Airbus producing near 60 a320 variants per month, needs to produce more. A321xlr now 40% of orders, does Boeing even have a xlr competitor. What will save Boeing in the short to medium term is that some airlines have no choice but to order from Boeing give the airbus backlog. in 2 years airbus will have closed the a380 line and devoted those resources to a320 variants. seems like the magic formula with today’s engine tech is single asile twins that can do everything from transatlantic to domestic. it’s analogous to Boeing being the producer of the dc10 while airbus is making the 747 , not a good place to be. One wonders whether they even realize the situation they’re in. boeings answer is articulated landing gear. we’ll add to that some Air Force contracts they came in at 1/2 the cost of others. and we have the 767 tankers that still don’t work and are way way behind schedule. 777 is a mess. yes lots of companies have faced challenges before. We have also seen GE implode. boeing will get the max flying and delivered and things will seem better. But short of significant management and board changes, a cultural reorientation, they’re in big trouble . The max is a poster child peek under the covers at what’s going on at Boeing.
Agreed! I think that the crux of this entire problem lies with the board of directors and the boneheads that they have brought into run the company going back to the one who split it.
Apparently Boeing is now stating they will recommend sim training for all pilots. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/boeing-recommending-pilots-737-max-184100449.html
"The 737 Max is an airplane designed by buffoons, surpervised by Monkeys, according to some Boeing employees" https://www.en24.news/2020/01/the-737-max-is-an-airplane-designed-by-buffoons-supervised-by-monkeys-according-to-boeing-employees.html Rgds
definitely agree about one of the board members: Nikki Haley. Been making news lately saying Americans are mourning the death of a terrorist... great choice for your BoD Boeing!
Were there always 4 AoA sensors or have they added a couple? Image Unavailable, Please Login https://www.marketwatch.com/story/boeing-emails-show-workers-mocking-faa-ridiculing-737-maxs-safety-2020-01-09?mod=home-page
Boy did they tarnish the image Boeing had for many decades. I'm not sure I'll be booking any flights on Boeings anymore.
What those messages show is that the problems begin way down in the ranks, as in first and second level supervisors. Tossing the CEO is just optics.
The first and second level supervisors were fine in my days in 777 design. Maybe hiring practices loosened up since then.
Well since we had the same 1st and 2nd levels at the time I don't disagree! Thing is, those guys all had prior experience on a clean sheet design. They were also backed up by Principle Leads who had experience on multiple clean sheet designs. Many were also intimately familiar with FAA regs and had extensive experience interfacing with FAA project engineers. I seriously doubt if there are any Jack Nobles left in Boeing Commercial. There are now 1st and 2nd levels with no prior clean sheet design experience, just people who have been involved in successive iterations of existing designs. No depth of knowledge about how the aircraft was originally designed. However, the changes in the FAA since that time are very similar to Boeing in that there has been a complete turnover in experience. Further, the establishment of ODA's by the FAA only makes it easier for the ODA to approve things without sufficient oversight. Boeing, by their stature in the industry, get much more leeway in their methods and procedures than anyone else. Fox watching the hen house. Many at the FAA don't like it, but they are hand-tied by their management. Its evolved over many years and likely won't change. The saving grace is that the most critical design features are usually based on extreme circumstances. If we ever get to the point where normal flight operations are designing an aircraft you might want to think about other means of transportation.
First, I have a suspicion that some of the sniping by some of those Boeing people are just general disgruntled folks as happens in any very large organization. I have come across some of this at Boeing in the past. It would not be unexpected for these publications to find the most incendiary comments even if it came from the biggest boob. You have correctly noted that the FAA is not what it was. Too many of those that actually knew and understood died, retired, became DERs, DARs or management somewhere else. So what is left (at least at ACOs, although could be true with the TD too) are those that are definitely not the best & brightest and went to the FAA because they get to function inside a highly bureaucratic organization that will circle the wagons to protect their own guilty. Some of the DERs/ODAs that I know are far superior to their FAA overlords. On the other hand I know a DER/ODA that should have his tickets pulled with cause but his FAA office loves him. Maybe Boeing needs to go get some head of programs from Gulfstream. That is a place that knows how to deliver their projects as promised that work. Unfortunately this whole MAX affair is giving an opportunity to raise every tidbit that can possibly be found and exploited then exploited by the press for headlines and the politicians, for grandstanding.
I'd love to see the entire email train where the Boeing employee calls Lion Air "idiots" for wanting simulator training. Was this person a true believer in the infallibility of MCAS i.e. that the 737MAX could not significantly differ in it's flight behavior than the previous version? Did they know about the specific, unique series of actions a pilot would need to take, under duress, to turn the system off? That would be REALLY crazy. Hopefully they were fired for so stupidly putting that **** in writing - assuming they weren't informed enough to know that MAX operators really did require good sim training. But since virtually nobody at Boeing going all the way to the top wanted any kind of training requirement (other than an iPad app) which might complicate certification, they would have been simply echoing the company line. https://jalopnik.com/boeing-called-indonesian-pilots-idiots-for-wanting-more-1840999747
Funny thing is, turning MCAS off is the same as turning off runaway trim. That should have already been taught in the sim for any model of airliner with stability augmentation.
That's assuming MCAS failure presents itself the same as "runaway trim". Does it? This guy doesn't think so, curious for your thoughts. https://medium.com/@gregoryreedtravis/why-an-mcas-failure-does-not-present-as-runaway-trim-144e902385a7
Sean- It only fires again if you turn the trim back on. One of the airliners that crashed had the same thing happen the day before, and the jump seat pilot had them turn the auto trim off and they successfully recovered the aircraft. On one of the crashed aircraft, they actually turned the trim off, but then turned it back on for some reason and left it on until the aircraft crashed.
They turned it back on because at the speed they were traveling they couldnt move the trim wheel and were strugglign to hold the nose up. Im sure there are procedures if followed tot he T and on time, but thats not always the case in a cockpit where things are going wrong fast, as Sully himself attested to.
Yeah its probably more complex than that or Boeign would have made that single change after Lion air and we wouldnt have had the second crash. More tot he poijt how did thus system get passed in the first place, thats process and systemic failure, and Boeing is probably rife with those.. Boeing is a mess, and autonomous sytems are clearly one major weak link, not just the max, the starliner, the 767 tanker. Boeing is like Gm circa 1985, not good.