4 ms·

I like to use A380 as an analogy when a team works to perfect a product, adds lots of features, rewrites it a few times with the latest most buzzword-compliant

by rdtsc 9y ago

I like to use A380 as an analogy when a team works to perfect a product, adds lots of features, rewrites it a few times with the latest most buzzword-compliant technology, tests it until it is absolutely perfect, and ships it. ... Only to find out by that time the market has moved on and nobody wants to buy that kind of a thing anymore. Pretty sure that's a common theme for companies which end up on https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

matt4077 9y ago
I'm quite happy the Airbus hasn't adopted "move fast an break things" yet. Because those "things" would possibly include my femur.
mschuster91 9y ago
The problem is that you cannot simply ship a not "absolutely perfect" plane. Or, actually, it's not a problem but a blessing given that there were no commercial flight related fatalities in the USA in 2017 (per http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aviation-safety-20180102-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aviation-safety-201801...). No doubt: Without the drastic levels of regulation the FAA (and JAA) impose on civilian flight, fatalities would be orders of magnitude higher.
- theGimp 9y ago
  Cheap shot, but I'll take it. All 14 days of 2018? :)
  - civilitty 9y ago
    It's actually been six years of no fatalities.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    The article said in 2017, probably a typo on the poster's side. The article is about Trump trying to take credit for this (as he always does), when it is actually the 6th straight year without fatalities. Politically speaking, we are living in dark times even if aviation is super safe.
    - mschuster91 9y ago
      > probably a typo on the poster's side. Yep, blaming this typo on a severe undercaffeination. > Politically speaking, we are living in dark times even if aviation is super safe. The interesting question is: given the political climate (and especially the President's habit of "getting rid of rules"), how long will aviation stay super safe?
- usefulcat 9y ago
  Reliability is one measure of 'perfection' for an aircraft (and certainly a very important one), but it's hardly the only one that matters, especially when viewing said aircraft as a product that is competing with other similar products.
- andrewjl 9y ago
  2017 also saw no commercial flight related fatalities worldwide, in large part due to the NTSB (and it's non-US equivalents) process of getting the root cause of each crash and putting in place systems or procedures to eliminate that particular failure domain.
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    I have heard of that applied to software development - when a bug happens there two bugs effectively to fix: the bug itself and the reason the bug slipped past testing and QA.
    - andrewjl 9y ago
      Definitely. Mature (in terms of process, not age) companies realize this and design planning, update, post-mortem processes accordingly.
- notatoad 9y ago
  The 787s had a bad habit of catching on fire in midair shortly after they first launched, and they seem to have been fairly successful since then. Like any other industry, airlines have a wide gulf between "absolutely perfect" and "good enough".
- cc439 9y ago
  There's "perfect" as in "perfectly reliable and perfectly safe" and "perfect" as in "we achieved every last design goal regardless of other factors". That last part is where Airbus may have missed the mark as design goals such as the A380's high floorspace to seat ratio were great decisions given its intended market (long haul flights, customers like space on long haul flights) also led to a less-than-optimal passengers per flight to operating cost per flight ratio in a market where hub to hub demand is declining. It also led to a low maximum takeoff weight for the size of its floorplan, making it useless as a freight/cargo aircraft, the one niche where the ancient 747 still reigns as king of the skies. A more robust design intended to hold more passengers would have also allowed it to carry more cargo which may have saved the program considering how expensive 747s are to operate.
spookyuser 9y ago
I know this is slightly off topic, but this just happened to me recently. I wanted to make a stupid website that let you make those Ajit Pai memes where he was eating popcorn in front of a green screen. I managed to get the basics working in less than a day somewhere during mid december, but only ended up publishing it nine days ago. The meme was totally dead and the only actual function of the site was in teaching me to (hopefully) not make this mistake again! In that time there was no absolutely necessary functionality I had added, it was all just polish, yet I wouldn't let myself make it public without adding it. I don't know how to stop doing this, but I feel like it's becoming a serious problem with anything I do.
- ralusek 9y ago
  Alright, let us at least screw around with it, please.
  - spookyuser 9y ago
    Haha you're more than welcome to https://paiboi.herokuapp.com/ https://paiboi.herokuapp.com/
    - ralusek 9y ago
      Dank.
skgoa 9y ago
> Only to find out by that time the market has moved on and nobody wants to buy that kind of a thing anymore. ... But somebody wanted to buy this product. Airbus expected the project to break even at ~300 sales and they have gotten 317 firm orders so far. People are massively overstating the commercial "failure" of this project. Even with their development troubles, Airbus is getting close to breaking even, if they can generate more sales over the next decade or so. (The break even point is estimated to be ~400 now.) There are still firm orders for 5 years of production on the books. Early adopters are replacing their oldest planes with newly produced ones right now. ANA put in an entirely new, firm order two years ago despite not operating this type at all. Yes, no sale in 2 years is not great, but even Jan 2016 was long after everyone on the internet was calling for Airbus to kill the entire project already. If the 380 succeeds in ANA's fleet, there is scope for more orders from them or their close competitors. Iran also has an agreement with Airbus that includes 12 380s, though that's not a firm order as far as I can tell. In addition to this, Emirates will probably have to order 50-100 new planes on top of their existing orders to replace their aging fleet in the near future. Emirates want an 380NEO, but they will probably have to accept the 380Plus that Airbus favors. Once they do, the 380 project will have the orders it needs to reach break even and to keep the production line open until a NEO makes sense. And if passenger numbers keep on increasing at 4-5% every year over the 10-15 years the 380 is likely to stay in production, the market Airbus had expected/hoped for originally might very well materialize.

by rdtsc 9y ago

matt4077 9y ago

I'm quite happy the Airbus hasn't adopted "move fast an break things" yet. Because those "things" would possibly include my femur.

mschuster91 9y ago

The problem is that you cannot simply ship a not "absolutely perfect" plane. Or, actually, it's not a problem but a blessing given that there were no commercial flight related fatalities in the USA in 2017 (per http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aviation-safety-20180102-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aviation-safety-201801...). No doubt: Without the drastic levels of regulation the FAA (and JAA) impose on civilian flight, fatalities would be orders of magnitude higher.

theGimp 9y ago
Cheap shot, but I'll take it. All 14 days of 2018? :)
- civilitty 9y ago
  It's actually been six years of no fatalities.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  The article said in 2017, probably a typo on the poster's side. The article is about Trump trying to take credit for this (as he always does), when it is actually the 6th straight year without fatalities. Politically speaking, we are living in dark times even if aviation is super safe.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > probably a typo on the poster's side. Yep, blaming this typo on a severe undercaffeination. > Politically speaking, we are living in dark times even if aviation is super safe. The interesting question is: given the political climate (and especially the President's habit of "getting rid of rules"), how long will aviation stay super safe?
usefulcat 9y ago
Reliability is one measure of 'perfection' for an aircraft (and certainly a very important one), but it's hardly the only one that matters, especially when viewing said aircraft as a product that is competing with other similar products.
andrewjl 9y ago
2017 also saw no commercial flight related fatalities worldwide, in large part due to the NTSB (and it's non-US equivalents) process of getting the root cause of each crash and putting in place systems or procedures to eliminate that particular failure domain.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  I have heard of that applied to software development - when a bug happens there two bugs effectively to fix: the bug itself and the reason the bug slipped past testing and QA.
  - andrewjl 9y ago
    Definitely. Mature (in terms of process, not age) companies realize this and design planning, update, post-mortem processes accordingly.
notatoad 9y ago
The 787s had a bad habit of catching on fire in midair shortly after they first launched, and they seem to have been fairly successful since then. Like any other industry, airlines have a wide gulf between "absolutely perfect" and "good enough".
cc439 9y ago
There's "perfect" as in "perfectly reliable and perfectly safe" and "perfect" as in "we achieved every last design goal regardless of other factors". That last part is where Airbus may have missed the mark as design goals such as the A380's high floorspace to seat ratio were great decisions given its intended market (long haul flights, customers like space on long haul flights) also led to a less-than-optimal passengers per flight to operating cost per flight ratio in a market where hub to hub demand is declining. It also led to a low maximum takeoff weight for the size of its floorplan, making it useless as a freight/cargo aircraft, the one niche where the ancient 747 still reigns as king of the skies. A more robust design intended to hold more passengers would have also allowed it to carry more cargo which may have saved the program considering how expensive 747s are to operate.

spookyuser 9y ago

I know this is slightly off topic, but this just happened to me recently. I wanted to make a stupid website that let you make those Ajit Pai memes where he was eating popcorn in front of a green screen. I managed to get the basics working in less than a day somewhere during mid december, but only ended up publishing it nine days ago. The meme was totally dead and the only actual function of the site was in teaching me to (hopefully) not make this mistake again! In that time there was no absolutely necessary functionality I had added, it was all just polish, yet I wouldn't let myself make it public without adding it. I don't know how to stop doing this, but I feel like it's becoming a serious problem with anything I do.

ralusek 9y ago
Alright, let us at least screw around with it, please.
- spookyuser 9y ago
  Haha you're more than welcome to https://paiboi.herokuapp.com/ https://paiboi.herokuapp.com/
  - ralusek 9y ago
    Dank.

skgoa 9y ago

> Only to find out by that time the market has moved on and nobody wants to buy that kind of a thing anymore. ... But somebody wanted to buy this product. Airbus expected the project to break even at ~300 sales and they have gotten 317 firm orders so far. People are massively overstating the commercial "failure" of this project. Even with their development troubles, Airbus is getting close to breaking even, if they can generate more sales over the next decade or so. (The break even point is estimated to be ~400 now.) There are still firm orders for 5 years of production on the books. Early adopters are replacing their oldest planes with newly produced ones right now. ANA put in an entirely new, firm order two years ago despite not operating this type at all. Yes, no sale in 2 years is not great, but even Jan 2016 was long after everyone on the internet was calling for Airbus to kill the entire project already. If the 380 succeeds in ANA's fleet, there is scope for more orders from them or their close competitors. Iran also has an agreement with Airbus that includes 12 380s, though that's not a firm order as far as I can tell. In addition to this, Emirates will probably have to order 50-100 new planes on top of their existing orders to replace their aging fleet in the near future. Emirates want an 380NEO, but they will probably have to accept the 380Plus that Airbus favors. Once they do, the 380 project will have the orders it needs to reach break even and to keep the production line open until a NEO makes sense. And if passenger numbers keep on increasing at 4-5% every year over the 10-15 years the 380 is likely to stay in production, the market Airbus had expected/hoped for originally might very well materialize.