Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard • Hacker News Board

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#271

Post by fred_is_fred » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

gsnedders wrote: post #122

fred_is_fred wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - so the airlines that didn't cancel just assumed that they were far enough down the list that Boeing would figure it out and passengers would forget? I'd be asking for a discount for sure - especially since commercial airlines are hurting for cash.

What would be the airline's alternative plan? The A320neo family has a multi-year backlog of orders, so you'd be delaying your aircraft replacement. Keep flying older 737 NGs? Then your competitors can beat you on costs due to lower fuel burn. That all said, Boeing is liable for penalties due to late delivery of many (most?) aircraft.

A couple questions here - I am assuming that planes are only at 50% usage now, so they obviously age but less hours right? Does that change how long they are kept so that you need less replacements?

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#272

Post by thatguy0900 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:53 PM UTC

medecau wrote: post #182

Some will want to avoid flying this aircraft model. Here are some variants > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX#Variants And here are some operators > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_operators

I saw a really good take on this last time this subject came up here, that at this point this airframe is probably the most heavily scrutinized to ever exist

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#273

Post by pdonis » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #253

dnautics wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

737 max should be permanently decertified, boeing should take all associated losses. FAA officials should be charged with manslaughter.

FAA officials should face consequences, but boeing purposefully misled the regulator and got away scott-free.

> FAA officials should face consequences

And their obvious defense is that they were acting entirely in accordance with statutes passed by Congress and regulations approved by the statutory process for doing that.

Then what?

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#274

Post by kayfox » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #243

ogre_codes wrote: post #2

In a weird way, having the Max grounded during 2020 turned out to be lucky timing on Boeing's part. The airlines slowdown due to COVID likely gave them some serious breathing room while they got their shit together. Now hopefully they actually did get their shit together.

> The airlines slowdown due to COVID likely gave them some > serious breathing room while they got their shit together. Though I agree with you, Boeing could have really used the time to properly train 737 type pilots on the MCAS-specific issues. But the whole purpose of MCAS was to not retrain pilots, so instead of those pilot spending the past half year training on the new system, they spent the past half year most…

Training pilots before a training program is approved is kinda like throwing money into a fire. They would still have to turn around and train them again with the approved training.

Also, being has little to do with the actual decisions on what and how to train pilots not employed by them, the airlines develop training programs that are approved by the FAA and operated with FAA oversight.

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#275

Post by kayfox » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #157

p1mrx wrote: post #88

Why do these articles say so little about how Boeing fixed the problem? People are more likely to fly on these if they know what's different from the ones that crashed.

Because they didn't fix the problem. Shit can still hit the fan with one AoA indicator down and MCAS disabled. Think about how flawed these sensors have to be to fail mere months after coming off the assembly line. 737 MAX is only safe if there is triple redundancy on the sensors to confirm which of the two remaining sensors are in agreement.

The Lion Air sensor was defective when installed on the aircraft (The day prior to the accident), it was a part that was repaired by a company in Florida that was not authorized to repair it, and the airline's maintenance department failed to verify its correct operation and just forged the verification in their records.

The Ethiopian Airlines sensor was speculated to have been hit by a bird on takeoff.

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#276

Post by kayfox » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

yyy888sss wrote: post #8

Maybe they should have bit the bullet and fully redesigned the 737. Presumably future engines will be bigger still, will they just tack them onto this old design as well? At the end of the day this is just a software fix.

This is exactly what Boeing had originally proposed, but the airlines did not want to incur the equipment and training costs to do it.

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#277

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 12:29 AM UTC

Geminidog wrote: post #265

Dylan16807 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engines being too low is not a physical flaw, and was not the cause of these crashes. The control mechanism caused the crashes, and control mechanisms can be fixed relatively easily.

This is categorically wrong. The engines being too low will kill everyone on the plane should the special control mechanism not exist. The control mechanism existed to cover up a physical flaw then proceeded to be the cause of crashes itself. If a control mechanism can easily be fixed... What was the exact fix? Literally tell me.

> The engines being too low will kill everyone on the plane should the special control mechanism not exist.

It makes the control curve slightly different, don't be so dramatic.

> If a control mechanism can easily be fixed... What was the exact fix? Literally tell me.

I'm not psychic, I can't tell you how they fixed it, but you can find a ton of people talking about how redundant sensors would have avoided the same issue. You could also have it be much more obvious when it's adjusting trim, because if the pilots were aware of what was happening they wouldn't have crashed either.

from your other comment> Saying the control mechanism crashed the plane and just fixing that is like saying you didn't put enough duct tape over the real problem.

Tape, and the equivalent of tape, is a valid solution to many problems if you have an expert analyze it.

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#278

Post by ashtonkem » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 3:08 AM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #269

ashtonkem wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying is safer than driving on average . But a lot of bad can hide in averages. Boeing delivered 387 Max 8 aircraft to their customers before they were grounded in 2019. Two were destroyed, killing everyone aboard. That's half a percent of the aircraft they delivered destroyed within two years. That's obviously much worse that most other aircraft, and far worse than any car currently for sale. You wouldn't buy a car…

That is the wrong way to look at this. The only apples to apple comparison is miles/hours/people. How many miles over how many hours for how many people.

I was not able to find official statistics on 737 Max flight hours, which is why I fell back to percentage of aircraft as a means of comparison.

But to continue down this path, let's compare the 737 Max to its predecessor, the 737NG. Out of the 7,065 737NGs delivered, 22 have been completely destroyed, for a rate of 0.3%. If we only look at fatal accidents, we find 12 (0.16%). If we limit this to accidents that were caused by some failing of the aircraft, even if it was made worse by pilot error, you end up with two fatal accidents (0.027%).

So in order to believe that the 737 Max is no more or less dangerous than the 737NG, you have to believe that the 387 delivered 737 Max aircraft were flown enough in 2 years to cover the massive difference in their fatal hull loss rate. I'm sure that the 737 Max was flown a lot, the reduction in fuel consumption means that airlines would want to use it as much as they could, but there is over an 18x difference between the rate of fatal accidents caused by those two aircraft; do you really think that the 737 Max flew 18x more on average than the 737NG has?

Oh, and Airbus has delivered 1,499 airplanes in their a320neo series. None have crashed so far.

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#279

Post by cjbprime » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 4:00 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #215

cjbprime wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I don't see any pilots or aviation experts saying this. I think it's actually still poorly designed -- I don't think they added a third AoA sensor and used a quorum on them, as Airbus does given their own link of AoA to an automatic flight control.

Do you see lots of pilots or aviation experts saying the opposite? Are there Max pilots that have come out and said "I'm done flying that thing"?

I argued that it is untrue that aviation experts and pilots now consider it to be much safer than other models as a result of the scrutiny. You asked if any of those people have publicly refused to fly it, presumably because they think it's a deathtrap.

That isn't a response to my actual position, or something I expected to happen.

Re: Boeing's upgraded 737 Max completes first flight with media onboard

#280

Post by cjbprime » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 4:07 AM UTC

0xy wrote: post #206

cjbprime wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I don't see any pilots or aviation experts saying this. I think it's actually still poorly designed -- I don't think they added a third AoA sensor and used a quorum on them, as Airbus does given their own link of AoA to an automatic flight control.

There's been hundreds of independent pilots and experts who have signed off on the plane from multiple regulatory bodies and other independents. Including 565 independent pilots in Europe alone. [1] No other plane in the history of aviation has had this level of scrutiny. [1] https://www.airlineratings.com/news/boeing-737-max-safe-fly-...

That's fine, but signing off on it just means that they were convinced that it's airworthy. Your own [1] link even says:

> “While the software upgrades and changes are enough to get the plane back in the air, the agency is still demanding the development of a so-called synthetic sensor (that will be ready in 20 to 24 months) to reach even higher safety levels.”

This seems clear that we're talking about a conditional airworthiness rather than absolute confidence, safest plane ever made, etc etc. Recall that you said "It's probably far safer now than other models". Why are you saying that given that the experts you quoted are using the paragraph above for this plane, when they don't have similar concerns and requirements for other models?