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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

#331

Post by ernesth »

gsnedders wrote: post #42
benj111 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a disincentive to buy American aircraft. If you're a reasonably sized international airline, it seems like a reasonable possibility that you'd have to (or want to) land in a territory that the US in unfavourable toward. Why take the risk?

In the Iran case, there are similar sanctions from the EU, so the Airbus A320 family are also out of the question. And if you want something the size of the best selling variants of the A320 family and 737 MAX you have essentially no choice.

> In the Iran case, there are similar sanctions from the EU

Nope, since the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, Europe has no sanction against firms that commerce with Iran. However, since USA pulled out of the agreement, USA threatens european firms that commerce with Iran. The agreement is however still in place.

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

#332

Post by jka »

erokar wrote: post #105
jka wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a reference to confirm that this was a knee-jerk/optics reaction, out of interest? (definitely curious to see how airlines/authorities are reaching these decisions) The MCAS system and the way it was introduced sound a little like a patch, and slightly haphazard. While training & runbooks and procedures are important, take-off is a busy time, and the Max-8 is (afaik) intended to operate very-nearly-like a…

UK CAA reasoning: https://www.euronews.com/2019/03/12/caa-suspends-boeing-737-... http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/SD2019001.pdf Norwegian Air and Norwegian authorities had the same information (or indeed lack thereof), but did not act until now. Given the known similarities, and the lack of data that rules out a problem with the B737 MAX, the responsible thing is to err on the side of caution.

Thanks!

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

#333

Post by draw_down »

eric_b wrote: post #109

At the gym today, on all the TVs, the media talking heads were crucifying the FAA for being "unsafe" or playing fast and loose with passenger safety (for not grounding the planes). I've always held the FAA in high regard, and think they do a good job. Are they really being negligent here? Or is the media just looking for something to spark outrage? Can anyone with more specific knowledge of aircraft safety weigh in?

I just read that there were pilots complaining to federal authorities for months about safety issues with this aircraft. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2019/03/12/boei...

Besides that, two of them crashed in six months.

If the idea is "safety first", does it not seem prudent to ground them until the matter can be fully investigated? And by that I mean, a thorough explanation of what happened in these two incidents, and why it's okay to fly these aircraft in light of those incidents.

If you're optimizing for something else, I could see how you might not move to ground them. But the FAA rightly makes a big deal about safety.

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

#334

Post by consp »

metanoia wrote: post #305
erokar wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but the pilots will hear/see the trim wheel moving.

Inattention to autopilot modes has killed before. So much focus is put on pilots recognizing and confirming flight mode annunciator mode changes (such as change of autopilot or autothrottle state) has been put into place to stop that kind of accident. The lack of feedback from the MCAS system is probably the killer here. How am I supposed to know that MCAS is operating, and how do I know when to hit trim cutoff switc…

An additional problem is that if it fails (the MCAS) the airplane is low, in full thrust during take-off and the pilots have zero room for error as the airplane is trying to dive into the ground (as in the LionAir flight).

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

#335

Post by cmurf »

zaroth wrote: post #312
AWildC182 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more about preventing a stall with a swept wing which is needed to achieve high mach numbers. That said, an easy (but different) case to visualize is a traditional tailplane. The center of gravity on an airplane is in front of the wing so it wants to pitch down slowly. The tail pushes DOWN in the back to keep the nose up. Nose heavy planes are stable and forgiving but you induce drag because the wing needs to su…

That’s a great explanation, even if it is oversimplifying. We don’t build planes with training wheels anymore because the performance cost was too high. Planes are still the safest way to travel even without the training wheels. I don’t think 737 MAX 8 pushes the envelope too far. I think they screwed up on re-training the disengage, and they may have screwed up on redundancy by only using a single AoA sensor, but I…

There are two alpha vanes on 737s, including the MAX 8, that measure angle of attack. Also we don't know the exact source of the error (in the Lion Air case; in the Egyptian Airlines case we don't know at all). The vane itself could be the source or some other part of the system.

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

#336

Post by lostlogin »

shaki-dora wrote: post #166
lostlogin wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so sure about that. The US Government lists 13 places as “Do not travel” and 15 as “reconsider travel”. Looking at the list, it doesn’t seem unreasonable advice. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...

A travel advisory is something completely different than economic sanctions.

The grandparent comment was talking about landing in Iran or North Korea. I assumed this was about travel rather than economics.

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

#337

Post by bambax »

nas wrote: post #274
jimbru wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's speculation that the crash was caused or contributed to by the MCAS system, which is new on the MAX 8. At this point it is just speculation. Here's a good answer from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/azzp0r/ethiopian_...

So much speculation is going on. The angry mob has already concluded that the MCAS must be the cause. Greedy Boeing was too cheap to redesign the plane and made a cheap software hack to fix it. Sneaky computers are overriding the decisions of the poor helpless pilots. The FAA is too incompetent to certify aircraft, etc etc. Based on what I read, the truth is a lot more complicated. The MCAS doesn't work the way most…

We don't know much, if anything, about the Ethiopian crash; but we do know that in the case of Lion air, MCAS was a major factor.

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

#338

Post by calf »

erokar wrote: post #270
jakelarkin wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the plane should never have gotten the green light to fly." this is an overstatement. airframe fuel efficiency is a undoubtable good thing vis a vis climate change, costs, etc. Obviously they've reached a point were the aerodynamic profile of a modern, efficient airframe is difficult to control via manual pilot input alone in some scenarios. This was the case for stealth technology with fighter/bomber designs.. the…

That's not really the problem with the B737 MAX though. It's not inherently unstable like e.g. a fighter. The issue is that they had to fit the engines in front of the wings, and this will create a significant pitch-up if thrust is added abruptly, e.g. in a go-around. To counteract this they introduced the MCAS system. They would not have needed this if they hadn't "retrofitted" big engines on an old airplane design,…

That's interesting to know, I think the 737 Max looks very kitbash because of the way the engines dangle in front of the wings.

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

#339

Post by nraynaud »

hindsightbias wrote: post #290
nraynaud wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just can't have more data points, because flight travel is too safe. And no, the FAA is not really that good, general aviation pilots die all the time from negligence and the FAA doesn't enforce the rules when pilots violate them (in particular low altitude flying).

I would liken GA enforcement to be somewhat like motorcyles. Lots of people die on motorcyles and we see bad behavior all the time, but we don't look at law enforcement and say they're doing a bad job. You're simply operating a platform with a higher probability of death than a car or truck when you do screw up.

If only model aircraft fliers who for have not killed anyone yet benefited from the same leniency.

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

#340

Post by nraynaud »

dpe82 wrote: post #263
nraynaud wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just can't have more data points, because flight travel is too safe. And no, the FAA is not really that good, general aviation pilots die all the time from negligence and the FAA doesn't enforce the rules when pilots violate them (in particular low altitude flying).

General aviation is actually quite safety focused. The entire culture is centered around safety; a large amount of private pilot training time is dedicated to the subject; human factors in particular. Go to any fly-in breakfast and talk to the pilots and inevitably at some point during the conversation you'll hear something about being a safe pilot. That being said, the government gives general aviation pilots a fair…

When it was time to regulate quadcopters out of existence, we didn't feel the "scaling with the amount of danger the public is exposed to".
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