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Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

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Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#351

Post by rconti »

cstross wrote: post #136
village-idiot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s horrifying. I’ve also heard that the 787 was a boondoggle.

The 787 is weird (and possibly unsafe) for at least two significant reasons. Firstly, Boeing totally re-invented their approach to assembling planes. Previously they built most of the aireframe components and assembled them in their own plants. But the 787 was specced out during an ongoing Boeing/Airbus anti-trust dispute over government cross-subsidies that turned nasty (escalated to USA/EU level, mediated via the W…

According to your "weird fatigue / sudden catastrophic failures" theory, you should be very comfortable flying on a 787 today, and become less so as the airframes age. And definitely stop flying 787s the moment one breaks up midair.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#352

Post by AnimalMuppet »

magduf wrote: post #343
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. The 737 MAX was type certified by the FAA on March 8, 2017. That seems like rather a stretch to blame the 737 MAX certification on Trump's election.

The corruption problems at the FAA predate Trump, it's true, but his election is just the latest thing showing just how bad things are.

Oh, I'll agree that Trump's election shows that there are problems. It just doesn't show that there are problems at the FAA. And the 737 Max shows that there were problems at Obama's FAA.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#353

Post by SilasX »

coryfklein wrote: post #346
FabHK wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cessna nearly went bankrupt due to liability lawsuits. The consequence was not safer planes, but fewer planes. I think the right way to go here is (proactive) regulation and certification, not (reactive) law suits.

I think the scale of economies between Cessna and Boeing are going to be hard to compare.

Scale is irrelevant to the dynamic of "a good stops being provided when the assigned liability is out of proportion to what the provider can reasonably control". Cessna was hit with vindictive, overreaching lawsuits that somehow succeeded, which had the effect not of safer airplanes, but more expensive ones without meaningful changes to safety.

"Boeing's bigger so I don't have to care about that dynamic" is not the right way to react to that concern.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#354

Post by wahern »

FabHK wrote: post #326
wahern wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're still delivering the safest method of transportation around, not only by distance, but also by time. It's safe by distance and time because most accidents will occur on take-off or landing. For example, the two recent MAX incidents. It's the nature of flying, not the technology per se, that makes it relatively safe as compared to other modes of transportation. Once you're cruising at altitude the components…

Yes, the statistics per distance look much better for airlines than for cars, but per time it's already less so (planes go faster), and per journey even less so (typical plane ride is much longer than typical car journey). Last time I looked, planes were 200x as safe per pax mile, but 3x as safe per pax journey. (EDIT: "Kx safer" -> "Kx as safe", though the uncertainty is so big that it doesn't really matter)

Yep, that's about what I calculated, too, recently. And considering that so many car accidents are caused by drunk drivers, nighttime driving, etc--that is, situations that one can actively avoid--a conscientious drive could likely even the odds or better, at least on a per journey basis. I bet the car accident rate for pilots is significantly below average.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#355

Post by Animats »

village-idiot wrote: post #89
nocturnial wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how are they going to be held accountable? They already have several contracts which states victims can't sue the company. Maybe not everyone signed, but then it's about how much they can pay their lawyers.

First, recertification will not be cheap. Second, it will hurt sales. No airline wants to buy a plane they can’t fly, but they also don’t want to buy more old planes that use more fuel. My bet is that companies like Southwest will half all orders and see what happens. Finally, it’ll drive companies that straddle the Boeing airbus decide deeper into Airbus’ arms.

It's worse than that for Boeing. The Comac C919 is now flying. This is China's answer to the 737 Max. Three prototypes are flying now. Volume production in 2021. 800 orders already.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-14/boeing-73...

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#356

Post by oreo83 »

magduf wrote: post #221
village-idiot wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, recertification will not be cheap. Second, it will hurt sales. No airline wants to buy a plane they can’t fly, but they also don’t want to buy more old planes that use more fuel. My bet is that companies like Southwest will half all orders and see what happens. Finally, it’ll drive companies that straddle the Boeing airbus decide deeper into Airbus’ arms.

The problem with Southwest is that their entire fleet is 737s. So the 737MAX was a big thing for them: they could stick with that same crappy old airframe, but get better fuel economy, and not have to retrain pilots. They don't want to switch to Airbus because that means they can't standardize on a single model and manufacturer, and they'd have to retrain so many pilots too.

Southwest only has 34 737MAX planes in their fleet of 750 737s.

"crappy old airframe"

It's actually an incredible good design with a proven history. What exactly makes you think its such a "crappy" design?

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#357

Post by Swenrekcah »

SilasX wrote: post #353
coryfklein wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the scale of economies between Cessna and Boeing are going to be hard to compare.

Scale is irrelevant to the dynamic of "a good stops being provided when the assigned liability is out of proportion to what the provider can reasonably control". Cessna was hit with vindictive, overreaching lawsuits that somehow succeeded, which had the effect not of safer airplanes, but more expensive ones without meaningful changes to safety. "Boeing's bigger so I don't have to care about that dynamic" is not the r…

I’m not sure what Cessna’s case was but Boeing and the FAA’s negligence is absolutely horrible here. I’d give them a begrudging pass with some fines slapped on if they’d grounded the fleet and disclosed their deception after the Lion Air crash. But after that and knowing what they knew, people need to go to prison for this.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#358

Post by Animats »

snuxoll wrote: post #314
magduf wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-MAX 737s are still shitty planes to fly on. It's an ancient airframe: it's cramped, it's noisy, it just sucks. And it's a fuel hog too (which is why they made the MAX version). The competing aircraft are all much newer and nicer. The only reason anyone was buying the MAX was 1) because they had already bought into Boeing and the 737 and it's cheaper to just get a 737MAX which doesn't require any pilot retrain…

It’s not just that pilots didn’t need new training, because they were still supposed to have some minimal training on the changes. Pilots can only hold one type certification at a time, and have to retrain to switch between them. Southwest pretty much only flies 737’s and is heavily interested in the MAX because it means they don’t lose the ability for pilots to fly their other aircraft due to retaining the same type…

Pilots can hold more than one type certification, but they have to keep them current. There are many pilots who fly more than one type of aircraft routinely.

Boeing tried so hard to avoid "retraining". Yet the training isn't that expensive. It's about $22,000 for an airline pilot to move from another aircraft to a 737 family aircraft. Takes about a month. And that's like an Airbus to a Boeing switch, not just between similar models. If Boeing threw in a few training credits with each aircraft (each costs about $100 million) that would have solved the problem.

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#359

Post by inflatableDodo »

nocturnial wrote: post #279
peteretep wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They already have several contracts which states victims can't sue the company Contracts with whom? A member country EU court with a dead passenger could presumably make life very very uncomfortable for senior Boeing management.

I wrote victim and not dead passenger as you falsely implied. The contracts are with the surviving familing members. If you don't consider them as victims then give me another word for it. edit: If you downvote me at least give me a chance to defend why I chose the word victim. The reply gizmo is there.

Why would an aircraft manufacturer have contracts with the families of victims of an air crash?

Re: Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review

#360

Post by oreo83 »

Causality1 wrote: post #300
retSava wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MCAS will likely be fixed in a way that makes it reliable and dependable. Boeing wouldn't dare anything else since there are a lot of eyes on them and how they handle this now. What worries me is not the MCAS (now), but what else might be lurking under the surface that Boeing pretends is not a problem. I don't feel confident that Boeing would accept the cost of grounding the fleet the next time something serious-…

MCAS relied on a single AoA sensor for a plane that holds 300 people. Military cargo planes a tenth the capacity have three of them. Boeing's design philosophy is terrifying.

This is completely false.
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