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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

#71

Post by tracker1 »

rkomorn wrote: post #61
mrweasel wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the MAX really using a 286 CPU? Why would they pick that for a plane launched in 2014. I get that it's based on the 737 Next Gen, but they just opted to not update the electronics?

The more you change, the more you need to recertify, the more it costs, the more time it takes, the less your shareholders profit.

Would probably add that it likely has reliable real-time constraints as part of this. While I can imagine simpler ARM and RISC-V chips having similar properties, depending on the application it would likely be hard to certify any modern CPU design for a lot of medical or aerospace applications.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#72

Post by jeffhwang »

imoverclocked wrote: post #59
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…

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…

> Also, passengers are probably going to start waking up to the realities of just how bad the air-travel experience in the US has become compared to so many foreign counterparts. If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines.

I hope this is true. However, my sense is that the value chain is so elongated from aircraft designer/engineer/marketing/sales to the end customer (retail airline passengers) that those important signals are lost. Not to mention the financial incentives on the part of US domestic airlines to keep making the flight experience worse for end customers.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#73

Post by reactordev »

intrasight wrote: post #64
imoverclocked wrote: post #59

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…

They will use a very small team and will mostly let AI design the plane ;)

Can’t wait to fly in the 737-AI.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#74

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Gee101 wrote: post #53
lisper wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets It's not just building a product end-to-end. Tim Cook is a supply-chain guy. He knows how to build a product. What he doesn't know how is how to design a new one. This is the reason that all of the "new" stuff that has com…

What about the Apple watch?

The Apple Watch seems to have suddenly found its pace.

I am seeing them everywhere, around here.

I suspect that quite a few are SEs and maybe last year's model, but I do see a lot of Ultras.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#75

Post by eastbound »

lisper wrote: post #47
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…

> with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets It's not just building a product end-to-end. Tim Cook is a supply-chain guy. He knows how to build a product. What he doesn't know how is how to design a new one. This is the reason that all of the "new" stuff that has com…

There’s a beautiful conference (which I’ve lost) saying that science and technology can regress. We always talk about “the progress” but things do regress all the time; Tests I’ve cleared for employment can’t be passed by newcomers, the NASA wouldn’t be able to put a rocket on the moon today, and there is no downloadable Jira competitor anymore.

In fact the speed of innovation is, pretty much, equal to the speed of maintenance. Nothing gets maintained, it’s either new or collapsing, but no-one enjoys the middle part. Which is sad. It’s a form of inflation.

Boeing is perfectly right to design a new plane right now. Engineers who interned on the 787 have bought a house on the countryside a few years ago.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#76

Post by ghaff »

Gee101 wrote: post #53
lisper wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets It's not just building a product end-to-end. Tim Cook is a supply-chain guy. He knows how to build a product. What he doesn't know how is how to design a new one. This is the reason that all of the "new" stuff that has com…

What about the Apple watch?

When we heard young people don't wear watches any longer at the time. And certainly many people didn't think yet another bluetooth earphones were anything to get excited about.

AR does seem to be a potential big deal. But the tech and implementation probably has a ways to go before it's interesting outside of a bubble audience.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#77

Post by mrweasel »

rkomorn wrote: post #61
mrweasel wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the MAX really using a 286 CPU? Why would they pick that for a plane launched in 2014. I get that it's based on the 737 Next Gen, but they just opted to not update the electronics?

The more you change, the more you need to recertify, the more it costs, the more time it takes, the less your shareholders profit.

Make you wonder how long management figured they can keep using ancient technology, just to avoid updating certifications.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#78

Post by clickety_clack »

jeffhwang wrote: post #72
imoverclocked wrote: post #59

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…

> Also, passengers are probably going to start waking up to the realities of just how bad the air-travel experience in the US has become compared to so many foreign counterparts. If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines. I hope this is true. However, my sense is that the value chain is so elongated from aircraft designer/engineer/marketing/sales t…

Maybe you want a small team of big people.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#79

Post by ghaff »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #74
Gee101 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the Apple watch?

The Apple Watch seems to have suddenly found its pace. I am seeing them everywhere , around here. I suspect that quite a few are SEs and maybe last year's model, but I do see a lot of Ultras.

Battery does seem to be a limiting factor and I don't wear mine unless I'm doing activities where it's especially useful. But, for a lot of people, something else to charge doesn't seem a big impediment.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#80

Post by hinkley »

procaryote wrote: post #63
hinkley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Has a degree that’s basically informatics management. My coworker took a class with case studies and the theory presented by that class was that all successful projects have at least one person who has fit the entire system into their head. They can tell you what happens if you pull on this thread. What the consequences are of trying to remove this feature. Lose them and you are fucke…

For software, the easiest way to design for this is to keep systems small enough that fitting it in your head is relatively feasible in a reasonable time for a competent engineer. Connect them with clear APIs that don't have to change all that often, and you can build pretty big things. I imagine this is doable with hardware too

My yard stick is discoverability. If you don’t touch things for a while they get fuzzy, and someone might have refactored it. So you need to be able to familiarize yourself with bits of the code you haven’t looked at recently. Helps with code reviews, onboarding, and production outages.

In particular it’s difficult to train new people to take up on-call duties if they cannot sit in the corner of the room and try either the same things you’re trying or their own pet theories without taking your attention or interfering with your tests. They need to be able to hear the repro steps and spool up their own snapshot in a similar state. That scales. Gatekeepers do not. Discoverability is necessary but insufficient to achieve this. There’s more to it but the foundation is discoverability and reproduceability.

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