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Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

wsj.com

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Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#481

Post by sitharus »

izacus wrote: post #399
sitharus wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

yep, that's the most important thing about his operation of Boeing.

Both the 707 and 747 were "bet the company" projects, in particular the 747 pushed Boeing to the brink of bankruptcy. However both were major successes because they took a gamble on the future of the aviation industry.

In these days of "fiduciary responsibility" it's difficult to imagine any public company taking that kind of risk. Risk is what should make returns.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#482

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bunderbunder wrote: post #450
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We couldn’t even handle a closed source experiment on earth (see biosphere 2), why would one on another celestial body fare any better? Because (1) the project would be designed seriously and (2) you don't need a completely closed loop. Just one that's mostly closed.

I'd argue that you need a loop that's capable of operating without Earth support for a significant length of time - vastly beyond what they managed with Biosphere 2 - for margin of safety reasons. Possibly also with a very different, scaled down design - maybe not growing all their own food, for example - because 13,000 square meters is maybe a bit much for a first off-planet base. And the best place to start working…

> need a loop that's capable of operating without Earth support for a significant length of time

Agree. A moon base lets us test this out with real-world constraints as opposed to simulants.

We don’t know how to build ecological closed loops. But every failure mode of Biosphere 2’s was almost trivially solvable with expendable components. (The CO2 cascade being the simplest among them.)

> idea that the best place to get started on working out how to do these sorts of things is on the moon

It’s not. It’s the best next step. We’re doing a lot of pre-colonisation lab work already. And we will need to do more before establishing a moon base. The moon base is the interim goal—you don’t put astronauts in swimming pools without a plan for a Shuttle. And Biosphere 2 is a terrible swimming pool for anything we’d do on the Moon or Mars.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#483

Post by bluGill »

WalterBright wrote: post #468
reeredfdfdf wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly it's about engine tech. A 777/787 or whatever can fit almost as many passengers as a 747, but has only two engines, burning less fuel and requiring less maintenance. Back when 747 was designed engine tech wasn't there yet to build really big two engine airplanes. There was also the issue of ETOPS limits. The regulations on how far away from nearest airport you can fly with two-engine aircraft were stricter tha…

Modern wings made a huge difference. Take a close look at a modern wing vs a 747 wing.

Modern wings could be retrofitted to the 747. Maybe not completely, but the more important features. However there are a lot of other parts of the 747 that don't make sense, and so not enough buyers (if any!) would exist if they did.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#484

Post by spuwho »

jacquesm wrote: post #31

This will be Boeings answer to the Bombardier C Series, aka the Airbus A220 series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220 , which is one of the nicest planes for short haul in service at the moment. Edit: indeed, not the 'Neo', I got the name wrong but the link right.

The timing may be right. The A220 is suffering from lousy engines from their supplier. Lots of engine turnover, lots of maintenance needed. Delta just made a huge commit to the A220 made in Mobile to replace their 717 fleet.

Lets hope Boeing can do it right this time.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#485

Post by bee_rider »

amelius wrote: post #478
bee_rider wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But parking signs are not proofs.

That doesn't absolve you from being at least logically correct.

I think denying the antecedent (that’s what this is, right?) is a well known fallacy precisely because it is often the intended implication in typical speech.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#486

Post by sbierwagen »

hinkley wrote: post #51
nostrademons wrote: post #21

It'll be interesting to see if they still can design and build a new ground-up airplane design. The last all-new design was the 787, initiated in 2003 and launched in 2009, and its design was fraught with problems. Before then was the 777 in the early 90s (pre-McDonnell takeover), and the 757/767 in the early 80s. There's a phenomena that ofter occurs with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybod…

I worked on the 787 but far from the engineering team. Boeing vowed to never build a plane like that again. They gave the wing design away to Mitsubishi for fucks sake. You never do that. They were neck deep in the McDonnell Douglas metastasis at the time, and doing an impression of Captain Ahab in trying to union bust in Seattle by fucking off to South Carolina. Boeing customers would figure out which plane numbers…

Same thing down on the production floor. Each program (737, 767, etc) has its own part number series. I'm sure there has to be some parts commonality, somewhere, with the same part getting two different numbers printed on it at the factory, but I saw no hint of it happening.

Fun fact: the two big Puget Sound factories (Everett and Renton) number their hand tools differently. It's true. A socket wrench will be EVT12345 or whatever, and the same tool in Renton will be inventoried differently.

The two factories have very different cultures. Renton does two planes a week, Everett does one plane a month. There was much grumbling during the webinars and retrainings after the Door Plug Incident that all this was being inflicted on us because of the cowboys down in Renton and their maniacal obsession with production rate, something which is not quite so much a focus at Everett.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#487

Post by Gravityloss »

positron26 wrote: post #420
Gravityloss wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is there room for innovation in the airliner industry anymore? Let's have a thought experiment If you use the same engines from the same vendors, same aluminum, same carbon fiber, same landing gear. Almost everything just like the others, can you really differentiate anymore? Or if you are a component vendor, can you really innovate that much anymore? Ie maybe it can be argued it is the correct move, from the boa…

> has been since the nineties There's still not a lot of ceramic fiber in use in the engines. That's a pure weight reduction and fuel efficiency increase, up to the point that NOx emissions can't be controlled. Given the rapidly advancing VTOL autonomous drone tech, harbor tug concepts may yet make an appearance. The funding for this could be driven from rescue aircraft, short range powerful VTOLs optimized to go plu…

Good ideas. Boeing will probably not be involved much in those things? (Though I could be wrong...)

Probably innovative motivated people go to work in software, SpaceX, EVTOL startups or now AI and so on. Even Walter Bright moved already decades ago to software.

But it's interesting to look at Arianespace's VTOL rocket development. Can a "dinosaur" do rapid innovation, when there's massive enough incentive? The answer looks like, maybe!

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#488

Post by rescbr »

spogbiper wrote: post #218
TylerE wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn’t really true. Air stairs are still very common in much of Europe and Asia. It’s only places like the US and the Middle East that jet bridges are ubiquitous.

also common in south america in my experience

Which is absolutely not a problem on the A320. I have boarded plenty of narrow-body Airbuses using the stairs.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#489

Post by WalterBright »

bluGill wrote: post #483
WalterBright wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern wings made a huge difference. Take a close look at a modern wing vs a 747 wing.

Modern wings could be retrofitted to the 747. Maybe not completely, but the more important features. However there are a lot of other parts of the 747 that don't make sense, and so not enough buyers (if any!) would exist if they did.

The 757 started out as a re-winged and re-engined 737. It turned out to be cheaper to design a new airplane.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#490

Post by bunderbunder »

nothercastle wrote: post #303
stickfigure wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? Why do we need to colonize the moon with squishy meatbags with billions of years of evolutionary optimization for life on Earth? All these dreams of star-trek like interstellar travel (or even interplanetary travel beyond taking a selfie and going home) require major advances in the physics tech tree. Might come, might not.

A lot of manufacturing processes are easier without an atmosphere. Also low gravity makes it easy to launch completed product out to space for future space missions

Unless the raw materials are also on the moon, putting the manufacturing equipment on the lunar surface instead of in low Earth orbit might actually make sending it further out more expensive, not less. Because of the Oberth effect.
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