Bruh
FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
71–80 of 121 posts
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This isn't unique to just aviation btw but most industries Most of us work in tech. Imagine an auditor coming in and trying to sort out if one of the most complex systems at your company is "safe." What's safe? Every previously known failure mode and every new one you're going to be blamed for when it happens.
That's literally the security industry and third party security assessments are routine in tech.
Having been in both in software/IT capacities, having done PCI certified software, medical device software (requiring FDA approval), no. Not even close.
MAYBE, MAYBE the insurance company assessments/audits are kind of related to what you are talking about. But not really. But not the FAA ones. They are such a different beast with so much brain power involved along with people with a combined centuries of experience in this stuff, it's hard to explain without being around it.
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#73Headline and article misleading
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash and FAA's lapse, so my memory is a bit foggy.) The short answer is that unfortunately it's practically almost impossible to do this any other way, short of massively increasing funding for the FAA (which is presumably politically not going to be done.) The lo…
>You end up with the engineers at Boeing et al, and the regulatory folk at FAA etc. Incorrect. The engineers acting as FAA delegates are paid by Boeing , not the FAA. Toxic incentive. Stop shining that apple Leroy, plane needs to get shipped, and bossman is getting testy. As far as your arguments on the information propagation front go, MCAS was deliberately designed against industry best practices and perception man…
I'm afraid you're mostly preaching to the choir. My comment was to show how the real world issues develop ("How can the FAA trust Boeing to self audit after all that?!?" - because there's no other true option without major org changes) and how it's more complex than what meets the eye, not trying to justify status quo. I'm a very much pro safety guy who wants to do much more for aviation safety than just spread awareness on HN.
Btw for context, back in the 90s, a senior FAA official (I think a Director) had said something along the lines of “The FAA does not and cannot check everything, we just see that companies are doing their tests.”
> >You end up with the engineers at Boeing et al, and the regulatory folk at FAA etc.
> Incorrect. The engineers acting as FAA delegates are paid by Boeing, not the FAA. Toxic incentive. Stop shining that apple Leroy, plane needs to get shipped, and bossman is getting testy.
I wasn't talking about who gets paid by whom. I meant whether the FAA is putting out openings for regulatory/engineering people, and what kind of people Boeing is hiring.
> MCAS was deliberately designed against industry best practices and perception managed from regulators to do everything possible to avoid simulator training. Stop assuming good faith.
I never said Boeing was in good faith. My report (based off the excellent NTSB/DOT report significantly, if anyone wants to delve in depth) was pretty much about that.
> I will not buy that delegating to the company is fine. The only people who benefit from that are the companies. I don't give a damn about the convenience to someone incentivized to go and industrially produce the least safe air transport product they can get away with. I care about the public's safety given I already know the market selects for incentive setters that flirt with risk in dangerous ways. And yes, that means we, the public, should damn well pay for that regulatory edifice. Especially if the rest of the world will treat FAA certification with reciprocity.
I fully agree. Got a better solution/alternative in mind that's feasible?
(Disclaimer, I'm not from the US if that is of any importance.)
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#75We are doomed. Today's Boeing simply cannot be trusted.
Make the smart choice, fly Airbus.
Do the Europeans still allow their aerospace companies to bribe/kickback to win contracts? I know that was allowed a decade ago.
I know multiple nations fleets (not at the airbus/boeing level) were chosen based on kickbacks. I know we were the originally winning bid, but that it was not extended to us because we wouldn't do kickbacks (they are illegal for US companies but at the time not for Europeans). Personally I'd rather the fly on the best aircraft not the one that inflated the price a half million per plane and sent those extra millions back to the government officials the picked the airframe.
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This isn't unique to just aviation btw but most industries Most of us work in tech. Imagine an auditor coming in and trying to sort out if one of the most complex systems at your company is "safe." What's safe? Every previously known failure mode and every new one you're going to be blamed for when it happens.
That's literally the security industry and third party security assessments are routine in tech.
Yeah, but security industry is mostly a joke full of fraudsters. There are parts of it that work well, but most of it is theater and not that much competence.
Which is fine for low states they deal with and not fine with planes.
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#77If you're wondering - hey, that sounds terrible, why doesn't the FAA do anything about it? Answer, because it practically can't without maybe a 10x or more budget boost that's practically impossible. Why? Copying from another comment I made on this thread: (Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash an…
> If you're wondering - hey, that sounds terrible, why doesn't the FAA do anything about it? Answer, because it practically can't without maybe a 10x or more budget boost that's practically impossible. You're correct in that the FAA can't (or at least, it would be wildly impractical) have a staff of in-house experts that equal or exceed the experience of the manufacturer engineers on every possible topic. But, that's…
> It can be done by enforcing that the company must establish and document the processes to ensure quality
You have no ideea.
It's sooo extremely easy to fake everything! I'm working with ISO15189 right now. I could just fill paperwork saying I did things that I didn't really do. Nobody could tell the difference. Sometimes there's an audit. It's announced months in advance and they only just look at the paperwork. I'm the only one here that knows the analysers have trace logs and how do get/print them. Some of those logs are just CSV text files. I could fake those too.
According to ISO, the company should do an audit every year. Last one was 3 years ago, but I'm certain that someone wrote down every year that they did it.
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#78If you're wondering - hey, that sounds terrible, why doesn't the FAA do anything about it? Answer, because it practically can't without maybe a 10x or more budget boost that's practically impossible. Why? Copying from another comment I made on this thread: (Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash an…
> This isn't unique to just aviation btw but most industries Most of us work in tech. Imagine an auditor coming in and trying to sort out if one of the most complex systems at your company is "safe." What's safe? Every previously known failure mode and every new one you're going to be blamed for when it happens.
I thought FDA regulated device software certification was hard, PCI certification just annoying. FAA certification is on another level from those.
There's so many moving parts to aircraft certification honestly I was surprised when a new design would get type design certification. Which is why Boeing tries to do things like shoehorn in a new airplane under an older airplane type design (MAX) so they don't have to get a whole new type design approved.
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#79If you're wondering - hey, that sounds terrible, why doesn't the FAA do anything about it? Answer, because it practically can't without maybe a 10x or more budget boost that's practically impossible. Why? Copying from another comment I made on this thread: (Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash an…
So Boeing can do something the US government can't do? I don't buy that argument.
Re: FAA is granting Boeing “limited delegation” to certify airworthiness
#80If you're wondering - hey, that sounds terrible, why doesn't the FAA do anything about it? Answer, because it practically can't without maybe a 10x or more budget boost that's practically impossible. Why? Copying from another comment I made on this thread: (Caution, my thoughts are a bit rambly and scattered. It's been a while since I studied this in detail for a class where I had deep divided into the max 8 crash an…
The MCAS system is probably not the best example here because it doesn’t take expert knowledge on MCAS to catch lack of redundancy and poor documentation in the design of a system so critical. This one of the reasons patterns, processes and standards exist. I did this for a living and consulted for many companies in processes my team had no domain experience with, still we were able to catch process gaps. MCAS IMO was a flaw easy to flag for any competent auditor.