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E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

nytimes.com

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Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#291

Post by erokar »

pasta wrote: post #285
AWildC182 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit more complicated than that even. The 737 was originally designed for a very different mission than it's being used for right now. If you find pictures of the original 737-200s they look very different from the MAX line of today. It was built in an era when it was assumed that 707 and soon after 747 class airliners would serve the hubs and then smaller 737s would serve the small regional airports. As such t…

Trump tweeted that planes have become too complicated and that the old and simple form is much better. His tweet sounds dumb but there is some truth in it. As you say, planes and procedures have become very complicated. And I think there are only two options: making planes simple again which make them less efficient or let computers fly the plane and make the interface simple(r). If you look at the rockets of SpaceX…

> His tweet sounds dumb but there is some truth in it.

There really isn't. Automation is part of what has made flying safer over the years. Also, compare the cockpit of an Airbus with e.g. an old B737, the 300 series for instance. The Airbus cockpit is much simpler, in the sense that there are less gauges and knobs for the pilots to be concerned about. Automation has, over all, made things simpler and safer.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#292

Post by Mr_Shiba »

dahdum wrote: post #103

American and Southwest Airlines are still flying the Max 8/9, and are refusing refunds (Southwest/American) and charging change fees (American) for customers concerned for their safety. I don't understand this logic. They are essentially risking their entire company over the safety of this plane. If something happens now they'll be driven to bankruptcy at record speed.

> They are essentially risking their entire company over the safety of this plane

But all that profit, would someone think of stock holders please!?

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#293

Post by dragonwriter »

mehrdadn wrote: post #287
AWildC182 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? When I say stability control, we're not generally talking about unstable or "relaxed stability" airframes where the system failing would cause a pitching moment to accelerate rather than converge and the aircraft would tumble and disintegrate. From an efficiency and handling standpoint, this would be ideal, but it's only used in tactical military aircraft where the crew can bail if there's a problem. In most…

> Swept wings are necessary to cruise efficiently beyond ~300mph at high altitude Layman here, but 737, 747, etc. don't have swept wings, right? So they all cruise inefficiently... but are in fact stable... which is the opposite of what you wrote earlier? Sorry, I'm just really confused.

> Layman here, but 737, 747, etc. don't have swept wings, right?

They do, in fact, have swept wings.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#294

Post by wikiwawa »

DuskStar wrote: post #271
wikiwawa wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mean of a Beta Distribution (2, 348) ( https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=beta+distribution+(2,+... ) is roughly half a percent, much higher than the 1 in 11 million across all flights ( https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-probability-for-an-airplan... ). (You can pretty much always make statistical inference, with uncertainty going up with the lack of data)

I highly doubt there have been 11 million airliners manufactured , though - and that's what the 348 number is. If we assume that the average MAX 8 has been in service for a year (first delivery was a little less than 2 years ago), and conducts 4 flights a day, we get this [0] - a mean of 1/250000. Still worse than 1/11000000, but only by a factor of 50 instead of 50 thousand . 0: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?x…

Good point, I was wondering why I was off orders of magnitude.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#295

Post by stickfigure »

mehrdadn wrote: post #287
AWildC182 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? When I say stability control, we're not generally talking about unstable or "relaxed stability" airframes where the system failing would cause a pitching moment to accelerate rather than converge and the aircraft would tumble and disintegrate. From an efficiency and handling standpoint, this would be ideal, but it's only used in tactical military aircraft where the crew can bail if there's a problem. In most…

> Swept wings are necessary to cruise efficiently beyond ~300mph at high altitude Layman here, but 737, 747, etc. don't have swept wings, right? So they all cruise inefficiently... but are in fact stable... which is the opposite of what you wrote earlier? Sorry, I'm just really confused.

You're picturing a fighter jet or something with severely swept wings. Do an image search - 737s, 747s, et al do indeed have gently swept back wings. They don't stick straight out at 90 degrees like aircraft from the piston era.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#296

Post by cududa »

sandworm101 wrote: post #283
namirez wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fly-by-wire means the control surface actuators are connected to cockpit controls electronically rather than with hydraulic lines or metal cables; it's not necessarily related to stability and control augmentation system. With regard to the other point, I don't think anyone is advocating for very high aerodynamic stability. That would be a B52 carrying nuclear weapons. It was designed to be extremely stable and forgi…

Yes it would. There are backup systems to keep things working even with both engines dry (ram air turbine etc). In fact, if you really want to stretch our a glide, all those automated systems are probably a good things. They will keep the aircraft more perfectly trimmed for a glide than the pilots ever could by hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine

Yeah as long as the sensors actually work

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#297

Post by Symbiote »

flurdy wrote: post #206
gizmo385 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes. How would ya like to be a passenger on one of those planes: "We're returning to our departure airport because this airplane has been grounded."

I was on a Norwegian plane once going from Oslo to London, 3/4 into the journey, just before descending into Gatwick, we got told the plane is turning around due to fault on the plane. So deflating when you are nearly home. The pilot did a good job calming everyone down and explaining it was a minor fault, two duplicate sensors were showing different values, but still, enough to recall the plane. So basically another…

I had the same experience with an Easyjet flight, which departed from the Easyjet hub (also Gatwick) and returned there.

The pilot strongly implied that had I been on the British Airways flight, we'd have continued to the destination: BA would have flown their spare pilot + spare plane + repair crew out.

But Easyjet didn't have a spare crew.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#298

Post by linuxftw »

Someone1234 wrote: post #157
sfilargi wrote: post #146

I urge people to read the discussion by pilots regarding the 737 MAX. https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-7... It all comes down to this: "There are far too many aerodynamic bandaids that are permitted to pass the current standards. Not just this particular airplane, but a whole bunch of airframes. If the basic aerodynamics won't pass without the pushers, pullers and now AOA induced changes to…

Pilots have been pushing back hard on the narrative that this was simply pilot error. The crux is that safety agencies never mandated training on these new systems, and new procedures weren't created with them in mind. Worse still procedures from older models of the same aircraft (such as automatic overriding of auto-trim) were removed without re-training on that either. Lion Air had to repair the AOA sensor multiple…

> Either it wasn't safety critical and Lion Air's actions are reasonable, or it was and Boeing cut costs on safety.

This is an excellent point. Boeing can't have it both ways.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#299

Post by Mr_Shiba »

phkahler wrote: post #232
throw7 wrote: post #141

The FAA isn't passing the smell test. If both previous crashes happened with US carriers taking off from US airports, you better believe the FAA would ground these boeing max jets.

>> If both previous crashes happened with US carriers taking off from US airports, you better believe the FAA would ground these boeing max jets. You're not wrong. But do you think the EU banning them couldn't possibly have anything to do with who makes them or the competition between Airbus and Boeing? Even as a secondary factor?

How about 300 deaths already, and well know design shortcomings as primary factors ?

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#300

Post by mehrdadn »

stickfigure wrote: post #295
mehrdadn wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Swept wings are necessary to cruise efficiently beyond ~300mph at high altitude Layman here, but 737, 747, etc. don't have swept wings, right? So they all cruise inefficiently... but are in fact stable... which is the opposite of what you wrote earlier? Sorry, I'm just really confused.

You're picturing a fighter jet or something with severely swept wings. Do an image search - 737s, 747s, et al do indeed have gently swept back wings. They don't stick straight out at 90 degrees like aircraft from the piston era.

Ohh I see, okay thanks.
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