U.S. regulator sees approval of Boeing 737 MAX to fly as soon as late June - sources

[impulse]

7 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

7 hours ago, Cryingdick said:

Again this won't affect the TV crowd much who tend to be unemployed retirees. 

lol. I am a retiree. As  such am unemployed. But I still manage  to  get  out and about a  bit !

And in fact the  airlines I prefer do  not operate the  Max and to date have  cancelled orders  for them.

 

Yeah, but you don't have a boss telling you to be at a meeting in a distant city next Tuesday morning and in another city that evening.

 

[Pilotman]

10 hours ago, connda said:

The only 'onboard computer' that I trust in the cockpit is myself.

I wouldn't go that far,  but I understand the sentiment. 

[Chomper Higgot]

4 hours ago, jchfriis said:

I don't know much about aviation, but please tell me if I have understood this:

 

Boeing designes an airplane that cannot fly without a piece of software that corrects the initial design flaw? And we are supposed to trust that piece of software that they maybe have got right this time?

 

It's worse than that.

 

The aircraft is inherently unstable during take-off, a time when the pilots have little time (hight above ground) to respond to the instability. 

 

And it's worse than that.

 

The design fix (sensors, computer and actuators) have a failure on demand outcome of everyone onboard being killed, unless the pilots can respond correctly  in the very  short time frame before the aircraft hits the ground. 

 

 

I'll be checking and confirming any  flights I book are not on a Boeing 737 Max.

[Pilotman]

4 hours ago, impulse said:

 

Yeah, but you don't have a boss telling you to be at a meeting in a distant city next Tuesday morning and in another city that evening.

 

been there and done that and bear the scars,  Glad that part of life is a distant memory. 

[Pilotman]

4 hours ago, jchfriis said:

I don't know much about aviation, but please tell me if I have understood this:

 

Boeing designes an airplane that cannot fly without a piece of software that corrects the initial design flaw? And we are supposed to trust that piece of software that they maybe have got right this time?

 

I think another poster replied to this.  I would just add that this was the first variant airliner that was designed with an inherent instability, due mainly to the weight distribution of the new engines and the corresponding thrust vectors produced.  Military aircraft are designed to be unstable in order to improve manoeuvrability and therefor reaction time, not so airliners, where it is not needed. Indeed, it is criminal that the Regulators in the US didn't reject this approach out of hand.  Laziness on the part of Boeing and the decision to just modify an existing airframe, rather than design a new one, is the basic mistake made.  They then compounded the original mistake by installing inadequate software and then not informing aircrew of the new system and what it did, who had to fly a badly flawed aircraft. I have yet to see any report on what would happen if the aircraft lost both engines and had to glide. for example, like the Airbus into the Hudson, or the out of fuel B767 in Canada some years back. As far as I know, this is a certification requirement, but did it ever pass such an theoretical  test.  

[Basil B]

15 hours ago, Pique Dard said:

i`ll avoid flights with boeing 734 max unless it`s the only option left

I would prefer to walk...

[Basil B]

It is not just the US regulators they need to convince.

 

Remember the US was the last country to ban this "Flying Coffin", others will probably take a closer look under the bonnet before allowing it to fly in their airspace.

[Basil B]

1 hour ago, Pilotman said:

Laziness on the part of Boeing and the decision to just modify an existing airframe

Would not knock that too hard, I worked in NPD (New Product Development) and one golden rule was to use parts we have instead of inventing more, the problem hear was they were pushing the limits of the airframe.

 

 

[GroveHillWanderer]

On 5/24/2019 at 11:23 AM, mtls2005 said:

Pinto, Edsel, Corvair, New Coke, Tylenol, Asbestos - plenty of room on the heap.

Not sure why you're including Tylenol - it's still one of the most successful and best-selling brands of Paracetamol / Acetaminophen. Yes, it had a temporary drop-off in sales for a short period after a scare in 1982 when some of its products (gel capsules) were tampered with and seven people died. However its sales figures fully recovered within less than a year and it very quickly regained its place as the US’s favourite over-the-counter pain reliever.

 

Tylenol article

[mtls2005]

On 5/24/2019 at 11:23 AM, mtls2005 said:

I'm sure Boeing execs, and FAA administrators, will be front and center along with the families, loved ones, etc. to step up and fly.

 

In his defense, Oscar Munoz, UA CEO stated at this weeks shareholder meeting that he would be on the first flight if/when the aircraft can be glued back together, and new rubber bands sourced. Pilot wets finger, sticks it out the window - about as good as one crappy AOA sensor.

 

He's already had one heart transplant so he's feelin' lucky.

 

Once the Boeing 737 Max is cleared to fly again, United CEO Oscar Munoz vows to be on his airline’s first Max flight

 

“Just because somebody says it’s safe, you as the flying public aren’t just going to get on the aircraft,” Munoz said, speaking after Chicago-based United’s annual meeting with shareholders Wednesday morning.

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-munoz-united-boeing-737-max-nervous-passengers-20190522-story.html

 

[Pilotman]

3 hours ago, Basil B said:

Would not knock that too hard, I worked in NPD (New Product Development) and one golden rule was to use parts we have instead of inventing more, the problem hear was they were pushing the limits of the airframe.

 

 

indeed so, but still 'lazy engineering design decision making'.   

[Basil B]

14 minutes ago, Pilotman said:

indeed so, but still 'lazy engineering design decision making'.   

Yes, DFMEA

(Design Failure Mode and Effect Analysis)

 

If the computer fails... what stops the plane from crashing?

 

FMEA dates back to WWII , tool developed by the Yanks, to stop their ships shelling their own men, but seems to stop short of allies...

 

 

[Pilotman]

19 minutes ago, Basil B said:

Yes, DFMEA

(Design Failure Mode and Effect Analysis)

 

If the computer fails... what stops the plane from crashing?

 

FMEA dates back to WWII , tool developed by the Yanks, to stop their ships shelling their own men, but seems to stop short of allies...

 

 

I have been worried for a few years about the way that civil aviation, and piloting, have changed, down graded even, as technology replaces basic flying skills.  I was brought up 'old school' by the military and taught to take aircraft to the edge of their normal envelope and learn to recognise abnormal situations and respond to them.  Looking at civilian pilot training nowadays, I'm not so sure that many on today's flight decks are trained and primed to recognise what is happening to an aircraft, or have the basic skills needed to recover from bad situations.  The South Atlantic, Air France crash some years back is a prime example of this lack of basic skills.

I even heard of one fully qualified civil pilot who claimed never to have carried out full spins in any type of aircraft, but was just trained and shown up to the incipient spin stage.   It seems to be that as technology increases on the flight deck, basic piloting skills are not held in as high regard as they once were.  Maybe that's just an old pilot talking, but it's a trend that is worrying. I mean no disrespect to the pilots on the two 737 Max crashes.  They seem by all accounts  to have done their very best to recover the aircraft and nobody could have done more or better. 

[Burma Bill]

On 5/24/2019 at 7:32 PM, Pique Dard said:

i`ll avoid flights with boeing 734 max unless it`s the only option left

Yes indeed. They may start flying again in June but will they be able to fill them with passengers?

[Chomper Higgot]

On 5/25/2019 at 3:31 PM, Pilotman said:

indeed so, but still 'lazy engineering design decision making'.   

 

On 5/25/2019 at 3:43 PM, Basil B said:

Yes, DFMEA

(Design Failure Mode and Effect Analysis)

 

If the computer fails... what stops the plane from crashing?

 

FMEA dates back to WWII , tool developed by the Yanks, to stop their ships shelling their own men, but seems to stop short of allies...

 

 

I'm not convinced it was simply a matter of an engineer design decision, lazy or not.

 

The reason for 'retrofitting' the new engines to an existing airframe design which then created the inherent instability was to compete with Airbus.

 

It was not an engineering decision, it was further up the management chain, perhaps strategic management in response to market changes (competition for airbus, demands for more fuel efficiency, costs etc). - Unless that is Boeing simply allow their engineers to design and build stuff without direction from management. 

 

Its not unreasonable to speculate (as a private individual) that somebody gave the order/request to get the new engine installed and commissioned on these aircraft within a short target time. 

 

What we do know is the resulting rig-up created inherent instability, the control system to overcome this relied on a single input sensor (single point failure) and that Boeing and the operators failed to provide adequate instruction and training. 

 

So a whole bunch of issues from management, through engineering, to operation and training. 

 

Useful as DFMEA is as an analysis tool, it is not suited to examining these wider causes in complex systems/organisations. 

 

 

Two methodologies that can achieve this are Events and Causal Factors Analysis, and the Management Oversight and Risk Tree. 

 

These two methodologies examine the events and failures that lead to an accident from the accident event right the way back to the decision making that, in this case decided to modify the aircraft, so right the way back to corporate management and or government and regulators.

 

This ability to examine right to the top of an organisation is, as I am sure you can imagine not popular with senior management or government.

 

They much prefer and DFMEA that will indicate an engineer, a pilot or an operator is to blame.