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Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

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Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#71

Post by rsynnott »

closewith wrote: post #55
dahcryn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's by design, Ryanair never buys from the factory AFAIK. They buy secondhand, they are basically scalpers of the second hand market, always on the lookout for a good deal. That mitigates the risk of buying untested tech with first-iteration demons

That's the complete opposite of reality. Ryanair only buy new from Boeing (often being the largest customer - the MAX 8 200 being designed specifically for their needs) and have the youngest fleet of any major.

Yeah, this used to be Ryanair's thing, and they had a motley collection of weird old 737s, but they're very much all new these days.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#72

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

Gareth321 wrote: post #18
speedgoose wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, mostly based on Kerbal Space Program, the aircraft isn’t well balanced when equiped with modern engines. So you have to constantly apply some controls to fly, done by software. I love stupid car comparisons so imagine a car with a new engine that is more economical to run, but very heavy on the left so the car constantly want to turn left. But if you apply force to the steering wheel manually o…

The main issue arose because Boeing wanted to install larger, more fuel-efficient CFM LEAP-1B engines without changing the aircraft’s landing gear height too much (which would have required expensive redesigns of the fuselage and systems, triggering a new certification process). On earlier 737s, engines were already mounted quite far forward under the wing because of the aircraft’s low stance. The larger MAX engines…

> MCAS automatically trims the horizontal stabilizer nose-down if it detects a high angle of attack

I remember when I first heard about the MCAS issue and thought "Why didn't the pilots just pull up?" and someone explained to me that MCAS worked by trimming, and it would trim nose-down so hard that even with full elevation to try to nose back up, it wasn't enough to overcome the extreme amount of nose-down from the trim.

And since pilots weren't trained on the new MCAS system, they weren't aware that the trim would have been automatically moved.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#73

Post by kayfox »

wahern wrote: post #46
alexey-salmin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds odd, they're able to certify the crazy MCAS but not a simple anti-ice switch? I know that it's a complete nightmare to certify anything. However I apparently don't understand some underlying principle that allows to certify some things and not the others.

The constraint here (entirely self-imposed by Boeing's sales strategy) is that the newer models have to basically behave like the older models to avoid needing a new type certification. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_type_certificate ) The aircraft behavior, and pilot procedures and training have to be substantially similar. That was the whole point of MCAS, to make the plane fly as-if it were an old…

> That was the whole point of MCAS, to make the plane fly as-if it were an older model, despite the significantly different aerodynamics.

MCAS was implemented to make sure the control forces increase going into a stall, this is a requirement in the regulations. Without MCAS the control forces would drop on the way into a stall, which is an issue that would prevent certification of the aircraft.

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#74

Post by Frieren »

Gravityloss wrote: post #44
Pavilion2095 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The interesting thing for me about this particular tale is the commercial genesis of Airbus and the incentives of the management team have led it to catch up despite Boeing have a 20-year head start. But Boeing introduced several new planes during these 20 years. If anything, they abandoned the idea of a new design and introduced 737 MAX as a response to the competition - A320neo.

I guess that's also a natural evolution of many industries and societies, which has happened many times. First you have rapid iteration and lots of innovation. Then the projects become more complex, there's less quick wins, and cycles get longer. Then it gets so bad you won't have anyone working anymore who has finished any new projects during their career, everybody's been working on the same decades long projects s…

> Then the projects become more complex, there's less quick wins, and cycles get longer.

The problem with Boeing is mostly a business side one, not an engineering problem. Boeing invested in buy backs instead of creating good products, and that has been its philosophy for a while.

Interesting read: https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merg...

"Since the start of the jet age, Boeing had been less a business and more, as writer Jerry Useem put it in Fortune in 2000, “an association of engineers devoted to building amazing flying machines.”

"Everything seemed to be changing—the leadership, the culture, even the headquarters, with a move from Seattle to Chicago in 2001."

"Many employees struggled to adjust, or resented what they saw as a changing of the guard, where investors took priority over passengers."

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#75

Post by closewith »

rsynnott wrote: post #71
closewith wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the complete opposite of reality. Ryanair only buy new from Boeing (often being the largest customer - the MAX 8 200 being designed specifically for their needs) and have the youngest fleet of any major.

Yeah, this used to be Ryanair's thing, and they had a motley collection of weird old 737s, but they're very much all new these days.

Even that's not true. Following a meeting with Herb Kelleher, when then-CFO O'Leary became CEO in January 1994, the airline ordered its first Boeing 737s direct from Boeing and has never flown a second-hand aircraft since (unless you include the Airbus A320s from the Lauda acquisition).

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#76

Post by [deleted] »

kayfox wrote: post #73
wahern wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constraint here (entirely self-imposed by Boeing's sales strategy) is that the newer models have to basically behave like the older models to avoid needing a new type certification. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_type_certificate ) The aircraft behavior, and pilot procedures and training have to be substantially similar. That was the whole point of MCAS, to make the plane fly as-if it were an old…

> That was the whole point of MCAS, to make the plane fly as-if it were an older model, despite the significantly different aerodynamics. MCAS was implemented to make sure the control forces increase going into a stall, this is a requirement in the regulations. Without MCAS the control forces would drop on the way into a stall, which is an issue that would prevent certification of the aircraft.

[deleted]

Re: Airbus A320 Poised to Overtake Boeing 737 as Most-Delivered Commercial Airliner

#77

Post by Gravityloss »

Frieren wrote: post #74
Gravityloss wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's also a natural evolution of many industries and societies, which has happened many times. First you have rapid iteration and lots of innovation. Then the projects become more complex, there's less quick wins, and cycles get longer. Then it gets so bad you won't have anyone working anymore who has finished any new projects during their career, everybody's been working on the same decades long projects s…

> Then the projects become more complex, there's less quick wins, and cycles get longer. The problem with Boeing is mostly a business side one, not an engineering problem. Boeing invested in buy backs instead of creating good products, and that has been its philosophy for a while. Interesting read: https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merg... "Since the start of the jet age, Boeing had been less a…

Yes, I agree. But the whole business area has also changed and matured. B737 is 56 years old, but A320 is 38 years so not very new anymore. Certification takes very long nowadays, for any company. So the financialization might not have happened in a vacuum or because of some villain, but motivated by the situation that there was less money to be made with engineering anymore.
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