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Not only a longer grounding, but some airlines are canceling orders and many passengers don't want to fly in them. The 737 Max could become the Edsel of airpla
by panarky 8y ago
Not only a longer grounding, but some airlines are canceling orders and many passengers don't want to fly in them.
The 737 Max could become the Edsel of airplanes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel
- rpiguy 8y agoUnlikely as there are no readily available replacement planes for airlines who need to replace their fleet. Airbus can only produce so many, the supply chains and production facilities just aren’t there. Even if Airbus somehow magically increased their production by 50%, Boeing would still sell 2000+ 737 MAX planes (or the previous generation 737 models)
- rootusrootus 8y agoHistory suggests that people will forget this very quickly. I wouldn't be surprised to see Boeing 'rebrand' the plane as 737-8, but it probably won't be necessary.
- rwc 8y ago737-8 already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_Next_Generation#737-800 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_Next_Generation#737...
- rootusrootus 8y agoThe 737-800 is a 737NG. The model number for a 737 MAX-8 is 737-8. That's why I put rebranding in quotes -- it's already the official designation for the plane. I could see them dropping the public "MAX" branding from what they print on the side of the plane and just calling it 737-8 (and -7, and -9, for the other models) everywhere.
- adrr 8y agoI won’t fly one unless it has 3 angle of attack sensors. Since that can’t be easily found out, I’ll avoid them.
- darkpuma 8y agoThree angle of attack sensors seems unnecessary to me. They simply need to make MCAS pay attention to both (2) and cut out if one disagrees with the other.
- leesalminen 8y agoHow would it know which one is the malfunctioning one?
- janc_ 8y agoThat's not important; you disable that “autopilot feature” and sound an alarm in the cockpit explaining what the exact error is. Should be enough for the human pilots to react properly.
- darkpuma 8y agoYou don't.... That's why I said "and cut out if one disagrees with the other." If they don't both give the same reading, MCAS turns off.
- jarym 8y agoThe reason there should be 3 is likely because the odds of 2 failing are not unlikely enough from a safety perspective. There’s no problem if one fails but what if both fail and both corroborate a bad reading? Certainly the cost of 3 such sensors would not be as high as the cost of another crash.
- maxmunzel 8y agoAs far as i know you use three sensors, so you can automatically compensate for one failing/misreporting sensor without human intervention.
- darkpuma 8y agoYou can't compensate because you don't know which one is wrong. However you can make MCAS inactive whenever the two sensors are disagreeing with each other.
- vlehto 8y agoFrom aviation it could be the De Havilland Comet. But that brought the whole company down. So let's hope this will not go there. Airbus having a monopoly is no ones interest.
- sseveran 8y agoThat is unlikely. The A320neo family currently has an order backlog of over 6000. The only airline I know that is actually pursuing cancellation is Garuda. Given that the A320neo family is really the only competitor to the 737MAX family airlines don't really have anywhere else to go. I also doubt customers will really vote with their feet given that the number one factor when booking a ticket is price. If some people choose not to fly on them it will create supply/demand imbalances in the market which would be interesting.
- stingraycharles 8y agoWhy do these airplane manufacturers all have such massive order backlogs? Is it that difficult to scale production?
- inferiorhuman 8y agoYes. Take a look at the issues Boeing had with the 787 production or even just the distance which both Airbus and Boeing ship giant pieces of airplane.
- mikeash 8y agoAirbus currently builds about 660 A320s per year. At roughly $100 million apiece, that’s about $66 billion per year of product. How many other manufacturing companies produce that much stuff? And this sort of low volume, high value manufacturing is a bad fit for the sort of automation that allows, say, Toyota to build 10 million cars per year.
- FabHK 8y ago> I also doubt customers will really vote with their feet Agreed. As the article points out: "Passengers eventually returned to flying the 787 and to other airplanes that were grounded: the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, the Douglas DC-6, the Lockheed Constellation and even the de Havilland Comet."
- 8y ago
- mcv 8y agoI'm honestly surprised they're not cutting back production more than this. If I was an airline that thought long and hard about whether to order the 737 Max or the Airbus A320neo, and ultimately decided on the Boeing, these events, and the likelihood of recertification and further training requirements for pilots might well make me reconsider that decision. If Boeing really needed to cut these corners in order to remain competitive, then having to redo those corners might make them too expensive or inefficient for the market.