Boeing Officially Stops Making 737 Max Airplanes (cnn.com) 229
Boeing confirmed that it has stopped building 737 Max airplanes in Renton, Washington, as it waits to get permission for the plane to fly again following two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. CNN reports: Boeing will not furlough or lay off workers because of the shutdown, but pain will ripple through its supply chain and could hurt America's economic growth. Boeing would not release a headcount for people who had been working on the plane. The company said the employees will be reassigned to other duties during the shutdown, and there are a number of reasons for that.
The 737 Max has been grounded since March following two fatal crashes that killed all 346 people on board. Although Boeing couldn't deliver the 737 Max planes to customers, the company continued to build the jets, albeit at a slightly reduced pace of 42 a month. It now has about 400 completed jets parked in Washington and Texas, waiting to be delivered to airlines around the world. The company hoped that the plane would fly again before the end of 2019. But in December Stephen Dickson, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, announced approval would not come until some time in 2020. Shutdown plans were announced a week later.
The 737 Max has been grounded since March following two fatal crashes that killed all 346 people on board. Although Boeing couldn't deliver the 737 Max planes to customers, the company continued to build the jets, albeit at a slightly reduced pace of 42 a month. It now has about 400 completed jets parked in Washington and Texas, waiting to be delivered to airlines around the world. The company hoped that the plane would fly again before the end of 2019. But in December Stephen Dickson, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, announced approval would not come until some time in 2020. Shutdown plans were announced a week later.
Introducing: The New Boeing 73VII Pro and 737 XS (Score:5, Funny)
Introducing: The Newborn BeauHD Fake News Editor! (Score:5, Informative)
Boeing Officially Stops Making 737 Max Airplanes
Get your headline straight, high schooler. The headline is misleading. You could say "pauses production" or "halts production," but "stops making" means to discontinue to Americans.
Re:Introducing: The Newborn BeauHD Fake News Edito (Score:5, Insightful)
What the heck is "tech", and could you please go back to some trendy site like The Verge if that is what you are looking for. This is Sllashdot, News for Nerds. It didn't even originate in S.V. or any of the other "tech" centers. The site started out somewhere in Michigan.
The current definition of "tech" mostly seems to be about gadgets and flavors of javascript libraries. Please go there and leave us nerds alone.
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Real engineers never joke about their red buttons [youtu.be].
Boeing 737 Super and Boeing 837 RTX (Score:2)
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Boeing 737 Extreme!
Re:Boeing 737 Super and Boeing 837 RTX (Score:5, Funny)
Fall out of the sky and light the ground like a candle
Max Max Baby...The Boeing Max Max Baby.
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Take the plunge today!!!
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You jest, but .....
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajim... [aljazeera.com]
Re:Introducing: The New Boeing 73VII Pro and 737 X (Score:5, Funny)
Right, Boeing could rename the 737 Max, or alternatively rename itself. I suggest Murder Inc.
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Convert Them (Score:5, Funny)
Convert them all into private jets for the CXOs and other higher up assholes at Boeing.
Re:Convert Them (Score:5, Funny)
My favorite quote about the 737 Max, from a Boeing pilot: "this airplane was designed by clowns, who were in turn managed by monkeys".
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My favorite quote about the 737 Max, from a Boeing pilot: "this airplane was designed by clowns, who were in turn managed by monkeys".
Cosplay engineers doesn't scare me at all, but managed by monkeys is potentially problematic.
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Re:Convert Them (Score:5, Insightful)
Under standard safety rules, the single-sensor version fails too often considering its effect on flight operations. Boeing didn't realize how severe those effects were, so they didn't apply safety guidance properly. If they did, the redundant sensor version would have had to be standard. So it's still Boeing's fault.
Re:Convert Them (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a pilot, and I couldn't believe they were so stupid as to rely on a single sensor, knowing that two were available! Both are recorded and available in the aircraft data system, there's no extra lines to connect, it's just software written to look at only one of the two available values. Completely nuts!
Everything in an airplane is normally doubled or tripled. Engine failures are a standard part of certification and training. Multiple segregated hydraulic systems. Many electrical buses with multiple sources of electricity. Multiple pitot probes to sense airspeed. Multiple static ports for the altimeters. Two radio altimeters. Two GPS receivers. EVERYTHING is redundant.
And then you design a system that pushes the nose down uncontrollably based on the value of a single sensor? When you have two of them? That kind of incompetence is simply unheard of in aviation.
Airbus had a similar problem a few years earlier. Their stall protection system actually looked at both AOA probes, but in certain conditions those two probes could ice up simultaneously during climb. They got stuck at a value that is normal at low altitudes but would correspond to a stall at high altitude. So passing a certain altitude, the plane would suddenly pitch down violently and start to dive until pilots could regain control again at a lower altitude. Airbus fixed this with an extra procedure (telling piilots to shut down two air data computers to revert the plane to a more basic flight mode with the stall protection disabled) and a software update that didn't just look at the two probes but also at the pitch, airspeed and IRS values to see if they matched.
And then Boeing comes up with a design that's even worse than the original Airbus design, relying on only one sensor?! Words fail me to describe just how monumentally stupid that is. The people responsible should never be allowed to work in aviation again, not just because their mistake cost so many lives, but because they are obviously completely and utterly incompentent.
Re:Convert Them (Score:5, Insightful)
Words fail me to describe just how monumentally stupid that is. The people responsible should never be allowed to work in aviation again, not just because their mistake cost so many lives, but because they are obviously completely and utterly incompentent.
I am not a pilot, but I do IT risk management. I think you are being far to friendly here. This design is somewhere between criminally negligent homicide and intent. I think >20 years of prison time for anybody that signed off on this and for upper management (because they have leadership responsibility) would be adequate.
Incidentally, this is so far outside of anything that is good safety engineering, the only credible explanation is that management ordered it to be built this way. And we do know that it was hidden from the pilots and put in completely for business reasons and not for technical ones. (To avoid re-training). These cretins cut away at the redundancy and safety of the old design with the unsuitable engines until the whole thing was dangerous. Then they tried to hide the flaws.
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Words fail me to describe just how monumentally stupid that is. The people responsible should never be allowed to work in aviation again, not just because their mistake cost so many lives, but because they are obviously completely and utterly incompentent.
I am not a pilot, but I do IT risk management. I think you are being far to friendly here. This design is somewhere between criminally negligent homicide and intent. I think >20 years of prison time for anybody that signed off on this and for upper management (because they have leadership responsibility) would be adequate.
Incidentally, this is so far outside of anything that is good safety engineering, the only credible explanation is that management ordered it to be built this way. And we do know that it was hidden from the pilots and put in completely for business reasons and not for technical ones. (To avoid re-training). These cretins cut away at the redundancy and safety of the old design with the unsuitable engines until the whole thing was dangerous. Then they tried to hide the flaws.
What happened was the contractors offered to do the work for free and get paid down the line in the form of a premium per aircraft sold. Boeing executives had a greedgasm, the Boeing engineers were told to shut up when they raised questions, ... people died. Yeah, the managers in particular should be locked up.
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You are welcome. The thing that really sets me off is that nobody of those responsible will get more than a slap on the writs, if that.
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You know, there are so many people out there that want to blame pilots (especially brown ones), airlines, experience and even the price paid for software (that functioned precisely as per spec). Here's some quotes for you. You might get interested enough to go find out the whole story. Maybe not.
"Boeing did not tell Southwest Airlines until after the Lion Air crash that it had disabled on the Boeing 737 MAX a light designed to warn pilots an angle of attack sensor could be malfunctioning.
The angle of att
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There was a safety feature to fix this (well, at least explicitly warn of the condition). It was extra cost. Many chose to avoid the safety feature. So I blame the airlines too.
Bullshit. The plane has to be save as delivered. If a feature is optional, it can be convenience, efficiency or something like that. It _cannot_ be safety.
Incidentally, because the MCAS was not in the documentation, none of the customers would have known if it was a safety feature.
Re:Convert Them (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a safety feature to fix this (well, at least explicitly warn of the condition). It was extra cost. Many chose to avoid the safety feature. So I blame the airlines too.
Considering what effects this has had on Boeing's business and reputation I'd think that it's more justifiable to blame Boeing management for trying to cash in on safety features. Selling an aircraft with optional redundant safety sensors is a bit like selling guns with safety levers but chairing extra for making them work and then blaming the customers when they shoot themselves in the foot thinking the firearm is safe. Multiple working safety mechanisms is what you expect these days when you buy a firearm and you should not have to pay extra for them nor should a manufacturer make them optional if he cares about his brand. The same applies to aircraft. Boeing should have handed safety features out like free candy since it only served to protect their brand. It's kind of like shooting the messenger to blame some airlines for failing to notice they have to pay extra for a safety feature from Boeing that comes as standard from everybody else. This stupidity is going to cost Boeing enormous amounts of money. Airlines around the world are losing enormous amounts of money on the 737MAX, not just because of the grounding but also because the resale value of these things just nosedived into the toilet, nobody is going to want to buy these turds and a whole lot of people will avoid flying in them. On top of that this has permanently damaged the engineering reputation of Boeing and it will cost them a lot of sales. This is what happens when you put a bunch of free market fundamentalists in charge of aviation safety and expect the greedy bastards to regulate themselves. Sooner or later they will inevitably piss their entire business down the drain in an effort to earn a few extra bucks by skimping on safety.
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Some dashboard lights are legally required to be physical telltales and won't be rolling into the fancy computer screens any time soon. Airbag, motor, a few others.
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When you buy a car, do you have to pay extra for a brake warning light?
I didn't, and why would any car manufacturer who cares about the reputation of his product charge extra for it anyway?
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"I hate capitalism!" he voice inputted to his iPhone and pressed post, then ate a flawless banana from 8,000 miles away in the middle of winter.
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What about the innocent flight crew?
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Re:Convert Them (Score:4, Interesting)
Convert them into drones, if they can get the computer to fly them long enough to get the out over the Pacific. Then the Air Force and Navy can use them for target practice.
More seriously, can they put the old engines back on them? Then they would have some market value.
Otherwise, it's off to the recycling bin. If they fly (with the current engines) for three years without further accident I might trust them again, but who are you going to get to fly in them for the next three years? It won't be me.
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It has nothing to do with the engines. It's the flight control system software. Which can be fixed relatively easily, but the big worry now is not this particular mistake itself, but HOW that mistake could have been allowed to happen and what other mistakes could be lurking in there that haven't caused crashes yet. It was just such a shockingly egregious error that it boggles the mind how it could have made it through certification, casting doubt on the entire certification process that was used to certify
Re:Convert Them (Score:5, Insightful)
who are you going to get to fly in them for the next three years?
Everyone, so long as the ticket on the 737 MAX is slightly cheaper than the alternative.
What about the existing ones? (Score:2)
Parked in the desert forever?
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Are you calling me a B'zugda-hiara?
I'll cut off your knees!
Re:What about the existing ones? (Score:5, Informative)
Parked in the desert forever?
I swim in these waters and I can tell you that parked aircraft develop more problems than those in service.
Lubricants lose their flavour on the bed post overnight and electronics corrodes due to lack of climate control. Other demons surface as well. Pilots and crew of healthy birds report even minor inconveniences (like an uncomfortable seat, wherein I adjusted lumps to fit their butt crack) and maintenance is ongoing.
Bringing a dead, mothballed plane up to snuff is an expensive, and time-consuming bitch.
Re:What about the existing ones? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fun fact: It's a HUGE business to restore old helicopters (and I imagine planes). It'll cost like, half the price of a new helicopter to restore a 60s era helicopter. But half the price of a new helicopter, is still half the price.
I got to tour one of the plants they do the work in. They tear them completely apart, sandblast them down to the bare metal, fix any cracks and dents, repaint, etc. Likewise they remove and tear apart the turbine engines down to nothing and back. Who would have thought in 1960 "someone is going to be rebuilding this 60 years later for active service." They sell them to news stations, police, fire, EMS, etc.
I mean, people rebuild '53 Chevys right... but those Chevy's aren't flying thousands of feet in the air, and they typically aren't putting thousands of hours on those motors. Imagine being able to certify to someone, this old plane/helicopter is going to be reliable enough _to fly_. I'm sure it all resolves down to a checklist of proper tests, but it's still impressive to think about.
Re:What about the existing ones? (Score:5, Informative)
They're parked in the desert because although the airfames are past their service life, there may be non-structural parts on it which can be used as replacement parts on serviceable aircraft. The low humidity of the desert slows down corrosion.
Re:What about the existing ones? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe you missed a groove there...
The planes Boeing has been making recently have been parked waiting for permission to fly / sell them. Both around Puget Sound and in the desert. News here. [seattletimes.com]
These are not the scrapyards you are looking for.
On the other hand, I'd vote ya up for informative re the load cycling and fatigue on aluminum.
And point back to the previous poster re maintenance on mothballed planes. You'd think that if they were paying 2k/month to park them, they'd spring for an extra couple hundred for cabin conditioning, "maintenance fluids" to replace lubricants which can go bad while sitting, etc. But maybe that "extra couple of hundred" is ... a lowball figure.
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These are not the scrapyards you are looking for.
They can easily be converted to that purpose.
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There is nothing inherently wrong with the aircraft.
The pilots just need to be trained on how to fly them.
The accidents were caused by trying to replace a hundred hours of training with some software and a $5 sensor.
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$5? AoA sensors typically cost hundreds of dollars [dynonavionics.com] (yes, that one works on a different principle to the one on the 737 MAX, but I couldn't get a price on the kind uses in the 737 MAX with a quick search).
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I couldn't get a price on the kind uses in the 737 MAX with a quick search
Given that about 20 years ago I saw a maintenance ticket on an instrument panel clock on a 757 that listed the replacement cost to the major airline I fly for as $5,000 (yes, a clock), I'm going to go out on a limb and say an AOA vane for a 737 is a bit more than a few hundred dollars. The display units on the instrument panel (very high-quality ~8 in x 8 in LCDs that display flight instrumentation, navigation, and engine data; on the 737 NG there are 6 of these, on the Max there are 4, but those 4 are much
Re: What about the existing ones? (Score:2)
Do you happen to know if thereâ(TM)s any reasonable justification for these high prices? You allude to one when you say the LCDs are very high quality, but Iâ(TM)m not sure what that means in practice, nor can I see how it would drive 100k+ of real costs.
What does it *do* that an airplane requires, and that a $1k screen made by a laptop manufacturer cannot do? Similarly with the AoA sensor â" what does it do that an accelerometer in a phone doesnâ(TM)t?
I have this sneaking suspicion that
Re: What about the existing ones? (Score:5, Informative)
An AoA sensor isn't an a accelerometer. It measures the angle of the incident airflow. It has to do this over a wide range of speeds, in rain, hail, condensation, and icing conditions. There are a few types. Combat aircraft often use flush pressure sensors for aerodynamics and to minimise radar cross section. Airliners tend to use a pivoting vane with an angular position sensor (this is what the 737 MAX uses), which are the most accurate at anything but very low airspeeds. Light aircraft often use cheaper pitot type sensors like the ones I linked, which aren't as accurate, and may not be suitable for use in icing conditions (note that the heat option doubled the price).
Re:What about the existing ones? (Score:4, Informative)
There is nothing inherently wrong with the aircraft.
Been living under a rock? The airframe is inherently unstable in stall due to the insane engine placement, which is in turn due to the insanely inadequate landing gear, which is in turn due to Boeing's criminal negligence in refusing to improve the basic air frame, to save money and bring products out faster, in a desperate attempt to constrict the A320 Neo's market share.
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Re:What about the existing ones? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is less stable at high AoA in bank, but stable nonetheless.
That is cynical revisionist bullshit from someone with skin in the game (you). The additional, unwanted lift caused by the awkward placement of the inconveniently large high bypass engines on a long lever arm well forward of the center of lift make the 737 Max dynamically unstable near stall, not at all unusual at takeoff with the plane near full load and perhaps non-ideal weather conditions. Go ahead, try to define that as not "operational envelope". We already know what you are.
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The spirit of what you're saying is right, and the plane is awkward. Boeing messed up. The sad thing is that they could have still sold this kit-bash of a jet and it probably would have flown safely with properly trained pilots, but Boeing cut corners on top of cut corners, and now hundreds of people are dead.
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This does not even touch the problem Boeing and the FAA created, nobody trusts them any more. So what if the FAA allows them to fly, why would other countries trust that. How about Boeing lobbying to self regulate and self inspect, who will accept that. Boeing has done real damage to it's repuation and the FAA has allowed Boeing to do real damage to the FAAs reputation. Why believe either of them any more. Heads have to role at both organisations in order to rebuild their reputations but that stopped happen
Re:What about the existing ones? (Score:5, Informative)
What an ass, implying that the pilots who died were not properly trained.
That's not being an ass, that is flat out one of the primary discoveries of the investigations. The pilots were NOT properly trained on this aircraft. Not for the use of an MCAS, its affects or how to disable it, and not (and somehow you missed this) for a mythical 737 MAX sans MCAS which the GP was talking about.
That's not a mark on the pilots and the GP wasn't an ass about it. It was a mark on Boeing who specifically prevented airlines from training their pilots as the discovery documents recently revealed.
Speaking of asses, maybe get your head out of yours.
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Your aggressively promoted opinion is at odds with people who actually know what they're talking about. Even Boeing does not argue that, without MCAS, the 737 Max is inherently unstable. And with MCAS it is murderous. Just bulldoze the entire fleet and do-over.
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without MCAS, the 737 Max is inherently unstable
This does, however, go to show how little you personally understand about aerodynamics or aviation engineering. There hasn't been a transport category aircraft designed in the last 60 or 70 years that hasn't had some kind of intervention between the pilot and the actual control surfaces to artificially make it stable throughout its planned envelope. MCAS is inherently no different from a yaw damper.
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Tending to make a shallow stall deeper is a big deal for any plane, loudmouth.
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I notice that not a single technical word has been posted by you, only rhetoric. You must be great fun at parties.
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There is nothing inherently wrong with the aircraft.
There is one thing [seattletimes.com] - Boeing removed the ability to disable automatic trim controls without turning off the entire electronic trim system, and the mechanical backup is physically too hard to turn in many situations.
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The pilots just need to be trained on how to fly them.
Unfortunately, there is a shortage of 737 MAX simulators to train on:
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
Maybe b Boeing could convert some of those stockpiled 737 Maxen to simulators . . . ?
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Something useful, like beer cans.
Next to the VW's (Score:2)
Up Next: the Boeing 737 SuperMax? (Score:3)
The 737 SuperMax: only one-way flights, no escape.
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You may be on to something. It only costs about $40/hour to fly on a long haul flight, a costs about $12/hour to keep a prisoner in super-max. Its not all that far off, and its pretty difficult to escape at 35,000'
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Elon Musk buys up the entire fleet (Score:2)
and repurposes them as tunnel parts for his Boring Company.
Jet propelled trains are the future of transportation.
And junk the 737 forever (Score:2)
Drop the other shoe. Time to do some honest work and design a modern airframe. Come on you can do it, you lazy slimey crooks.
Re: And junk the 737 forever (Score:2)
They cant do that. It would ruin Southwest's business model
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They do not have any good engineers left. Hence they are stuck with the old design and messy fixes to it.
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Go Fuck Yourself. (Score:2)
pain will ripple through its supply chain and could hurt America's economic growth.
"Damn you kids wanting us to pay for safe software and not CEO bailouts, now you went and hurt the economy."
Good thing because nobody is going to fly in one (Score:2)
Re:Good thing because nobody is going to fly in on (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nobody stopped flying 737s, and very few people know about what the different models are.
Media will be full of people whining loudly for a few days or weeks depending on what else is happening in the world, and airlines will sell exactly the same number of tickets as otherwise.
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this is true..
The airline industry has become all about price and load factors. Few folks will care what aircraft they are booked on any more than they do now. Those who do care, will only really care until the news cycle is over, say a couple of weeks... Assuming they don't crack another one up right away...
Besides, the 737 has survived bad press before, although they didn't kill two plane loads in 6 months, they've crashed a few of them to manufacturing/engineering problems long before the MCAS system
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Rebrand in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (Score:2)
Re:Rebrand in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (Score:4, Insightful)
The 737 has crashed before to engineering defects and killed folks in the process. This won't be an different.
The 737 is one of the greatest airplanes ever (Score:2)
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It may still be fine in the smaller short haul variants. This problem seemed specific to trying to increase its size.
Flow on effect (Score:2)
This will have a flow on effect to all of the airlines who intend to sell off their existing 737 to smaller carriers. They will not be able to escape their contractual obligations to those carriers where the ink is well and truly dry. Nor is this a good situation for Airbus who do not want to appear as a monopoly player.
Consequently it would be unsurprising if carriers attempt to lease back the aircraft they have sold to the smaller carriers before the livery painted on them changes.
The mind boggles at
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The question is will *enough* passengers be comfortable flying in these aircraft?
Given today's load factors and the short attention span of the flying public, I'm pretty sure this will be but a temporary blip in a long flying career of the 737 MAX when they finally scrap the last one in 50 or so years. Practically Nobody will care within 6 months of the 737 MAX being recertified, certainly not enough folks will care to kill the airlines load factors. The aircraft will still fly full.
20 years overdue for a ground up new design (Score:5, Interesting)
I am no expert, just looking up articles to find the following information.
Here is the timeline for Boeing jet passenger aircraft, main version numbers, date started in service:
707 1958
727 1964
737 1968
747 1970
757 1982
767 1981
777 1994
787 2011
737MAX 2016
Notable is that development costs for the 747 almost bankrupted the company, but once sales kicked in, it made Boeing king of the passenger airways. It was not until the latest new airframe, the 787, that there were any technical and safety glitches that substantially delayed certification and date of service.
Thus, from the World War II era through the 1980's, Boeing grew, thrived, profited, excelled by being an innovation and engineering forward company. And, this was in the face of stiff competition. In the 60's and 70's, companies with passenger jet aircraft included Boeing, Convair, Douglas, deHavilland, Vickers, Dassault, Lockheed, McDonnell, Sud-Aviation. McDonnell-Douglas merged 1967. Airbus was the European merger in 1970. As of just a few years ago, large passenger aircraft were reduced to just 4 manufacturers - Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer, and as of today, the smaller two have been mostly sucked up by Airbus and Boeing.
With competition, there was engineering and innovation and a thriving industry with fairly regular technical development.
Now, we have companies run by MBA's with none of the heart and soul of the founders, none of the wizardry of the engineers, and apparently none of the common sense of ordinary people. The 737-MAX was a kludge, a hedge against competition from its only meaningful competition, a half-baked idea to repurpose a 50 year old design in order to capture market share with minimum investment, so it seems. After 50 years and profound advances in materials, avionics, energy, and the economy, a fresh back-to-the-drawing-board new aircraft is needed, and the Boeing of the 1940's-50's-60's would have made that investment. Their short sighted (and in the minds of many people, criminal) ineptitude with the 737-MAX has not only not saved money, but will cost them dearly, in dollars and reputation. Unlike the 747 experience when they "bet the farm" on an innovative idea that ultimately paid off big, the MAX was a swindle. If there was still any meaningful competition in the commercial aircraft industry, perhaps they might have made a real new airplane.
The Boeing-Airbus duopoly has wrung out competition and along with it, innovation, engineering priority, and safety and service considerations, all in favor or industry mergers and consolidation that wring the money and real value out of the companies for the MBA's and majority shareholders. This sadness is unfortunately pervasive in many industries. Who here thinks that these companies are anything like their glorious founding selves: IBM, GE, Xerox, AT&T, HP? Even hospitals and healthcare have succumbed. I suppose religion will be next.
What is the likelihood that Boeing will humbly eat its own poo, scrap the MAX, and get back to designing an innovative safe and efficient new aircraft from scratch, they way they should have, starting about 20 years, ago according to their prior development timetable?
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How short our memory is..
There have been a number of Boeing aircraft that had engineering defects that cost lives. Even the 737 had some early on, lost like 3-4 aircraft before they figured out why.
Overall, this 737 MAX thing only looks huge because it's happening now, Boeing and the MAX will survive. Once they get their certification back and get the aircraft flying, this whole episode will fade into the past like all the rest of the problems (assuming they don't crash another too soon).
We've been dow
Good (Score:3)
The original design of MCAS and the sensor array that it had when it was approved by the FAA was perfectly sane and reasonable, but after that Boeing decided to substantially reduce the redundancy of sensors and insisted that it was just a small change, thus not necessitating FAA approval. In other words the FAA was asleep at the wheel as Boeing broke cardinal rules of modern aircraft design with lethal consequences for 100s of people. As such a pulling of the leash like this and reversing the "self-certification" the industry has been pushing so hard for in the last couple of decades is absolutely necessary.
Not just for Boeing, but also the FAA and it's credibility as air safety authorities around the world rely on it's judgement. If air safety authorities around the world lose their trust in the FAA it's not just bad for the US' image, Boeing will also suffer as it will have to get separate approval from one or more of these before it can start selling it's planes in their regions when previously it was just enough that the FAA approved their planes and everyone trusted the FAA's judgement. If this isn't resolved in a way that restores confidence in the FAA too, Boeing will probably have to push all of their future models trough FAA to be allowed to be sold and flown in the U.S and then their European equivalent to be sold and flown elsewhere, substantially increasing the time to market of any new models.
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That's a surprisingly big chunk actually. US year over year GDP growth tends to be around 2-3%. Say 2.5%, on GDP of 19.39 trillion that's about 485 billion. Plus all the knock on effects of all those employees not going on to spend their earnings, if Boeing disappeared that would definitely hurt.
The 737 MAX program is hardly all of Boeing though. Looks like Boeing isn't exactly forthcoming with that particular breakdown, but Goldman estimates it at 33%. Still a hefty chunk, from a single company screwing u
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Sometimes you just wish Slashdot supported emojis. If ever an eye roll was required....
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If ever an eye roll was required....
That's called a ROFLCOPTER in nerdspeak.
Re: Hurt America's Economic Growth? (Score:3)
Boeing has a lot of suppliers that are going to have to shut down or slow down as well. You have transport companies that move the parts to boeing facilities for final assembly. You have airlines that probably started raising staffing levels in preparation for these planes (it takes roughly 4-6 months to get a pilot from "you're hired" to qualified and flying revenue passenger flights. Boeing screwed over a lot of people, and their refusal to see how bad it really was has only made things worse. It will
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Spirit builds the 737s fuselage for Boeing (and then ships them to Boeing via train), which makes up about 70% of its work. That workforce is now idle and being laid off.
Boeing isn't looking to restart production until it has delivered the bulk of the 737MAX aircraft which are currently sat parked - which means that if the Return to Service authority is given by June this year, production isn't going to restart until well into 2021. And even then, its going to be at a low rate thats going to need to be ra
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Yes. The total impact of the MAX shutdown will be much much less than $100B. America isn't dependent on Boeing for growth.
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Boeing has only $100B in yearly revenue for everything.
This is just Boeing executives teeing up for a long range Government Boeing Bailout. You know: "too big to fail", "impact other businesses", etc. . . . the same stuff that we saw with the General Motors buyout. Add to that: "vital for national air defense" and "but then European Airbus would win!"
Boeing has already announce that it is seeking $10 billion in emergency loans. We should best stop making jokes about Boeing . . . we may all own it, whether we like it or not.
And a pro tip for Boeing executiv
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Exactly. I guarantee Boeing will still make their revenue targets next year.
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Boeing has only $100B in yearly revenue for everything.
This is just Boeing executives teeing up for a long range Government Boeing Bailout. You know: "too big to fail", "impact other businesses", etc. . . . the same stuff that we saw with the General Motors buyout. Add to that: "vital for national air defense" and "but then European Airbus would win!"
Boeing doesn't get bailouts like the auto companies did. That would be too obvious. They'll just get a couple more no-bid defense contracts, or be allowed to run massively over budget until they make back all the money they lost from the MAX fallout.
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Boeing has only $100B in yearly revenue for everything. America has $20 trillion in GDP.
Large chunk of there $20 trillion are banks and hedge funds betting on stock and binds from companies like Boeing. So if Boeing goes down, some of these bets will turn sour and the problem will be well beyond Boeing's revenue
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They are trying to create pressure via public opinion to the that deathtrap flying again.
Re:Hurt America's Economic Growth? (Score:5, Funny)
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How is this not +6 Funny?!
These moderators are clowns, and the editors monkeys.
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Walmart saves America, especially lower-earning citizens, well over $200 billion a year.