this was so because it was more efficient. The book is fiction, but I doubt it was far off the mark at the time. I suspect that there is no going back from t…
The 737-MAX is not "unstable by design". It has the exact same positive stability as other planes in 99% of it's flight envelope. The remaining exception is that, at a certain AoA, speed, thrust, etc, there is a case where adding thrust pushes the nose up more than it does for the normal 737 The nose push is not abnormal, it is not unsafe, it is not unexpected. All planes with engines below the inertial "center" of t…
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Gateway is also a trial run for conducting operations at a Mars/Phobos/Diemos station.
But then you've got to ask why would we want an orbital Mars/Phobos/Deimos station?
Snark aside: the goal is Mars because it might be possible to colonize the planet and to have a place that acts as a reserve for humanity should shit really hit the fan (i.e. WW3).
The moon isn't suitable as much for that purpose due to a complete lack of any atmosphere and because it's too close to Earth.
Overly nerdy question: I'm curious regarding AoA sensor failure, is there an ability to manually source select the AoA, if not, how about the FMC? This might be called master source select, or which side is controlling (captain or first officer).
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What about Airpods? Also, I expect Vision to eventually be a massive success.
The basic Airpods are crap, noise cancellation is useless, they fall off the ear. You're better off with Sony or JBL at half the price. The Pro ones are good.
I hope they design and build the airframe properly this time. A plane that needs [cheaply outsourced] software (that relies on one sensor) to correct bad behavior at the flight envelope is just not acceptable. I still refuse to fly on the 737 MAX. I know it’s probably fine given what pilots now know about the how to control the thing, but I just refuse to support Boeing’s malicious negligence or any carrier that enab…
I get, but if everyone does that, Boeing does and we're left with a monopoly. Is that better? Will you feel safer flying on a COMAC?
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…
All of which are generally regarded as great aircraft by the people who fly them.
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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.
I would buy an upgrade if it was twice the price. In reality it's more like 10x.
So, yes, sticker price for upper class service is pretty expensive. In a world where upper class service was the norm on certain routes on certain planes it would probably be pretty expensive but probably cheaper than the upgrade on mixed class service.
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What about Airpods? Also, I expect Vision to eventually be a massive success.
The basic Airpods are crap, noise cancellation is useless, they fall off the ear. You're better off with Sony or JBL at half the price. The Pro ones are good.