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Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

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Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#391
post #384

Boeing today is so obviously a different organisation to the one that built their rapidly dwindling reputation. The 747 was an amazing engineering marvel. They started designing it in '65, the first one rolled off the production line in '68, and they were still making and selling them right up to 2023. I have a book here somewhere that talks about how so many of the design decisions were based on cold hard physics fa…

> I have a book here somewhere You can't just say that, mention a bunch of interesting things, and not tell me the name of the book...

Am not OP, but wondering if the book being referred to is '747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet' by Joe Sutter.

Sutter was one of the people who led the design of 747.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you see a future for humanity where the moon isn’t colonised?

What's the future for humanity if the moon is colonized? What does the moon provide us that the Earth does not? One interesting (admittedly small in scope, but huge in impact) thought experiment is the following- let's say that the doomsayers are correct. The Earth has been destroyed and inhabitable, leaving just our extra-planetary outposts. How do we supply the necessary high-tech manufacturing capability to surviv…

Well, we'll never achieve anything if we don't try. But I think as terra starts to become inhospitable the required urgency will arrive. Hopefully after I'm gone, though.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#393
post #146

Might be easier for them to try and license and produce the A320 under their own name.

Airbus's suppliers already have a hard time keeping up with airbus right now. Why would they add a concurrent that depends on the exact same supply chain, when they have taken delivery engagements for the next decade.

Unless the price is truly astronomical ,but then it's not worth it for Boeing anyway.

And that's before touching reputational damage that come from building your concurrent's plane because you couldn't design your own.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#394
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description Try to understand that there is no individual ownership over turns of phrase, and that they tend to shift around over time. Bugs Bunny turned Nimrod from a byword for a competent hunter into an insult. This is natural and all of your favorite words have or will be subject to it as long as there are humans to communicate with them.

Ooooh that's why nimrod is an insult! Now it makes sense! Thank you! Btw, let me add my personal pet peeve: "egregiously" somehow went from meaning "very good" to mean "very bad" in American English. In my native language "egregiamente" still has the original meaning so I was confused for a long time.

Dictionaries - at least the ones I checked - mark the "very good" meaning of "egregious" as archaic. I'm only aware of the "very bad" meaning (in UK English), and was quite surprised, when studying maths, to learn of Gauss's "Theorema Egregium", and that the word could have positive connations.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any faction is on Mars during WW3, there’s a nuke landing there 6 months after the show is over here.

Only if WW3 happens during a transfer window.

True, the flight duration will vary depending on conditions. :)

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#397
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a dinner with a team of Airbus folks we were working with at a previous job, they talked about how difficult it was getting to source CPUs for the A320 after 30 years. It's definitely a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" thing, but I ask myself a similar question: at some point whoever is producing these chips is going to stop finding it worthwhile and end production, no? But then I also assume the people who work o…

They do :) And if the companies who produce these chips continue to make a healthy profit, why would they stop?

But no one is producing 286 chips anymore, that's part of the problem Boing has. The chips fail, because they are used and old. Or is someone besides Intel making them?

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#398
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this & the Jobs interview - an oil industry proverb: a healthy oil company has a geologist in charge, a mature one has an engineer in charge, a declining one has an accountant in charge, and a dying one has a lawyer in charge.

A bit ironic though because the CEO of Boing during their best years was William McPherson Allen, a lawyer.

> A bit ironic though because the CEO of Boing during their best years was William McPherson Allen, a lawyer.

Just as there are good engineers, there are also bad ones. Same for every profession.

I guess the question is: can Boeing really design a new plane where cost cutting, regulation interpretation and skirting, and greed are _not_ the driving factors?

It feels like what Boeing is saving from all the nickel-and-dime it does on everything it ends up paying lawyers, fines and damages. I wonder how they manage to see this as good business. Or maybe they hope that "the next" time they'll score big without any penalties?

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit ironic though because the CEO of Boing during their best years was William McPherson Allen, a lawyer.

He initially turned down the job because he felt that a lawyer wasn't the right person to run an engineering company, and from reports of people who worked with him he knew his knowledge limits and listened to the engineers. He took serious risks with the 707 and 747 projects because he trusted the people who understood the technology. MBAs and final-gasp lawyers concentrate on making the reported number go up in the…

Hmm, you now highlighted an interesting thing - every company (I've seen) being run to the ground by MBAs and Lawyers was done so because they outright refused to trust their employees. The usual playbook is severance of any transparency and communication and implementation of more and more paperwork and oversight over their employees with no nuance. In other words - complete lack of trust into employed specialists being able to do their work.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest tell will be just how over budget the development process becomes. Another issue in large companies trying to build something new is the scope creep which leads to committees and then decision by committee. If the folks leading this effort in Boeing are smart, they will keep the size of the team as small as possible. Maybe they will even hire some people back to lead this effort... assuming they can find…

> If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines. In practice people in general vote with wallets for cheaper sardine-like flights. (though more spacious seats typically can be bought)

So why are business class seats filled if there's plenty of economy space left? Surely all those business men spending 5000$+ for an overseas ticket are voting with their vallets for the 500$ one?

Or maybe the reality isn't as simple as you make it seem?

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