FAA Proposes Requiring Four Key Boeing 737 MAX Design Changes (aljazeera.com) 178
The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that it is proposing requiring four key Boeing 737 MAX design changes to address safety issues seen in two crashes that killed 346 people and led to the plane's grounding in March 2019. Al Jazeera reports: The agency is issuing a proposed airworthiness directive to require updated flight-control software, revised display-processing software to generate alerts, revising certain flight-crew operating procedures, and changing the routing of some wiring bundles. The announcement is significant, but there are still other major steps, including finalizing pilot-training procedures, that must be completed before the 737 MAX can resume flights. The public has 45 days to comment on the changes, and it is still unclear if flights will resume before the end of 2020.
The FAA said in a separate 96-page report released on Monday that it "has preliminarily determined that Boeing's proposed changes to the 737 MAX design, flight crew procedures and maintenance procedures effectively mitigate the airplane-related safety issues" in the two fatal crashes. The airworthiness directive seeks to require Boeing changes. The FAA said the changes minimize "dependence on pilot action and the effect of any potential single failure."
The FAA said in a separate 96-page report released on Monday that it "has preliminarily determined that Boeing's proposed changes to the 737 MAX design, flight crew procedures and maintenance procedures effectively mitigate the airplane-related safety issues" in the two fatal crashes. The airworthiness directive seeks to require Boeing changes. The FAA said the changes minimize "dependence on pilot action and the effect of any potential single failure."
Who listen to FAA now? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Who listen to FAA now? (Score:5, Interesting)
From a regulation standpoint, it's a joke. Who on earth allow plane maker to self-certificate their products? They failed to listen and prevent crash even with warnings all over the sky.
Just in case you've not been paying attention... Boeing LOST the right to self certify. That's what this whole effort has been about since the groundings, the FAA going through the 737 MAX (and other aircraft)'s certifications to make sure all the rules where followed and everything is in order.
So it's no joke and Boeing doesn't currently have self-certification authority. They are subject to rigorous oversight by the FAA right now, something that is going to cost Boeing a lot of money to keep up and is unlikely to change anytime soon.
In fact, they've been going through the certification paper trails for a lot of Boeing aircraft, and have found a number of deficiencies in other aircraft's designs which are also being addressed.
So where I agree, Boeing dropped the ball here, I also see that the FAA did as well. Now everybody has "got religion" on this and for a while at least, things will be better. Eventually, the process will get corrupted again, people will get hurt and we will ask ourselves why we forgot the lessons we learned and why the decades of success lulled us into a false sense of security. It is the way of things.
Re: Who listen to FAA now? (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously, if you don't believe the FAA has fixed this, then stay on the ground. Keep flying that couch and throwing rocks at others. It will be about as useful as a pet rock.
How many of us forget the history of aviation, even though it's barely over 100 years since the Wright brothers first flew (and crashed) at Kitty Hawk NC. We've been crashing aircraft since BEFORE 1903 and killing people trying to fly ever since. It's a risky business, like anything else we do.
Truly, if you look at aviation history, if you look at the FAA and the National Transportation Safety board which independently investigates and critiques the FAA, we've come a long way since Kitty Hawk. So don't sit there and tell me how bad things are, because you are ignorant of history and don't really know anything about the mandate and function of the FAA and the hugely positive safety impact they have had on the aviation industry at all levels, especially for all us paying passengers flying all over the world.
It's easy to point fingers, using hindsight to bludgeon people who made errors in judgment. You can sit there and call them stupid or even evil, but the TRUTH is they have a very difficult task and sometimes the problems that bite you are not apparent until something really bad happens. You can run fault analysis all day long for decades, build huge fault trees and still miss critical failures and crash a couple of times before you figure out what the problem is. Even the 737 has had serious problems, brought on by the unexpected confluence of seemingly unrelated events, which killed a few planeloads of passengers until one pilot got lucky, managed to survive, land and his story helped solve the problem.
So, stay home, be quiet and keep that couch on the floor where you are safe. The FAA does a lot of good things in this world and has contributed greatly to the safety of modern aviation. Cut them a bit of slack on this. They are taking the right steps to correct the problems that caused this issue.
Re: Who listen to FAA now? (Score:4)
Shit, and I missed this. "Everybody got religion and has learned their lesson". Priceless. Indeed, that's the federal government and boeing corporation we all know. The corporate culture changed over night because they learned their lesson
This is common refrain in history as it relates to safety. We have an accident, learn from it, address the issue with procedures and rules. BUT.. Eventually, a new crop of people come along and ask "Why do we do all this useless stuff?" and because they don't remember history, or understand the problems the rules addressed, or because they believe they know better than the ones before them, that things have changed and we don't need to do that anymore. Eventually, unless you have exceptional leadership through multiple generations, the organization forgets, rules get changed, and mistakes get made. It is the cycle of things, the nature of the human condition, that we learn from OUR mistakes better than we do from the mistakes of others and that means we sometimes have to make the mistakes of our ancestors again....
Don't believe me? What about Apollo 1 or the Space Shuttle Challenger and NASA? How many of the same mistakes have they made over the decades? Our military is rife with examples of "We knew better" situations, where over time we forgot the hard lessons of past failures, only to make them again. Even when you try really hard, it's a difficult thing to not repeat the same kinds of mistakes, stupid mistakes even, and kill folks when doing risky things.
So, all I'm saying is that the FAA and Boeing are currently serious, that the lesson they learned was a hard one and they are fixing it. But, I'm also saying that if history is any guide (and it is) this won't be the last time something like this happens. Eventually, a crop of engineers will grow up who know nothing of this current struggle, they will lose the "faith" and compromise safety... Maybe not in my lifetime, or even yours, but eventually another design defect will kill a plane load of passengers It's just a matter of time.
No additional AoA vane? (Score:3)
Re:No additional AoA vane? (Score:5, Insightful)
You design new taller landing gear, a new longer engine mount and fit the engines properly, anything else is just corrupt bullshit. A plane engineered to crash, that needs software to stop if from crashing, utter insanity.
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Who approved it!?
My best guess is "I don't recall..." or possibly his friend "I can't remember..."
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You design new taller landing gear, a new longer engine mount and fit the engines properly, anything else is just corrupt bullshit. A plane engineered to crash, that needs software to stop if from crashing, utter insanity.
Wow, way to mischaracterize the problem here.
This whole system was a stall avoidance thing and there are multiple bits of software and hardware designed to remind the pilots not to stall the aircraft. It was NOT a critical bit of software and hardware or wasn't supposed to be. It was to augment the handling characteristics of the aircraft, keep pilots out of trouble because their stick and rudder skills may not be up to par when flying low and slow.
The PROBLEM was that there was this one failure mode th
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I would argue that there is an additional few problems. First, MCAS only uses one of the two AOA sensors. That's how it got into the bad corner case in the first place. Second, there is no way to disengage MCAS without disengaging all electrical trim. Finally, the manual trim requires the strength of a gorilla to operate in some circumstances.
So, MCAS needs to check BOTH AOA sensors and disengage with a warning if they disagree. The pilot needs to be able to disengage MCAS while leaving the electrical trim
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All excellent ideas.. Especially the manual trim being with normal human strength for all situations. However, this manual trim requiring super human strength problem isn't unique to the 737Max.
I'd really like to see the manual trim forces be evaluated for certification from now on. Unless you can manually adjust the trim throughout the full flight envelope (in terms of speed and AOA) regardless of the trim setting you go back to the drawing board...
And no, the MCAS is required for the 737Max certifica
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The ability to disable all automatic inputs to the electrical trim leaving the thumb switches active should be acceptable. At worst, that should leave the pilots able to safely land at a nearby airport.
the proposed changes (Score:2)
1. Taller landing gear
2. New fuselage to support taller landing gear.
3. Lower the wings relative to the fesallage Center of mass/thrust
4. and while were at it new airspeed detectors, and new software.
5. oh and new engines.
Simple.
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This is simply not true. The 737 MAX will in some situations nose up in a way that cannot be countered by the elevator. MCAS is required to handle that.
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Pilots have control over the trim. The elevator alone isn't the only control pilots need to manage. On severe nose up maneuvers the trim is already set differently by pilots than when cruising.
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All aircraft have flight situations in which they will become uncontrollable. One of the things included in type certification is learning the flight envelope for that particular aircraft. Previous 737s have an envelope that is a little bit larger in a particular region than the MAX does.
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Does Boeing actually pay you or are you shilling for free?
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Are you unable to conceive people as having honest opinions, even if they coincide with Boeing's interests?
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There is some relative truth to this that the anti stall system made things worse, but removing anti stall from the plane is pretty hard to defend.
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You writing this means you lack all or almost all knowledge about piloting any aircraft and possibly also quite a few important bits of knowledge about driving a car.
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Aah. RWD reflexes almost made me crash when switching to an FWD car on track.
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Driving a front-wheel-drive car doesn't need a separate training course to do.
Getting out of a Suburban and getting into a Camero doesn't either. Doesn't change the fact that they are fundamentally differently handling cars.
Welcome to piloting. A pilots license does not give you some right to fly a plane with passengers. You need to be type certified. Maybe this weren't such a bad idea for idiots behind the wheel of a car as well.
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*Paying* passengers.
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If they would have just used the available data from the two existing AoA vanes, that would have made a big difference already. Inexplicably, they based the MCAS interventions on the data from a single sensor even though two were available, which displays a level of stupidity unheard of in civil aviation.
Even using two sensors is not a perfect solution yet, as both can ice up simultaneously in certain conditions (which actually happened to several Airbus airplanes, causing them to pitch down violently but r
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They don't need a third one, they need to use the second one, which is already there. Angle of attack sensors aren't flight critical instruments unless you've got a computer depending on them. If the two indicators disagree you tell the pilot the system is broken and they need to get it fixed before they fly, or, if in the air, they're restricted to a safer flight envelope until they land.
Keys are nice (Score:2)
But how about gears instead? Like maybe a safe landing gear?
Did FAA and Boeing consult pilot union? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The only consultations that are happening here are between Boeing managers and their FAA farm team future hires. The sons and daughters and other relations of FAA officials are finding cushy jobs at Boeing funded non-profits and Boeing managers make sure they mention the retirement packages that Boeing hires can expect when they hit 52 and on and on.
It's a racket. There are no pilots or engineers involved.
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Hopefully they consulted with the pilots union before the recommendations and the FAA isn't expecting them to provide feedback during the comment period. :/
How about consulting with the passengers union instead . . . ?
I'm thinking a lot of passengers will comment with their wallets in their choice to not fly on a 737 MAX, whether it is safe or not.
The brand is now toxic. Boeing's only option would be to rename it.
Maybe . . . 737 NG . . . ?
What about accountability for the deaths? (Score:5, Insightful)
This was not an accident. The crashes were clearly foreseeable given the shoddy technological design and lack of pilot training.
This FAA stuff is fixing the technology and training moving forward. BUT, when will we see indictments of Boeing decision makers that put $$$ ahead of basic passenger safety and indictments of the FAA people that signed off on this death-trap?
My $0.02 is that if Boeing's people are not going to be held accountable then the FAA ought to refuse to recertify the plane.
Re:What about accountability for the deaths? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are big enough, you can kill people on mass-scale and not receive any punishment.
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I agree that it is indeed twisted but it's a feature, not a bug, of modern capitalism. Corporations are neither moral nor immoral, they are amoral by design, guided by profit and profit alone. They'll even knowingly break laws and circumvent regulations if they know that the resulting fines are less than the profit made in doing so. This has caused massive economic crashes at times around the world, not to mention the massive suffering and environmental damage going on out of sight in the developing world w
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the FAA ought to refuse to recertify the plane.
The recertification process is not a mechanism for punishing past sins.
If the plane is safe to fly, it should be certified as such.
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I think the question is "With the same management in place, how can you trust their next version?". If there's no accountability, then you can expect corners to be cut where they shouldn't be. Possibly not the same corners, if people are not looking where they abused the process last time, but somewhere.
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I’m not flying on that death trap.
They are going to spend millions on propaganda to convince people it is a safe plane.
At least it will have the net effect of cleaning the gene pool.
Re:What about accountability for the deaths? (Score:4, Interesting)
Good news! No one is flying!
Though, if you're really trying to say you're not going to fly in any plane with issues, you're not going to fly at all - every major model of plane has had some serious problem or other.
After all, the 787 had exploding batteries back when it was a new plane (when exploding batteries was a trendy thing among consumer elexctronics). Airbus has had issues with their fly-by-wire systems on many models. The Bombardier CSeries (now Airbus A220 series) has had exploding engine issues.
The 777 had mysterious engine power loss issues as well.
A lot of it is down to training - yes there was a line about the system but it was easily missed. The same kind of line missed that lead to SpaceShipOne (Virgin Galactic) going down a few years ago, except this time by skilled test pilots who also missed a single comment in a document that lead to the tragedy. (Yes,a simple software change would've fixed the issue too).
Heck, the plane I flew, a simple little Cessna 172 has had MANY issues over the years, I even experienced one that lead to a airworthiness directive in flight. (The biggest one was the seat rail locks - it was possible to adjust the seat but not have the locking pin go into the hole, resulting in the seat sliding all the way back during say, takeoff). My issue was related to the autopilot - it was possible to enable it accidentally and not know about it causing control issues. An AD was issued where the autopilot was fixed to sound when it's activated so accidentally turning it on wouldn't be a surprise (you can override the autopilot - that's how I kept going while I had someone else see what's wrong - the plane was flying, just the controls felt funny). And yes, I thought I broke something.
(And if you must know, the Cessna 172 is the most popular GA aircraft out there. Heck, during the pandemic, at one point there were more Cessna 172s in the air than 737s, realizing the 737 is the world's most popular aircraft).
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when will we see indictments of Boeing decision makers that put $$$ ahead of basic passenger safety and indictments of the FAA people that signed off on this death-trap?
You want an American government to anihilate an American Federal organization working hand in hand with the American flagship plane manufacturer selling expensive stuff worldwide? Will never happen.
Re:What about accountability for the deaths? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the airlines that purchased planes without the "AoA disagreement" light?
The airlines are not responsible for managing Boeing's design and testing process.
They assumed they were buying safe planes. Airlines should be able to make that assumption.
Re:What about accountability for the deaths? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Were Bridgestone's customers sued?
Precedent is all.
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Disagree.
Hindsight and compromises are indeed a part of real life, and no, I do not think that the MAX was designed maliciously.
But, there are honest mistakes, and then there are disreputable dishonest immoral mistakes.
When your job or business puts the lives and welfare of people in your hands and your decisions, they have to be made with the safety of the clients a paramount concern.
If decisions are made that might not be deliberately or knowingly unsafe, but nonetheless made with disregard for those issu
Re:What about accountability for the deaths? (Score:5, Informative)
The entire idea of the max was a cost saving measure to avoid retraining pilots.
Now, we are retraining pilots and we still have this ass backward frame and engine.
Soooo, maybe they should build a new frame.
Oh wait, we sold a bunch of this garbage already! Well what is done is done! Hop on to the carousel! You did not want to live beyond 30 anyway.
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It was a cost saving measure to prolong the life of a 50 year old plane design .
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The cost savings for the airlines not having to retrain pilots was just one aspect. It was also supposed to save Boeing a lot of money on not having to do a complete type certification, and save money/simplify operations by being able to use the same rear stairs, baggage loading arrangements etc. as the 737NG by having the doors at the same height.
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The AoA disagree indicator wasn't supposed to be optional. It was the AoA display (showing the actual AoA value from each sensor) that was supposed to be optional, but due to a software bug the AoA disagree indicator ended up tied to the same option. They decided this wasn't a big deal and didn't correct it and get the software re-certified.
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Some discussion about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/i... [ycombinator.com]
test and fix approach (Score:3)
In production. The whole issue shows deep flaws in the design processes used, the errors that killed these two planes are just the end-result. Will be interesting to see what kills the next one.
Saftety first (Score:2)
Well at least they're being more consistent now, which is an improvement from the days of "Let's let Boeing make their own rules for a huge flying bomb of an airplane that flies over peoples' houses, while we simultaneously make rules to outlaw Timmy's 500 gram model airplane flying out in an empty field."
Would you approve the purchase of a 737 MAX? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Expect not to know until it's time to board that the flight's been switched to another plane.
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Right!
A sensor flips out because it is a single point and doesn’t use cumulative measurements. Pilots freak out and adjust and nose dive the plane.
You can fly on these things all day long Mr. Shill. Anyone with sense will avoid it for many years to come.
Re:Would you approve the purchase of a 737 MAX? (Score:5, Informative)
The 737MAX made it impossible to disable auto trim without also disabling power trim, and aerodynamic loads made it impossible to counter the runaway trim using the hand trim wheels. The 737NG allows the pilots to disable auto trim without disabling power trim. The 737MAX has a lot of very irresponsible design choices.
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There is no indication that it was possible at any point to turn the trim wheel manually. You are conjecturing. The fact is that the 737 MAX is fitted with a system that actively tries to kill people and cannot be turned off without making the plane unsafe.
You seem to be the chief Boeing apologist around here. Why?
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Re: Would you approve the purchase of a 737 MAX? (Score:2)
The 737MAX made it impossible to disable auto trim without also disabling power trim,
There is no "auto trim". There's an auto-pilot, which can control trim along with the primary flight controls. Is that what you're thinking of? If so, then you're factually wrong; you can disable the autopilot just fine without disabling the trim system. In fact disabling the autopilot is the second step in the emergency procedures. It goes like this:
1. Hold yoke firmly.
2. Disable autopilot (if engaged).
3. Disengage autothrottle (if engaged).
4. If runaway stops, fly the plane
5. If runaway doesn't
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You're conflating two things. On the 737NG, the two "STAB TRIM" switches labelled "MAIN ELECT" and "AUTO PILOT". Switching off "AUTO PILOT" will only disable automatic trim while still allowing the power trim controls on the yoke to function. Switching off "MAIN ELECT" will disable the power trim controls as well. On the 737NG the two "STAB TRIM" switches are labelled "PRI" and "B/U" and switching either of them off disables the power trim controls as well disabling trim input from MCAS.
Boeing has said
Re: Would you approve the purchase of a 737 MAX? (Score:2)
You're conflating two things.
You say that, but then the rest of your comment does nothing to explain what it is you think I'm conflating. Why include this if you're not going to explain it?
On the 737NG ...
I'm quite familiar with the controls, thanks. On previous generations of the 737, the leftmost switch simply prevented the autopilot from controlling trim. This is somewhat redundant given that the first step in the emergency procedures is to disengage the autopilot in a more traditional manner.
Boeing has said this shouldn't be a problem because no checklist procedure called for turning off "AUTO PILOT" without also turning off "MAIN ELECT".
Correct. That's what I pointed out in the comment yo
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No, the 737NG is the previous model, with the asymmetric "hamster pouch" engine intakes. The 737MAX has larger engines for better efficiency. Trying to mount larger engines on the same airframe without raising the height of the landing gear was the source of all the issues. The larger nacelles for the bigger engines need to be mounted higher and further forward. This gives the aircraft more of a tendency to pitch up when increasing throttle, potentially causing an aerodynamic stall.
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Disengage autopilot and control airplane pitch attitude with control column and main electric trim as required. If relaxing the column causes the trim to move, set stabilizer trim switches to CUTOUT. If runaway continues, hold the stabilizer trim wheel against rotation and trim the airplane manually.
https://www.aviationtoday.com/... [aviationtoday.com]
Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric s
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I can't see any manager signing off on the purchase of a 737 MAX.
You're in an industry with razor thin margins. Managers have their hands on their pens just waiting to sign off purchases for replacement fleets which minimise the cost of retraining pilots. It costs a *LOT* to change a fleet significantly.
The personal risk is too high.
The personal risk is precisely zero. There are certification agencies like the FAA that make the purchasing decision a zero liability.
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Re:Would you purchase a 737 MAX? Yes (Score:4, Informative)
This is just not true. The plane is aerodynamically unsafe, prone to nose up uncontrollably because of the wrong placement of the engines. This is then papered over with MCAS and hidden from the pilots, perhaps to avoid them discovering the unsafe design and going to the press.
Re: Would you purchase a 737 MAX? Yes (Score:2)
In order to save money, Boeing relied on the input from a single AOA vane of the starboard side of the aircraft. Boeing offered an upgrade where the second AOA vane on the port side of the plane was also sampled and a warning light "AOA disagreement" was added to the warning panel. This upgrade would also raise questions about the warning light and could lead to additional training so it was offered as an upgrade.
The rest of your comment is bang on; however this part is horribly confused in a number of ways:
1. Both AOA vanes are fully functional and their readings are available to the onboard computers, but MCAS doesn't consider both of them when deciding whether or not to actuate. I'm not sure why you think that this was a "cost cutting measure".
2. The AOA disagree light is not optional, it's standard on every 737, not just the MAX. Therefore all of your speculation about "questions" and "additional training" d
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1. Both AOA vanes are fully functional and their readings are available to the onboard computers, but MCAS doesn't consider both of them when deciding whether or not to actuate. I'm not sure why you think that this was a "cost cutting measure".
In other words,
Boeing relied on the input from a single AOA vane of the starboard side of the aircraft.
Agreed that it likely didn't save any costs, it was just stupid.
2. The AOA disagree light is not optional, it's standard on every 737, not just the MAX. Therefore all of your speculation about "questions" and "additional training" due to such a light is nonsensical.
3. Unfortunately even though the AOA disagree light is standard on 737s, on the MAX it was non-functional. There was an optional feature which would show pilots the exact AOA readings of both vanes on their monitors. Someone fucked up while writing the software and tied the standard AOA disagree light to this seperate optional feature. The mistake was discovered at some point prior to the crashes, and would likely have been fixed in a future block.
In other words, the disagree light on the 737MAX only operated if an optional feature was purchased. They may not have intended that, but that is nevertheless how it worked, making the disagree light effectively "optional".
Re: Would you purchase a 737 MAX? Yes (Score:2)
I'm not sure why you felt the need to repeat what I said, but ... ummm ... thanks?
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Actually, I repeated what OP said that you for some reason disagreed with while agreeing with it.
Re: Would you purchase a 737 MAX? Yes (Score:2)
It was discovered a long time before, but was deemed too expensive to get the software fixed and re-certified by the bean counters.
That's usually how it goes; any problems which don't compromise safety of flight get fixed in the next block upgrade. This is not unique to Boeing.
Notice no pilots for you to blame this time...
Amazing, it's almost as if I analyse each specific situation based on the actual factors at play, and then come to a conclusion based on the data. You should try it some time.
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That's over simplified. *All* aircraft with engines below their centre of mass (all airliners with under-wing engines) will tend to pitch up with the application of power. The MAX moving the engines forward and up *reduces* that tendency. However, under very specific high speed, high angle of attack situations (which you don't want to be in to start with) the aerodynamics of the engine cowlings produce too much lift forward of the centre of mass.
the most important change (Score:5, Insightful)
New management. Dump the marketing people and return the engineers to top management. Assign personal responsibility to every engineer for their part in design and execution of components. Reward innovation and efficiency. Encourage workers' pride in their part in making a better, safer product.
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Assigning responsibility to engineers is pointless unless you also assign authority to engineers.
Assigning responsibility just means you continue to ignore engineers who report issues and fire the engineer 'responsible' every time there's a crash.
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Seems like moving chairs on a Titanic to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on the description of the actual required changes, they seem like minor software fixes, rather than a key architectural change required to make 737MAX airworthy. My guess is - FAA is putting on a show of taking this seriously, while trying to save Boeing's business.
The core issue is un-airworthy physical design of 737MAX's engine nacelles and wing (as a result of the overall airframe outliving its initial constraints). Reengineering that is the only way to ensure a well designed and safe aircraft. Anything else is a bandaid and a public relations campaign.
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Totally not true. Plane is not at all "aerodynamically stable." Otherwise MCAS wouldn't be necessary at all. This was Boeing's attempt to make it feel stable to the pilot. Unfortunately poorly thought out programming and a lack of indication to the piilot of the state of software and sensors resulted in tragedy. Twice.
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No, there were pitch down issues, caused by malfunctioning software, that caused two crashes.
Neither plane was in an operating regime where MCAS was supposed to function.
Re: Seems like moving chairs on a Titanic to me (Score:2)
The reason MCAS was added was nothing to do with training, end everything to do with the forward position of the new engines causing a pitch up.
It's both; "the new engines causing a pitch up" would have required a different type certification, which would have required pilots to be trained on it. MCAS allowed them to keep it under the same type, which eliminated the extra pilot training requirements.
MCAS was a piss poor attempt at stabilising an bad design. This is well documented.
No, MCAS was itself a bad design, but it had nothing to do with stabilizing anything. This is well documented.
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Everything I've read points to MCAS being essentially mandatory (barring some other solution to control force issues at high AoA) for the aircraft to be certified.
What I've seen basically stated the MCAS was essential to certify the aircraft as a 737, not as a passenger aircraft. The aircraft certification defines the requirements on pilot training.
So what you've seen and what I've seen technically agrees. The MCAS was part of the certification.
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You keep repeating this, but it is not true. MCAS is necessary to keep the nose down because the pilots cannot do it themselves with the elevator.
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No it's not. The lower CoT means that the the elevator *unchanged* causes the plane to correct up or down with a change in thurst. But this is not the same as an aircraft being unstable or not airworthy. The plane is absolutely controllable with the elevator. The difference is the pilots are required to take into account a difference in handling.
Kegworth (Score:3)
One of the things to come out of the Kegworth crash [wikipedia.org] was that a theory-based differences course wasn't enough, and simulator time was needed. How quickly we forget.
I have 4 design changes that would work (Score:2)
1. You have 30 minutes to move your plane
2. Your plane has been impounded
That already happened, so all that has to be added at this point would just be
3. Your plane has been crushed into a cube
4. You have 30 minutes to move your cube
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Rebuke of wall street sociopathy (Score:3)
Boeing is a good example of how Wall Street sociopathy, commoditization of workers, treating workers as expendable, and the obsession with shareholder profits destroys companies. Boeing gained its reputation through a culture of engineer focused excellence, building well designed products, high employee morale, and people who were proud of their company and felt a part of the family and highly valued. What has destroyed Boeing is very low morale, people feeling underappreciated, overworked and undervalued, and the overriding focus on short term profits. People no longer care about the company, its just a job, and therefore do not care as much about their work and do only as much as necessary.
This is a total rebuke of the "wall street way" of outsourcing, commoditization of people, profit obsession, greed, and basically what an=mounts to sociopathic, abusive behavior.
let pilot_error = TRUE && boeing_negligenc (Score:2)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]
https://projects.seattletimes.... [seattletimes.com]
https://aviation.stackexchange... [stackexchange.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
MCAS crashed the planes, but all they had to do to save themselves was lower the slats and keep them lowered to disable MCAS.
Or they could probably have fought against the MCAS nose downs with electric trim nose ups as the Lion Air pilot managed to do for a while and then cutoff the auto trim switches during level flight and neutral trim before
Real fix is most expensive one: paperwork (Score:3)
The 737Max is a fine aircraft and will be perfectly safe - after Boeing is forced to make the single change that they avoided in the first place and which lead to the disaster..... fix the paperwork. Stay with me a moment on this:
The 737Max is not actually a 737. Boeing wanted to offer a newer plane for the 737 market with more efficiency, so they needed a bigger engine. The 737 is so low to the ground however that they had no room to simply sling a bigger one, and they could not lengthen the landing gear because then it would not retract the same way into the same spaces (driving major airframe changes in vital structures). They had to move the newer bigger engines, which shifted both the center-of-mass of the engines and the thrust lines (and had other rippling effects). The result makes the plane unstable in a way the government regs frown upon, but still perfectly flyable - plenty of military aircraft have related issues. The Max could be operated safely by properly trained pilots but is essentially NOT a 737 anymore - the raw handling characteristics are different, particularly at high angles of attack and high engine power settings. They key point is that they needed to avoid the time and money to get it approved as a NEW design, they wanted the FAA to quickly approve it as a modification of the 737, and they also wanted to sell it to airlines as a "better 737" that pilots would not need training and additional certifications to fly. If you tell the airlines "your pilots will all need training and certifications on this new type", the airlines will say "well, then I should consider your competitor's planes too since that's what was keeping me from considering them". THAT is why they had to simultaneously add the MCAS system to make the plane seem to handle like a 737, AND downplay the system to the point that many people barely knew it was there. Normally a company does not practically hide such a supposed new wonderful high tech upgrade like MCAS. Had MCAS been an honest upgrade, one would have expected Boeing to publicize it and market it, and everybody would have been aware of it. There would have been brochures saying things like "that Airbus plane doesn't have the revolutionary new safety-enhancing patented MCAS system!"
Doing a bunch of new "fixes" to try to keep pretending this thing is a 737 will only be a bandage on a puss-filled wound. The real fix that is needed is to require Boeing to no longer call it a 737. Boeing needs to be forced to being honest about this plane; it will be very expensive but doing the right thing after first doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons usually is. Everybody, including regulators, needs to admit is is a different plane with different handling qualities, it needs certification as a new design, and all pilots who fly it need to be qualified in this new type. The FAA also needs to come clean and admit that they have failed in their most basic duties of oversight. They've been doing hyper-regulation of everything from homebuilt 2-seater planes to the drones kids fly in their back yards while failing to properly oversee airliners that haul tons of cargo and hundreds of civilians at hundreds of mile per hour miles above the ground. Oh, and as a minor quick fix, MCAS needs to be relegated to advisory, so it warns pilots they are nearing the borders of the plane's performance envelope, and it should not be allowed to take over and prevent pilots from doing something (this MCAS behavior was a thing one used to encounter on Airbus planes but never on Boeing, so it would certainly have baffled any Boeing-certified pilot in an emergency particularly if he'd never been trained for it or advised of it).
This was all about money: Boeing did not want to spend the money and time (more money) to cert a NEW plane. Boeing's customers did not want to spend the money getting pilots and ground crews trained and certified on a new type. Boeing did not want to risk losing money by risking long-time 737 buyers and operators looking at other planes to replace their agein
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The FAA had just as many yes men along for the ride as Boeing. All aircraft in the future will be designed with more natural run away trim overrides in the future. The sim time spent on it will be mininal, software will kick end users back into the middle of the flight envelope with a bit more force. It was just a clasic failure chain that can be ascribed a cost savings to pick on Boeing on. If it was a ton and half in airframe weight in a some green effort causing a problem this inquiry would
Re: (Score:2)