25 ms·

“I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period”

bufferoverflow 8y ago
None of that explains why MCAS would point the nose down when the nose is already down and the plane is flying into the ground at 500 knots.
spectramax 8y ago
Btw, the new "fix" for the MCAS has just been announced and discussed by a 40-year experienced pilot [1]. Turns out that while we shouldn't be doing armchair analysis and assuming the worst of the engineering, management and executive team; the software fix released appears to be rather elementary and MCAS should have been designed with these safety checks in the first place. Why it wasn't is a huge concern and we wonder what other systems are at risk. In summary, the software fix does the following: 1. Use inputs from both AOA sensors, if they disagree by 5.5 degrees, disable MCAS. Original MCAS system used only 1 AOA sensor and switched back and forth between the two after every flight. 2. Triple redundant filters, A) Average value reasonability filter B) Catastrophic failure low-to-high transition filter C) Left vs. Right AOA deviation filter 3. Limiting MCAS stab trim so that the elevator always can provide 1.2g of nose-up pitch authority for recovery. Furthermore, electric trim with the yoke switch will override MCAS. Turns out that armchair analysis was sort of on point and goes along with the incompetency at Boeing affirmed in this reddit post - sometimes, I wonder how we, humans, collectively build extraordinary monuments while we individually rest on stilts. [1] https://youtu.be/zGM0V7zEKEQ?t=370 https://youtu.be/zGM0V7zEKEQ?t=370
- ptidhomme 8y ago
  > I wonder how we, humans, collectively build extraordinary monuments while we individually rest on stilts My take is that we used to have brilliant engineers in the time where computational ressources were scarce (60s, 70 , 80s...), and they thought out their design thoroughly starting with a fucking paper and pencil. Aerospace indutries still rely on the designs from these times. But now engineering seems to be : let's ask my computing power what is the good design, with little further questioning.
  - Gravityloss 8y ago
    There were a lot of failures and accidents back then. But in general, designers did get more experience because there were more aircraft programs and they were way faster. So if you designed, say, landing gear, you might have done quite many during your career. It was more "agile" in that sense. Nowadays companies can not go so quickly to production. The whole business has turned into oligopolies both in the main integrators and the suppliers.
  - noncoml 8y ago
    Brilliant engineers are still there. We haven’t gotten stupider as a species in 30 years. It’s the economics that changed. As people say “They don’t build stuff like they used too anymore”. First we started going cheap on the materials. Now we are going cheap on the engineers too. Why pay a senior “brilliant” engineer $$$$ when a fresh out of college “average” engineer can write the “same piece of code” for $$
    - ptidhomme 8y ago
      Indeed, and I'd add that we are going cheap because we can, thanks to computing power. As a matter of fact : computing tools make a lot of things easier and cheaper (which is good). But the setback is a tendency to "laziness" in the whole process...
    - noir_lord 8y ago
      > “They don’t build stuff like they used too anymore”. In fairness part (but far from all) of the reason we don't build stuff like we used too, is because we have much better understanding of material limits so we don't need to over-design structual elements like we used to. How that understanding of material limits feeds into design obsolescence is where I do get annoyed though. With everything we know now we could (obviously) build things better (for whatever criteria you chose) than they did 50 or 100 years ago, if that was the goal but it rarely is. My favourite piece of civil engineering in the world (because it's nearby and I've ridden over it many times) was built in 1980 though (it's the exact same age as me) and its still awe-inspiring to look at. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Humber_Bridge_Sunset_Wideshot.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Humber_B...
- thatoneuser 8y ago
  Why do you say we shouldn't do armchair analysis right before you acknowledge that said analysis was on point? I think it's good our populace is eager to analyze. Ultimately we aren't making the decision, just forming a branch of decentralized checks. Long as witch hunts like the Boston bomber don't happen I say people should analyze till their hearts are content.
  - spectramax 8y ago
    I agree with you but the general view is to avoid doing armchair analysis until official word is out. As far as armchair analysis doesn’t cause any harm, I think it’s fine!
- tus87 8y ago
  > 1. Use inputs from both AOA sensors, if they disagree by 5.5 degrees, disable MCAS. Great, and now you have the other problem the MCAS was supposed to mitigate (the tendency of the MAX to do backflips).
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    Shrugs, if the MCAS disables with a clear notification to the pilots I think at this point most 737-Max pilots would know the procedure to deal with that. Better than the plane flying itself into the ground.
    - tus87 8y ago
      Which raises a rather obvious question ...
    - vkou 8y ago
      > Shrugs, if the MCAS disables with a clear notification to the pilots I think at this point most 737-Max pilots would know the procedure to deal with that. The plane is only certified to be 'identical to the 737' when MCAS is on, and operating correctly. If MCAS has to be disabled in response to a common mechanical problem, then the plane must be re-certified.
  - cjrp 8y ago
    Although at least now you're trying to solve a more logical problem. Increasing angle of attack => counter with elevator, if not sufficient reduce thrust
    - foldr 8y ago
      Reducing thrust will increase angle of attack. The angle of attack is the angle of the wing relative to the airflow, not the angle of the plane relative to the horizon.
      - salawat 8y ago
        Yes conceptually, no because of signage error. If you were in a position MCAS would have to kick in, you were at positive AoA, reduced thrust would impart a negative AoA moment.
- ozmaverick72 8y ago
  The software fixes as described sound sensible and it's hard to believe they were not in the original design. Unfortunately I don't see how these changes will allow them to keep a common type rating with the 737 NG. After the updated MCAS has made its one shot trim adjustment you will now be flying an aircraft with different handling characteristics if you keep increasing the angle of attack into the stall. Surely the FAA can't sign off on the common type rating and half hour of video training ??
  - peteradio 8y ago
    > Surely the FAA can't sign off on the common type rating and half hour of video training ?? What? Why not? They did a blood sacrifice and everything.
  - PaulHoule 8y ago
    Having a new type rating is a fair punishment, I think, for Boeing and the airlines who have been stringing along this obsolete airliner for way too long. Note the 737 MAX was rushed out not just to fight the A320neo but also to counter this kind of jet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220 which is cheaper to run than the 737 MAX but also has much better passenger comfort than the 737. I was in the similar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_family#E175 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_family#E175 and even though it is a smaller plane, it feels more like riding in a widebody than in a 737. Canada developed a fully modern small jet on it's own dime and taking risk, then Boeing nearly killed it by offering airlines a 70% discount on the 737 MAX. Airbus bought a controlling interest in it for free because that was the only way it could survive. Common type rating is a big reason why airlines are sticking with the 1967 era 737 rather than upgrading to modern planes that will make flying much more pleasant, make less noise, use less fuel, less climate change impact, etc.
    - mcguire 8y ago
      How is the 737 obsolete?
      - 8y ago
- ilogik 8y ago
  > Original MCAS system used only 1 AOA sensor and switched back and forth between the two after every flight. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea??? Let's make it 10x more difficult to detect that there is a problem.
  - 6nf 8y ago
    Just to explain a bit more: It uses the main pilot side AOA sensor, and pilots switch seats every flight.
    - amelius 8y ago
      So switching seats during the flight would have solved the problem?
      - philpem 8y ago
        That sounds so unlikely that most people would dismiss it as silly... I'm not a pilot, but if the controls are linked -- why would the plane need to know where the pilot is sitting (or even have a switch for it)? (Any 747 pilots reading? Can you please fill in the gaps for me?)
        cjbprime 8y ago
        Not a pilot either. Perhaps to show different information to the pilot flying vs. assisting? E.g. only the pilot assisting needs to see checklists?
        tellak 8y ago
        Not a 747 pilot (not sure why that matters here)... but a pilot. The flight positions are equal. The plane is designed to be flown the same from either flight position and this is routinely done. The guy saying otherwise is talking out their ass.
        philpem 8y ago
- koenigdavidmj 8y ago
  I thought that the flight immediately before this one had MCAS trouble too. Were both sensors busted, or was that actually an even number of cycles previous to the crash, and only the previous day?
  - salawat 8y ago
    There was an extra pilot in the cockpit uninvolved with flying the plane. His participation in Crew Resource Management allowed the previous flight to correctly identify and remediate the issue before things became unrecoverable.
    - koenigdavidmj 8y ago
      I remember that, but if the issue was that one AOA instrument was broken, then only half the flights should be affected.
  - tremon 8y ago
    The plane went through a maintenance cycle in-between the flights; it was suggested that the maintenance caused the chosen AoA sensor to flip twice. I'm not sure of the exact mechanics of this, but it's conceivable the maintenance crew performed a full engine or board computer boot cycle. Therefore, when the pilots started on their flight, it was the second warm-up since the previous flight, hence the same sensor was selected.
- usrusr 8y ago
  I wonder if the new iteration will also get an intermediate disable state, where you keep powered trim but shut out all automatic inputs. Defense in depth.
- linuxftw 8y ago
  > 1. Use inputs from both AOA sensors, if they disagree by 5.5 degrees, disable MCAS This can only mean that MCAS is disabled even more frequently. This is a terrible idea. This is like RAID0. The failure mode will increase greatly in complexity. MCAS might cut in and out, the plane might behave erratically. What the need to do is add a damn switch for 'disable MCAS' and tell people how and when to use the damn thing.
  - magduf 8y ago
    No, they can't do that, because then they'd have to retrain the pilots, or maybe even have a different type rating, which would make them uncompetitive against the Airbus and Bombardier planes. Remember, profits are more important than passengers' lives.
    - pas 8y ago
      > because then they'd have to retrain the pilots, I think that ship has sailed already.
    - linuxftw 8y ago
      Just booked a flight. Price between two major carriers was about the same. One was a Boeing, the other Airbus. Guess who got my business?
- agumonkey 8y ago
  I don't get it, Boeing seemed to have a positive slope, with their plane outselling the competition. Fragile system design is hard to understand in this context. But maybe MCAS were conceived at a time where Boeing was more willing to cut corners.
- garaetjjte 8y ago
  >Furthermore, electric trim with the yoke switch will override MCAS. Does that mean it didn't override MCAS before? Really?
  - pas 8y ago
    The point was, that they "just" put that shadow system there which will perfectly encapsulate the 737MAX to match the old 737 "interface". Now, they completely fucked that up. They did a so mindblowingly bad job, that anyone involved at the FAA who should have known about this should be in jail. Either for incompetence (negligence) or worse. They designed a system that relied on one input, operated periodically, told no one, documented nowhere, made it too powerful, always on, and un-turn-off-able, and spent the rest of the day corrupting/pleasing the FAA, then made the AoA input mismatch light an upsell feature, and finally called it a day.
  - parrellel 8y ago
    Yep, this being one of the reasons the planes went splat.
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
  I know very little about aircraft, but wouldn't making the MCAS less powerful increase the risk of a stall? How do we know that there would be a net decrease in crashes?
  - pas 8y ago
    We know nothing about how many times MCAS got engaged, maybe Boeing does. Who knows.* Furthermore, the problem seems to be that there is no explicit feedback about this from the pilots, because some of them did not even know about this. Consequently there was no widespread beta test in simulators, meaning there was not much data to base the fine tuning on. * actually, since MCAS activates only when the plane is over the critical angle (according to the AoA sensor), and there are other warnings, probably those can be counted.
lordnacho 8y ago
My view of aircraft engineering has certainly changed since the 737 stuff came out. You always get told software engineers are a bunch of cowboys compared to aircraft people, because they have to put everything through a bunch of rigourous tests. I asked a friend who trains commercial pilots about it, and to my surprise he told me the processes to get things certified are political and hand-wavy.
- carlmr 8y ago
  >the processes to get things certified are political and hand-wavy The big processes that make everything less cowboy inevitably lead to the build-up of people that only do politics and processes and are far removed from actually desigining code.
- gmueckl 8y ago
  I haven't worked for aviation yet, but from what I have seen in other areas that need certification processes, the system is setup in a way that invites gaming it. In Europe, most certifications are performed by competing private companies. That cannot possibly go wrong and erode standards, right?
  - seren 8y ago
    Dieselgate happened in spite of having tests executed by "independent" bodies, even if it certainly looks better, it is not fail safe either. But it is harder to plead ignorance, incompetence or bad luck when you have purposely implemented a code that run only in test settings.
    - dfox 8y ago
      Dieselgate has nothing to do with who performs the testing but is an clear example that if you as an regulator want X, but test for Y, manufacturers will optimize for Y and ignore X.
- atemerev 8y ago
  The problem is not “cowboy attitude” or “bureaucratic swamp”; these are two sides of the same coin, process inefficiency promotes corner-cutting. The problem is lack of care. They don’t even seem to care about the money, judging from their current stock prices.
curiousDog 8y ago
Unpopular opinion, but had this happened at a company that hired H1-Bs, people would’ve jumped on the incompetent immigrants band-wagon immediately. This here is a fine example of the classic American work ethic devolving into sheer laziness. FWIW, I saw this happen at another Military contractor (Northrop Grumman) too!
- nostrademons 8y ago
  Sometimes I wonder what'll happen if the United States ever has to fight a war against an opponent whose industrial base is not 150 years behind it. Then again, I've heard Russian military equipment is in just as sorry a state. No idea what the Chinese military is like, but I'd imagine the real money is in selling to Americans rather than killing them. We're in this interesting place where it's entirely possible that the best military equipment is actually in the hands of private, ostensibly civilian companies. SpaceX has ballistic missiles with a CEP significantly smaller than a drone ship, for example, a feat that was unheard of during the Cold War. For that matter, the very concept of a drone ship would've been awfully helpful during the Battle of the Atlantic.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    I think a war between China and the US, with neutral Russia [1], would be truly terrifying. To given example of the level of sophistication, just have a look at [2]. All the signs point towards China overtaking the US in industrial power, if it hasn't already happened. [1] if Russia isn't neutral it would stay cold anyways due to MAD I think. [2] https://dms.licdn.com/playback/C4D05AQE8hl2GCSdo1Q/feedshare-aws-analyzed_servable_progressive_video?e=1555491600&v=beta&t=HDlb6B-v294Dlxbl-tzC-Gtw-DjFucaSeQ1HW642jUs https://dms.licdn.com/playback/C4D05AQE8hl2GCSdo1Q/feedshare...
    - atemerev 8y ago
      As a Russian, I hope that nuclear weapons still provide enough deterrence to avoid large-scale war between superpowers. However, this might not be the case, as said superpowers can just decide to avoid nuclear confrontation (because of immediate counterstrike) and still fight conventionally — just like chemical weapons weren’t used on large scale in WW2, compared to WW1.
llcoolv 8y ago
Well a decades-long oligopoly of two companies is similar to central planning in many aspects and his story indeed rings a lot of bells.
- lazyjones 8y ago
  It's good that the C919 and MC-21 have arrived to compete then. I just don't see how the catastrophic MCAS design could have been avoided with more competition...
- dosy 8y ago
  Poor Boeing, I guess they're putting all their best people and resources into off-world spacecraft.
- matt4077 8y ago
  In the last 50 years, fatalities per miles travelled have been reduced by a factor of 100. If that’s an oligopoly at work, I want to try a monopoly and see if it’s even better.
  - awakeasleep 8y ago
    Is there any evidence to attribute that process to the effects of oligopoly?
chippy 8y ago
"I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period and I can absolutely guarantee this happened." was in response to this comment: "I would be very surprised if in a few years from today a bunch of engineers don't testify that ample of warning was given to management about this. " Reddit doesn't make it easy to find what they replied to.
- cesarb 8y ago
  > Reddit doesn't make it easy to find what they replied to. The trick is to add ?context=3 to the end of the URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_reason_boeings_new_plane_crashed_twice/ekyyd9g/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_rea... (or for the better "old" interface: https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_reason_boeings_new_plane_crashed_twice/ekyyd9g/?context=3 https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_rea...)
  - dgritsko 8y ago
    I use the "Old Reddit Redirect" Chrome extension to automatically switch to old.reddit.com. It's kind of unbelievable how much worse the new site layout is by almost any metric (usability, performance, etc.). https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-redirect/dneaehbmnbhcippjikoajpoabadpodje?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-redirec...
    - whamlastxmas 8y ago
      I suspect reddit is going the way of Digg
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    Using old.reddit also lets you read the entire comment, which seems to be truncated for me in the new UI
- j_4 8y ago
  On the old layout there's a "parent" link under every comment. If you're not logged in, you can just add "old." at the start of the url.
Nokinside 8y ago
Neither safety critical software nor critical aircraft engineering relies on the personal quality of people involved. The safety is build into the process and the organizational structure. Usually involving multiple organizations that check each other's work. What can happen is collapse of the process and regulatory capture. Boeing is able to cut corners because FAA is cutting corners. FAA whistleblowers have demonstrated that FAA has culture that resulted in "malfeasance, bordering on corruption" https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-airlines4apr04-story.html https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-airlines4apr04-story.h... There is no sign that things are getting better. 737 MAX gained FAA certification on March 8, 2017. Meanwhile FAA has been running without administrator for two years. Trump tried to nominate his personal pilot, but when it failed he didn't nominate anyone. Dan Elwell is the acting administrator.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mgoia 8y ago
>This was inevitable. Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  'Evitable' means 'avoidable'. 'Inevitable' means 'not avoidable'. They mean the opposite, which is what you'd expect. It's nothing like 'inflammable' and 'flammable', which mean the same thing. Those two have different roots which is why there is confusion.
koolba 8y ago
> To this day, I refuse to fly on a 787. I'm sure that the Dreamliners that came off the assembly line after about a year or so were fine but there's that first year of production that, as far as I'm concerned, are ticking time bombs. I talked to many engineers who had worked on that program to know just how badly they rushed that initial production. Ouch. Anybody know where to get a list of who’s operating the planes from that first year of deliveries? Do airlines publish the serial numbers for upcoming flights? ie is it possible to check the delivery order of the plane you’re potentially flying on?
- dx034 8y ago
  Sometimes, online flight trackers estimate the registration prior to the flight and they usually have the serial number as well (otherwise you can look it up on airfleets, plane spotters etc). For some flights it's easy to estimate the registration yourself (if the only plane available is a current inbound flight). But generally, you won't get that info more than a day in advance. Airlines won't even know it more than a week in advance, they only know that it'll be one of a pool of planes of the same type.
  - dosy 8y ago
    But typically the same types of planes fly the same routes, I would imagine.
    - notahacker 8y ago
      Aircraft model is set in advance (has to be, the airline needs to know how many seats available to sell) but late model substitutions sometimes do happen. And if you want delivery year of the aircraft with an airline operating multiple aircraft of that type, you're probably going to have to know serial/tail number which might not be possible to determine until very late on.
- jnsaff2 8y ago
  https://www.planespotters.net/production-list/Boeing/787 https://www.planespotters.net/production-list/Boeing/787 rest should be easy. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_reason_boeings_new_plane_crashed_twice/ekz39ld/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_rea... gives some background and estimates the first 'safe' plane to be SN 27.
tlarkworthy 8y ago
"To this day, I refuse to fly on a 787. I'm sure that the Dreamliners that came off the assembly line after about a year or so were fine but there's that first year of production that, as far as I'm concerned, are ticking time bombs." He doesn't like the Dreamliner too! Eeek! That was the best value for crossing the Atlantic. Damn, this is gonna haunt me now, I liked flying those :(
tomohawk 8y ago
Its interesting how an unknown source making unverifiable claims on a site which is basically a rumor mill gets so much attention.
- gruez 8y ago
  It's not, if you think about it. People believe what they want to hear. Unverified post agreeing with the popular narrative gets immediately accepted as fact, and posts disagreeing with the narrative gets accused of being shills or damage control. I'm not saying this guy is a fraud, but if there's no supporting evidence, there's no evidence to believe him.
  - Pigo 8y ago
    There's probably some truth to it, but there is probably some confirmation bias to his story. I have no love for big companies with horrible corporate culture. But this is like a Yelp review from an unsatisfied customer, might be true, but should be taken with a grain of salt.
  - Scuds 8y ago
    I don't know about the safety record stuff - but I've been told stories from people who've seen it first hand about the waste and red tape and fiefdom defense and a staff counting the days to retirement and all the gross counter-examples to unionization like out of a General Motors horror story from thirty years ago. > I'm not saying this guy is a fraud, but if there's no supporting evidence, there's no evidence to believe him. C'mon you've been around long enough to know that this is just a datapoint in a field of datapoints. You're not going to get a youtube video of people putting their feet up on their desks. But you get enough data points and you can draw a trend line.
- okmokmz 8y ago
  Have you read through the other comments here and on reddit? Many people have had similarly bad experiences
- spookthesunset 8y ago
  this happens all the time on reddit and it definitely worries me a bit. People post what is, for all I know, complete fiction and people seemingly take it as fact. Point out that it could be made up and watch those downvotes fly...
hacknat 8y ago
I lived in Seattle for 7 years and got to know some Boeing project managers. The stories they told are very similar to this one. Apparently the life of a Boeing PM or Engineer is endless meetings, I asked one of my friends why this was the case. His response? A good chunk of the managers at Boeing won’t use email.
- philpem 8y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if this was a liability thing. You can't subpoena a conversation unless it was recorded...
  - dilyevsky 8y ago
    It’s standard practice for big corp to auto-erase emails after N months for this reason (well officially they dress it as cost saving measure).
- pier25 8y ago
  Not being able to use modern forms of communication is one of the biggest problems where I work now. I'm in a remote team and we are completely isolated to whatever happens in the company. Most departments only get reached by management when there is a problem. It's a relatively small company of about 50 employees and there is zero sense of team work.
village-idiot 8y ago
Everything I learn about Boeing smells of the traditional failings of “national hero” type industries, where national pride and government incentives effectively isolate a company from any sense of responsibility; economic, moral, or otherwise. Can’t help but wonder if Airbus is any different, and if so, why?
jcadam 8y ago
I worked at Boeing on a large satellite program back in this same time frame (2008-2011). I worked on the software simulator for the satellite that was used to test flight code and the ground system (i.e., give the ground control software simulated satellites to talk to, and to ring out procedures). Anyway, as the final configuration for this satellite was still being tweaked, I needed to get updated mass properties (in order to simulate the physics properly) from the team working on the real satellite as the configuration changed (e.g., they added more batteries, solar panels, decreased RCS tank size, etc.). Ordinarily, these would be emailed to me in an excel spreadsheet every so often. I would make the updates, life would go on. Now, internally, the simulator software worked with metric units, and the spreadsheet I received would also use metric units. Apparently, one day an engineering manager on the vehicle team found out that one of their engineers had been "helping" the simulator team by plugging the mass properties into an excel spreadsheet, translating the units from imperial to metric, and sending them to me (I did not know any of this, of course... I just knew the vehicle team would send me updated mass properties from time to time). This was an outrageous affront to said manager, who ordered his folks to not expend any time helping "some other team." So, the next time I needed updated mass properties, what did I get? A faxed copy of something that looked like it had been generated on an old line printer. I called and asked "Where is the spreadsheet?" and got "Sorry, that's all I can do anymore." Some of the numbers were questionably legible, but I tried to use it anyway. As I was making my updates, I noticed the numbers were way off. Units weren't labeled on the fuzzy faxed copy, so it took me a few minutes to realize that the vehicle engineering team apparently worked with imperial units internally. Angry phone calls back and forth ensued, but I don't recall the (political) issue ever being fixed. I didn't stay much longer, so I don't know if it was ever resolved.
- rajbot 8y ago
  I’m surprised there wasn’t a push to standardize units after this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    I'm all for Freedom Units... But honestly if you're doing aerospace you just use metric and that's all there is to it! Period. This is true for almost all engineering. I use metric but it is annoying in PCB design because mils is the standard there and those are just Tiny Freedom Units. I'd be in favor of switching to metric for USA, but I see no indication of that happening. But a company has a choice esp one the size of Boeing!
Pigo 8y ago
I contracted with a branch of Lockheed. While I couldn't/shouldn't talk about any of the technology involved, I can attest to the culture I witnessed. I always assumed it was horrible because of the government affiliation. But I think that mostly affected their focus, in that most of the branch was dedicated to wasting money so they could ask for more money. However, the culture itself was stagnate by design. Most of the employees actively fought anything that would require them to learn or change. EVERYONE was counting the clock to retirement. Anyone who wasn't in the same boat left as soon as they got the big picture. It made me extremely pessimistic about taxes.
- dmonagha 8y ago
  I worked at a similar large aerospace contractor just in the past couple years. I can attest 100% to what you've said. They estimated they would need to replace 40% of their workforce within the next 10 years just to stay afloat. Recently at my old site they hired 1000 people. Within a year, 800 had quit. These are software engineers, mechanical engineers, etc. I watched people just play on their phones, keep their feet up, basically do nothing at all. One guy showed up to work on the first day and was told by his manager : "I don't have an office, so you'll have to sit here for now". The manager then flew back to another state, and the guy did not see him ever again. For a year this guy played Candy Crush on an iPad and did nothing because no one else knew who he was or who he worked for. Eventually he got a new manager and his job was then unboxing computers...for a year...When I started working with him, he would go into a large empty lab and just lay down behind some boxes and nap for 2hrs a day. He was hired to be some sort of cost accountant. This was not uncommon, it was rampant. I still cannot believe workplaces like that exist.
  - amyjess 8y ago
    Wait, the forgotten employee from Dilbert [0] is real? Learn something new every day... [0] https://dilbert.com/strip/1992-05-05 https://dilbert.com/strip/1992-05-05
  - Pigo 8y ago
    I understand why people laugh at the stories I tell from there, I laugh at it now that my time is over. But when you're in it, it's just disheartening. No one wants to tell their grandkids "I was in a lot of meetings, and I was the best at looking busy".
okmokmz 8y ago
I'm currently working at Boeing, and had a very similar experience to him getting onboarded as a contractor on a major project. Just as an example, I'm going to outline the steps it took to get me a proper badge 1. Filled out badge request form and gave it to my manager who gave it to the person who would be my manager at boeing 2. 4 months later have to refill out form because they lost it 3. 1.5 months later I receive badge, but it doesn't have the chip I require 4. Get told by manager to go back to badge office and get chip, but apparently the form was submitted by someone who actually isn't my manager but is listed as my manager and they selected "no chip" so they can't reissue until they get a new form 5. My manager submits new form requesting chip, go back to badge office and get told I can't get a chipped card because he isn't technically my manager so they need to change my assigned manager first 6. Actual manager attempts to contact the person boeing says is my manager multiple times, after about 3 weeks they hear back from them 7. Manager finally changed so he sends email to badge office saying that he is now my manager and I need the badge 8. Go back to badge office and they can't give me chipped badge because he submitted the form before he was my manager and the email isn't sufficient. 9. He submits new form, go to badge office and they finally give me chipped badge And mind you, everyone is so lazy that it takes multiple days minimum for every communication with anyone. So essentially Boeing payed me for an extended amount of time where I couldn't really do anything because no one cared to get me what I needed to do my job. Also, that was only the first piece. I am still working on getting everything else I need, and it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. Another thing I hate is everything costs a ton of money and is garbage. No free coffee, no free tea, no free snack, no free cups, no free stirring sticks, and the cafeteria food and options they do have are way over priced and worse than dog food. The majority of the staff are old, sad white men that don't seem to want to do anything. Oh, and on top of everything the project is 100% in the cloud but the out of touch manager requires everyone to be onsite By far the worst company I have ever had the displeasure of being contracted at. Can't wait to be done edit: thought of another wonderful example, I once heard a member of the "security" team say that their job is to just say no to everything that comes their way
- rargramble 8y ago
  > Old, sad white men Would it be better if they were old, sad black men?
socrates1998 8y ago
Wow, good to know. I won't be going anywhere near a 787.
- spookthesunset 8y ago
  Good thing the poster of the story is totally verified legit and not at all making things up for fun or profit.
  - zanmat0 8y ago
    All that sweet karma profit!
MagicPropmaker 8y ago
This was interesting > When I showed up at my first day of work, the first words out of my supervisor's mouth were, "I don't know why you are here, we have no need for programmers." (The Boeing interview process is done so that at no point, do you ever have contact or communication with the team you will be working with.) My first job out of college in 1984 was with Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage Long Island. I was hired by a college recruiter and didn't speak to anyone on the team I would be on 'til my first day of work. They had no work for us to do. I left after exactly one year. I wrote some utility programs to format compiler errors just for fun. They had these "cost plus" contracts with the Navy and they could make a few extra dollars by making a small profit charging for some junior workers on a project. The F-14D project was canceled a few years after I left.
JustACoward123 8y ago
Not every big company is bad at this. I used to work for a large company in the aerospace sector (not an aircraft maker) where software was a big part of what they did. I was in the safety assurance part of the company, and on a couple of occasions I had to tell management that the software wasn't up to scratch. One of them was The Big Project On Which Everything Depends. Management didn't even blink. They went straight back to the supplier and spent the next several weeks in tough negotiations about timescale and how the additional costs were going to be split. The project was delayed, and I got zero blowback. They didn't even argue with me. The nearest I got to argument was some careful review of my report, which was perfectly reasonable given the amount of money at stake. I'm posting anonymously here and not naming names because I stand by my duty of confidentiality. But I am proud to have worked there.
starpilot 8y ago
In his other comments, he walks back on his remarks: > Also, in all fairness to my hated former employer, air travel is still by far the safest form of travel. Even with the shitshow at Boeing, Boeing planes manage to be incredibly safe. I'm really not sure how, but they are. > And it might be because I grew up around Boeing, but I'd still fly Boeing over Airbus, to be perfectly honest. Airbus makes good planes, but that reliance on computers over pilots just makes me nervous. > Even the 787, despite all the horrible issues with the initial run, is probably going to be an exceptionally safe plane due to the carbon fiber construction. So it sounds like much of his commentary is of the "how the sausage is made" nature that is common to the gestation of many (all?) complex products. You probably have nothing to worry about with air travel.
- pas 8y ago
  > You probably have nothing to worry about with air travel. Well, the conclusion is already made in the statistics, and air travel is the safest, yes, but it's worrying that it's safe despite the enormous fallacies, despite the insane pressure of market forces. A very eye-opening thing is to watch what the pilots should have done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xixM_cwSLcQ&t=16m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xixM_cwSLcQ&t=16m55s Runaway stabilizer scenario has associated memory items (meaning the pilot must have the checklist committed to memory). There are big wheels that turn, with noise and a big visibility marking. This was Boeing's initial defense too, that the pilots fucked up, because disabling any electronics works the same way. (There's a cutoff switch.) So if something is doing something, shut off the power, rotate the wheels manually. And in this regard Boeing is right. Pilots decisionmaking was suboptimal. However, it is Boeing's fault that they opted for a no-training-required strategy. A similar WTF is that pilots don't keep up with the aviation industry news. How - the fuck - can you pilot a plane that you know nothing about (except that your license is valid for it)!?
  - starpilot 8y ago
    Commercial pilots these days are glorified bus drivers. Pay is similar too.
- AWildC182 8y ago
jedberg 8y ago
Interesting. I was hanging out at a wedding with someone right around that time frame who was one of the lead engineers on the 787 rollout. He too had similar comments about safety. He told us that the 787 was failing it's FAA tests, but since the head of Boeing's relationship with the FAA was a former FAA tester, he "helped" the FAA rewrite the tests so that the 787 would pass. I told him he may want to consider being a whistleblower, but his response was "well the AirBus didn't pass their FAA test either until they rewrote the tests". I still look at the overall safety numbers and realize that flying is still safer than driving, but it sounds like it could be safer still.
- ActorNightly 8y ago
  The difference is that driving is mostly under your control, while flying is not.
JohnFen 8y ago
"When I showed up at my first day of work, the first words out of my supervisor's mouth were, "I don't know why you are here, we have no need for programmers."" Wow. If that's not a huge red flag that you shouldn't work there, I don't know what one is. The only appropriate response to that, I think, is to say "OK, then, it was nice to meet you. I quit."
- SkyMarshal 8y ago
  Another appropriate response: “That’s odd, you build major products that sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, that tens of thousands of peoples’ lives literally depend on, and that are completely controlled by software, fly-by-wire, etc. And yet you have no need for programmers?”
anonfounder747 8y ago
It would be presumptuous to think "this is the real Boeing" based on anecdotes from people who worked there. Even in big companies, where a lot of folks are twiddling thumbs, there are undoubtedly teams where real quality work gets done. These teams are somewhat insulated from the bureaucratic environment around them and attract true performers.
- RealityVoid 8y ago
  Do you think that the teams are insular or the people who know what they are doing are insular? Because in my experience the people that do the heavy lifting are just randomly distributed and are bright spots in a otherwise gray landscape.
  - anonfounder747 8y ago
    You do find good talent embedded in poorly performing teams, but that doesn't last very long (few years at most). People like to be around others with similar standards. Good talent will gravitate to teams with high quality talent and conversely good teams tend to pick good quality people. It's a form of sorting that over time results in people with similar standards working with one another.
cynoclast 8y ago
Most big government/military contractors are absolute shitshows because they get too much money and it's not very competitive. Instead of having a good product or even marketing, they just bribe congress to have a gargantuan budget and somehow they always wind up getting a big chunk of it. They should all be broken up as they're stifling the planet.
notoriousjpg 8y ago
I've had similar experiences with Airbus when we conducted technical feasibility on one of their maintenance mobility products. Couldn't get any technical documentation for the life of us, and once the product was presented, the design assumptions were so clearly flawed it was laughable. Authentication was implemented using iPad name. Yes, that name anyone can edit to be anything. No password. The assumption was just that everyone on the corporate network could be trusted.
nswest23 8y ago
I also worked there in that time frame and do not find most of the things in this post familiar. Boeing is a large company and things are not as homogeneous as this person implies.

None of that explains why MCAS would point the nose down when the nose is already down and the plane is flying into the ground at 500 knots.

spectramax 8y ago

Btw, the new "fix" for the MCAS has just been announced and discussed by a 40-year experienced pilot [1]. Turns out that while we shouldn't be doing armchair analysis and assuming the worst of the engineering, management and executive team; the software fix released appears to be rather elementary and MCAS should have been designed with these safety checks in the first place. Why it wasn't is a huge concern and we wonder what other systems are at risk. In summary, the software fix does the following: 1. Use inputs from both AOA sensors, if they disagree by 5.5 degrees, disable MCAS. Original MCAS system used only 1 AOA sensor and switched back and forth between the two after every flight. 2. Triple redundant filters, A) Average value reasonability filter B) Catastrophic failure low-to-high transition filter C) Left vs. Right AOA deviation filter 3. Limiting MCAS stab trim so that the elevator always can provide 1.2g of nose-up pitch authority for recovery. Furthermore, electric trim with the yoke switch will override MCAS. Turns out that armchair analysis was sort of on point and goes along with the incompetency at Boeing affirmed in this reddit post - sometimes, I wonder how we, humans, collectively build extraordinary monuments while we individually rest on stilts. [1] https://youtu.be/zGM0V7zEKEQ?t=370 https://youtu.be/zGM0V7zEKEQ?t=370

ptidhomme 8y ago
> I wonder how we, humans, collectively build extraordinary monuments while we individually rest on stilts My take is that we used to have brilliant engineers in the time where computational ressources were scarce (60s, 70 , 80s...), and they thought out their design thoroughly starting with a fucking paper and pencil. Aerospace indutries still rely on the designs from these times. But now engineering seems to be : let's ask my computing power what is the good design, with little further questioning.
- Gravityloss 8y ago
  There were a lot of failures and accidents back then. But in general, designers did get more experience because there were more aircraft programs and they were way faster. So if you designed, say, landing gear, you might have done quite many during your career. It was more "agile" in that sense. Nowadays companies can not go so quickly to production. The whole business has turned into oligopolies both in the main integrators and the suppliers.
- noncoml 8y ago
  Brilliant engineers are still there. We haven’t gotten stupider as a species in 30 years. It’s the economics that changed. As people say “They don’t build stuff like they used too anymore”. First we started going cheap on the materials. Now we are going cheap on the engineers too. Why pay a senior “brilliant” engineer $$$$ when a fresh out of college “average” engineer can write the “same piece of code” for $$
  - ptidhomme 8y ago
    Indeed, and I'd add that we are going cheap because we can, thanks to computing power. As a matter of fact : computing tools make a lot of things easier and cheaper (which is good). But the setback is a tendency to "laziness" in the whole process...
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    > “They don’t build stuff like they used too anymore”. In fairness part (but far from all) of the reason we don't build stuff like we used too, is because we have much better understanding of material limits so we don't need to over-design structual elements like we used to. How that understanding of material limits feeds into design obsolescence is where I do get annoyed though. With everything we know now we could (obviously) build things better (for whatever criteria you chose) than they did 50 or 100 years ago, if that was the goal but it rarely is. My favourite piece of civil engineering in the world (because it's nearby and I've ridden over it many times) was built in 1980 though (it's the exact same age as me) and its still awe-inspiring to look at. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Humber_Bridge_Sunset_Wideshot.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Humber_B...
thatoneuser 8y ago
Why do you say we shouldn't do armchair analysis right before you acknowledge that said analysis was on point? I think it's good our populace is eager to analyze. Ultimately we aren't making the decision, just forming a branch of decentralized checks. Long as witch hunts like the Boston bomber don't happen I say people should analyze till their hearts are content.
- spectramax 8y ago
  I agree with you but the general view is to avoid doing armchair analysis until official word is out. As far as armchair analysis doesn’t cause any harm, I think it’s fine!
tus87 8y ago
> 1. Use inputs from both AOA sensors, if they disagree by 5.5 degrees, disable MCAS. Great, and now you have the other problem the MCAS was supposed to mitigate (the tendency of the MAX to do backflips).
- noir_lord 8y ago
  Shrugs, if the MCAS disables with a clear notification to the pilots I think at this point most 737-Max pilots would know the procedure to deal with that. Better than the plane flying itself into the ground.
  - tus87 8y ago
    Which raises a rather obvious question ...
  - vkou 8y ago
    > Shrugs, if the MCAS disables with a clear notification to the pilots I think at this point most 737-Max pilots would know the procedure to deal with that. The plane is only certified to be 'identical to the 737' when MCAS is on, and operating correctly. If MCAS has to be disabled in response to a common mechanical problem, then the plane must be re-certified.
- cjrp 8y ago
  Although at least now you're trying to solve a more logical problem. Increasing angle of attack => counter with elevator, if not sufficient reduce thrust
  - foldr 8y ago
    Reducing thrust will increase angle of attack. The angle of attack is the angle of the wing relative to the airflow, not the angle of the plane relative to the horizon.
    - salawat 8y ago
      Yes conceptually, no because of signage error. If you were in a position MCAS would have to kick in, you were at positive AoA, reduced thrust would impart a negative AoA moment.
ozmaverick72 8y ago
The software fixes as described sound sensible and it's hard to believe they were not in the original design. Unfortunately I don't see how these changes will allow them to keep a common type rating with the 737 NG. After the updated MCAS has made its one shot trim adjustment you will now be flying an aircraft with different handling characteristics if you keep increasing the angle of attack into the stall. Surely the FAA can't sign off on the common type rating and half hour of video training ??
- peteradio 8y ago
  > Surely the FAA can't sign off on the common type rating and half hour of video training ?? What? Why not? They did a blood sacrifice and everything.
- PaulHoule 8y ago
  Having a new type rating is a fair punishment, I think, for Boeing and the airlines who have been stringing along this obsolete airliner for way too long. Note the 737 MAX was rushed out not just to fight the A320neo but also to counter this kind of jet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220 which is cheaper to run than the 737 MAX but also has much better passenger comfort than the 737. I was in the similar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_family#E175 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_family#E175 and even though it is a smaller plane, it feels more like riding in a widebody than in a 737. Canada developed a fully modern small jet on it's own dime and taking risk, then Boeing nearly killed it by offering airlines a 70% discount on the 737 MAX. Airbus bought a controlling interest in it for free because that was the only way it could survive. Common type rating is a big reason why airlines are sticking with the 1967 era 737 rather than upgrading to modern planes that will make flying much more pleasant, make less noise, use less fuel, less climate change impact, etc.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    How is the 737 obsolete?
    - 8y ago
ilogik 8y ago
> Original MCAS system used only 1 AOA sensor and switched back and forth between the two after every flight. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea??? Let's make it 10x more difficult to detect that there is a problem.
- 6nf 8y ago
  Just to explain a bit more: It uses the main pilot side AOA sensor, and pilots switch seats every flight.
  - amelius 8y ago
    So switching seats during the flight would have solved the problem?
    - philpem 8y ago
      That sounds so unlikely that most people would dismiss it as silly... I'm not a pilot, but if the controls are linked -- why would the plane need to know where the pilot is sitting (or even have a switch for it)? (Any 747 pilots reading? Can you please fill in the gaps for me?)
      - cjbprime 8y ago
        Not a pilot either. Perhaps to show different information to the pilot flying vs. assisting? E.g. only the pilot assisting needs to see checklists?
      - tellak 8y ago
        Not a 747 pilot (not sure why that matters here)... but a pilot. The flight positions are equal. The plane is designed to be flown the same from either flight position and this is routinely done. The guy saying otherwise is talking out their ass.
        philpem 8y ago
koenigdavidmj 8y ago
I thought that the flight immediately before this one had MCAS trouble too. Were both sensors busted, or was that actually an even number of cycles previous to the crash, and only the previous day?
- salawat 8y ago
  There was an extra pilot in the cockpit uninvolved with flying the plane. His participation in Crew Resource Management allowed the previous flight to correctly identify and remediate the issue before things became unrecoverable.
  - koenigdavidmj 8y ago
    I remember that, but if the issue was that one AOA instrument was broken, then only half the flights should be affected.
- tremon 8y ago
  The plane went through a maintenance cycle in-between the flights; it was suggested that the maintenance caused the chosen AoA sensor to flip twice. I'm not sure of the exact mechanics of this, but it's conceivable the maintenance crew performed a full engine or board computer boot cycle. Therefore, when the pilots started on their flight, it was the second warm-up since the previous flight, hence the same sensor was selected.
usrusr 8y ago
I wonder if the new iteration will also get an intermediate disable state, where you keep powered trim but shut out all automatic inputs. Defense in depth.
linuxftw 8y ago
> 1. Use inputs from both AOA sensors, if they disagree by 5.5 degrees, disable MCAS This can only mean that MCAS is disabled even more frequently. This is a terrible idea. This is like RAID0. The failure mode will increase greatly in complexity. MCAS might cut in and out, the plane might behave erratically. What the need to do is add a damn switch for 'disable MCAS' and tell people how and when to use the damn thing.
- magduf 8y ago
  No, they can't do that, because then they'd have to retrain the pilots, or maybe even have a different type rating, which would make them uncompetitive against the Airbus and Bombardier planes. Remember, profits are more important than passengers' lives.
  - pas 8y ago
    > because then they'd have to retrain the pilots, I think that ship has sailed already.
  - linuxftw 8y ago
    Just booked a flight. Price between two major carriers was about the same. One was a Boeing, the other Airbus. Guess who got my business?
agumonkey 8y ago
I don't get it, Boeing seemed to have a positive slope, with their plane outselling the competition. Fragile system design is hard to understand in this context. But maybe MCAS were conceived at a time where Boeing was more willing to cut corners.
garaetjjte 8y ago
>Furthermore, electric trim with the yoke switch will override MCAS. Does that mean it didn't override MCAS before? Really?
- pas 8y ago
  The point was, that they "just" put that shadow system there which will perfectly encapsulate the 737MAX to match the old 737 "interface". Now, they completely fucked that up. They did a so mindblowingly bad job, that anyone involved at the FAA who should have known about this should be in jail. Either for incompetence (negligence) or worse. They designed a system that relied on one input, operated periodically, told no one, documented nowhere, made it too powerful, always on, and un-turn-off-able, and spent the rest of the day corrupting/pleasing the FAA, then made the AoA input mismatch light an upsell feature, and finally called it a day.
- parrellel 8y ago
  Yep, this being one of the reasons the planes went splat.
morpheuskafka 8y ago
I know very little about aircraft, but wouldn't making the MCAS less powerful increase the risk of a stall? How do we know that there would be a net decrease in crashes?
- pas 8y ago
  We know nothing about how many times MCAS got engaged, maybe Boeing does. Who knows.* Furthermore, the problem seems to be that there is no explicit feedback about this from the pilots, because some of them did not even know about this. Consequently there was no widespread beta test in simulators, meaning there was not much data to base the fine tuning on. * actually, since MCAS activates only when the plane is over the critical angle (according to the AoA sensor), and there are other warnings, probably those can be counted.

lordnacho 8y ago

My view of aircraft engineering has certainly changed since the 737 stuff came out. You always get told software engineers are a bunch of cowboys compared to aircraft people, because they have to put everything through a bunch of rigourous tests. I asked a friend who trains commercial pilots about it, and to my surprise he told me the processes to get things certified are political and hand-wavy.

carlmr 8y ago
>the processes to get things certified are political and hand-wavy The big processes that make everything less cowboy inevitably lead to the build-up of people that only do politics and processes and are far removed from actually desigining code.
gmueckl 8y ago
I haven't worked for aviation yet, but from what I have seen in other areas that need certification processes, the system is setup in a way that invites gaming it. In Europe, most certifications are performed by competing private companies. That cannot possibly go wrong and erode standards, right?
- seren 8y ago
  Dieselgate happened in spite of having tests executed by "independent" bodies, even if it certainly looks better, it is not fail safe either. But it is harder to plead ignorance, incompetence or bad luck when you have purposely implemented a code that run only in test settings.
  - dfox 8y ago
    Dieselgate has nothing to do with who performs the testing but is an clear example that if you as an regulator want X, but test for Y, manufacturers will optimize for Y and ignore X.
atemerev 8y ago
The problem is not “cowboy attitude” or “bureaucratic swamp”; these are two sides of the same coin, process inefficiency promotes corner-cutting. The problem is lack of care. They don’t even seem to care about the money, judging from their current stock prices.

curiousDog 8y ago

Unpopular opinion, but had this happened at a company that hired H1-Bs, people would’ve jumped on the incompetent immigrants band-wagon immediately. This here is a fine example of the classic American work ethic devolving into sheer laziness. FWIW, I saw this happen at another Military contractor (Northrop Grumman) too!

nostrademons 8y ago
Sometimes I wonder what'll happen if the United States ever has to fight a war against an opponent whose industrial base is not 150 years behind it. Then again, I've heard Russian military equipment is in just as sorry a state. No idea what the Chinese military is like, but I'd imagine the real money is in selling to Americans rather than killing them. We're in this interesting place where it's entirely possible that the best military equipment is actually in the hands of private, ostensibly civilian companies. SpaceX has ballistic missiles with a CEP significantly smaller than a drone ship, for example, a feat that was unheard of during the Cold War. For that matter, the very concept of a drone ship would've been awfully helpful during the Battle of the Atlantic.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  I think a war between China and the US, with neutral Russia [1], would be truly terrifying. To given example of the level of sophistication, just have a look at [2]. All the signs point towards China overtaking the US in industrial power, if it hasn't already happened. [1] if Russia isn't neutral it would stay cold anyways due to MAD I think. [2] https://dms.licdn.com/playback/C4D05AQE8hl2GCSdo1Q/feedshare-aws-analyzed_servable_progressive_video?e=1555491600&v=beta&t=HDlb6B-v294Dlxbl-tzC-Gtw-DjFucaSeQ1HW642jUs https://dms.licdn.com/playback/C4D05AQE8hl2GCSdo1Q/feedshare...
  - atemerev 8y ago
    As a Russian, I hope that nuclear weapons still provide enough deterrence to avoid large-scale war between superpowers. However, this might not be the case, as said superpowers can just decide to avoid nuclear confrontation (because of immediate counterstrike) and still fight conventionally — just like chemical weapons weren’t used on large scale in WW2, compared to WW1.

llcoolv 8y ago

Well a decades-long oligopoly of two companies is similar to central planning in many aspects and his story indeed rings a lot of bells.

lazyjones 8y ago
It's good that the C919 and MC-21 have arrived to compete then. I just don't see how the catastrophic MCAS design could have been avoided with more competition...
dosy 8y ago
Poor Boeing, I guess they're putting all their best people and resources into off-world spacecraft.
matt4077 8y ago
In the last 50 years, fatalities per miles travelled have been reduced by a factor of 100. If that’s an oligopoly at work, I want to try a monopoly and see if it’s even better.
- awakeasleep 8y ago
  Is there any evidence to attribute that process to the effects of oligopoly?

chippy 8y ago

"I worked at Boeing for about 1.5 years in the 2008-9 time period and I can absolutely guarantee this happened." was in response to this comment: "I would be very surprised if in a few years from today a bunch of engineers don't testify that ample of warning was given to management about this. " Reddit doesn't make it easy to find what they replied to.

cesarb 8y ago
> Reddit doesn't make it easy to find what they replied to. The trick is to add ?context=3 to the end of the URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_reason_boeings_new_plane_crashed_twice/ekyyd9g/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_rea... (or for the better "old" interface: https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_reason_boeings_new_plane_crashed_twice/ekyyd9g/?context=3 https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_rea...)
- dgritsko 8y ago
  I use the "Old Reddit Redirect" Chrome extension to automatically switch to old.reddit.com. It's kind of unbelievable how much worse the new site layout is by almost any metric (usability, performance, etc.). https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-redirect/dneaehbmnbhcippjikoajpoabadpodje?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-redirec...
  - whamlastxmas 8y ago
    I suspect reddit is going the way of Digg
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  Using old.reddit also lets you read the entire comment, which seems to be truncated for me in the new UI
j_4 8y ago
On the old layout there's a "parent" link under every comment. If you're not logged in, you can just add "old." at the start of the url.

Nokinside 8y ago

Neither safety critical software nor critical aircraft engineering relies on the personal quality of people involved. The safety is build into the process and the organizational structure. Usually involving multiple organizations that check each other's work. What can happen is collapse of the process and regulatory capture. Boeing is able to cut corners because FAA is cutting corners. FAA whistleblowers have demonstrated that FAA has culture that resulted in "malfeasance, bordering on corruption" https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-airlines4apr04-story.html https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-airlines4apr04-story.h... There is no sign that things are getting better. 737 MAX gained FAA certification on March 8, 2017. Meanwhile FAA has been running without administrator for two years. Trump tried to nominate his personal pilot, but when it failed he didn't nominate anyone. Dan Elwell is the acting administrator.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mgoia 8y ago

>This was inevitable. Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

chrisseaton 8y ago
'Evitable' means 'avoidable'. 'Inevitable' means 'not avoidable'. They mean the opposite, which is what you'd expect. It's nothing like 'inflammable' and 'flammable', which mean the same thing. Those two have different roots which is why there is confusion.

koolba 8y ago

> To this day, I refuse to fly on a 787. I'm sure that the Dreamliners that came off the assembly line after about a year or so were fine but there's that first year of production that, as far as I'm concerned, are ticking time bombs. I talked to many engineers who had worked on that program to know just how badly they rushed that initial production. Ouch. Anybody know where to get a list of who’s operating the planes from that first year of deliveries? Do airlines publish the serial numbers for upcoming flights? ie is it possible to check the delivery order of the plane you’re potentially flying on?

dx034 8y ago
Sometimes, online flight trackers estimate the registration prior to the flight and they usually have the serial number as well (otherwise you can look it up on airfleets, plane spotters etc). For some flights it's easy to estimate the registration yourself (if the only plane available is a current inbound flight). But generally, you won't get that info more than a day in advance. Airlines won't even know it more than a week in advance, they only know that it'll be one of a pool of planes of the same type.
- dosy 8y ago
  But typically the same types of planes fly the same routes, I would imagine.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    Aircraft model is set in advance (has to be, the airline needs to know how many seats available to sell) but late model substitutions sometimes do happen. And if you want delivery year of the aircraft with an airline operating multiple aircraft of that type, you're probably going to have to know serial/tail number which might not be possible to determine until very late on.
jnsaff2 8y ago
https://www.planespotters.net/production-list/Boeing/787 https://www.planespotters.net/production-list/Boeing/787 rest should be easy. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_reason_boeings_new_plane_crashed_twice/ekz39ld/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bdfqm4/the_real_rea... gives some background and estimates the first 'safe' plane to be SN 27.

tlarkworthy 8y ago

"To this day, I refuse to fly on a 787. I'm sure that the Dreamliners that came off the assembly line after about a year or so were fine but there's that first year of production that, as far as I'm concerned, are ticking time bombs." He doesn't like the Dreamliner too! Eeek! That was the best value for crossing the Atlantic. Damn, this is gonna haunt me now, I liked flying those :(

tomohawk 8y ago

Its interesting how an unknown source making unverifiable claims on a site which is basically a rumor mill gets so much attention.

gruez 8y ago
It's not, if you think about it. People believe what they want to hear. Unverified post agreeing with the popular narrative gets immediately accepted as fact, and posts disagreeing with the narrative gets accused of being shills or damage control. I'm not saying this guy is a fraud, but if there's no supporting evidence, there's no evidence to believe him.
- Pigo 8y ago
  There's probably some truth to it, but there is probably some confirmation bias to his story. I have no love for big companies with horrible corporate culture. But this is like a Yelp review from an unsatisfied customer, might be true, but should be taken with a grain of salt.
- Scuds 8y ago
  I don't know about the safety record stuff - but I've been told stories from people who've seen it first hand about the waste and red tape and fiefdom defense and a staff counting the days to retirement and all the gross counter-examples to unionization like out of a General Motors horror story from thirty years ago. > I'm not saying this guy is a fraud, but if there's no supporting evidence, there's no evidence to believe him. C'mon you've been around long enough to know that this is just a datapoint in a field of datapoints. You're not going to get a youtube video of people putting their feet up on their desks. But you get enough data points and you can draw a trend line.
okmokmz 8y ago
Have you read through the other comments here and on reddit? Many people have had similarly bad experiences
spookthesunset 8y ago
this happens all the time on reddit and it definitely worries me a bit. People post what is, for all I know, complete fiction and people seemingly take it as fact. Point out that it could be made up and watch those downvotes fly...

hacknat 8y ago

I lived in Seattle for 7 years and got to know some Boeing project managers. The stories they told are very similar to this one. Apparently the life of a Boeing PM or Engineer is endless meetings, I asked one of my friends why this was the case. His response? A good chunk of the managers at Boeing won’t use email.

philpem 8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if this was a liability thing. You can't subpoena a conversation unless it was recorded...
- dilyevsky 8y ago
  It’s standard practice for big corp to auto-erase emails after N months for this reason (well officially they dress it as cost saving measure).
pier25 8y ago
Not being able to use modern forms of communication is one of the biggest problems where I work now. I'm in a remote team and we are completely isolated to whatever happens in the company. Most departments only get reached by management when there is a problem. It's a relatively small company of about 50 employees and there is zero sense of team work.

village-idiot 8y ago

Everything I learn about Boeing smells of the traditional failings of “national hero” type industries, where national pride and government incentives effectively isolate a company from any sense of responsibility; economic, moral, or otherwise. Can’t help but wonder if Airbus is any different, and if so, why?

jcadam 8y ago

I worked at Boeing on a large satellite program back in this same time frame (2008-2011). I worked on the software simulator for the satellite that was used to test flight code and the ground system (i.e., give the ground control software simulated satellites to talk to, and to ring out procedures). Anyway, as the final configuration for this satellite was still being tweaked, I needed to get updated mass properties (in order to simulate the physics properly) from the team working on the real satellite as the configuration changed (e.g., they added more batteries, solar panels, decreased RCS tank size, etc.). Ordinarily, these would be emailed to me in an excel spreadsheet every so often. I would make the updates, life would go on. Now, internally, the simulator software worked with metric units, and the spreadsheet I received would also use metric units. Apparently, one day an engineering manager on the vehicle team found out that one of their engineers had been "helping" the simulator team by plugging the mass properties into an excel spreadsheet, translating the units from imperial to metric, and sending them to me (I did not know any of this, of course... I just knew the vehicle team would send me updated mass properties from time to time). This was an outrageous affront to said manager, who ordered his folks to not expend any time helping "some other team." So, the next time I needed updated mass properties, what did I get? A faxed copy of something that looked like it had been generated on an old line printer. I called and asked "Where is the spreadsheet?" and got "Sorry, that's all I can do anymore." Some of the numbers were questionably legible, but I tried to use it anyway. As I was making my updates, I noticed the numbers were way off. Units weren't labeled on the fuzzy faxed copy, so it took me a few minutes to realize that the vehicle engineering team apparently worked with imperial units internally. Angry phone calls back and forth ensued, but I don't recall the (political) issue ever being fixed. I didn't stay much longer, so I don't know if it was ever resolved.

rajbot 8y ago
I’m surprised there wasn’t a push to standardize units after this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  I'm all for Freedom Units... But honestly if you're doing aerospace you just use metric and that's all there is to it! Period. This is true for almost all engineering. I use metric but it is annoying in PCB design because mils is the standard there and those are just Tiny Freedom Units. I'd be in favor of switching to metric for USA, but I see no indication of that happening. But a company has a choice esp one the size of Boeing!

Pigo 8y ago

I contracted with a branch of Lockheed. While I couldn't/shouldn't talk about any of the technology involved, I can attest to the culture I witnessed. I always assumed it was horrible because of the government affiliation. But I think that mostly affected their focus, in that most of the branch was dedicated to wasting money so they could ask for more money. However, the culture itself was stagnate by design. Most of the employees actively fought anything that would require them to learn or change. EVERYONE was counting the clock to retirement. Anyone who wasn't in the same boat left as soon as they got the big picture. It made me extremely pessimistic about taxes.

dmonagha 8y ago
I worked at a similar large aerospace contractor just in the past couple years. I can attest 100% to what you've said. They estimated they would need to replace 40% of their workforce within the next 10 years just to stay afloat. Recently at my old site they hired 1000 people. Within a year, 800 had quit. These are software engineers, mechanical engineers, etc. I watched people just play on their phones, keep their feet up, basically do nothing at all. One guy showed up to work on the first day and was told by his manager : "I don't have an office, so you'll have to sit here for now". The manager then flew back to another state, and the guy did not see him ever again. For a year this guy played Candy Crush on an iPad and did nothing because no one else knew who he was or who he worked for. Eventually he got a new manager and his job was then unboxing computers...for a year...When I started working with him, he would go into a large empty lab and just lay down behind some boxes and nap for 2hrs a day. He was hired to be some sort of cost accountant. This was not uncommon, it was rampant. I still cannot believe workplaces like that exist.
- amyjess 8y ago
  Wait, the forgotten employee from Dilbert [0] is real? Learn something new every day... [0] https://dilbert.com/strip/1992-05-05 https://dilbert.com/strip/1992-05-05
- Pigo 8y ago
  I understand why people laugh at the stories I tell from there, I laugh at it now that my time is over. But when you're in it, it's just disheartening. No one wants to tell their grandkids "I was in a lot of meetings, and I was the best at looking busy".

okmokmz 8y ago

I'm currently working at Boeing, and had a very similar experience to him getting onboarded as a contractor on a major project. Just as an example, I'm going to outline the steps it took to get me a proper badge 1. Filled out badge request form and gave it to my manager who gave it to the person who would be my manager at boeing 2. 4 months later have to refill out form because they lost it 3. 1.5 months later I receive badge, but it doesn't have the chip I require 4. Get told by manager to go back to badge office and get chip, but apparently the form was submitted by someone who actually isn't my manager but is listed as my manager and they selected "no chip" so they can't reissue until they get a new form 5. My manager submits new form requesting chip, go back to badge office and get told I can't get a chipped card because he isn't technically my manager so they need to change my assigned manager first 6. Actual manager attempts to contact the person boeing says is my manager multiple times, after about 3 weeks they hear back from them 7. Manager finally changed so he sends email to badge office saying that he is now my manager and I need the badge 8. Go back to badge office and they can't give me chipped badge because he submitted the form before he was my manager and the email isn't sufficient. 9. He submits new form, go to badge office and they finally give me chipped badge And mind you, everyone is so lazy that it takes multiple days minimum for every communication with anyone. So essentially Boeing payed me for an extended amount of time where I couldn't really do anything because no one cared to get me what I needed to do my job. Also, that was only the first piece. I am still working on getting everything else I need, and it doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. Another thing I hate is everything costs a ton of money and is garbage. No free coffee, no free tea, no free snack, no free cups, no free stirring sticks, and the cafeteria food and options they do have are way over priced and worse than dog food. The majority of the staff are old, sad white men that don't seem to want to do anything. Oh, and on top of everything the project is 100% in the cloud but the out of touch manager requires everyone to be onsite By far the worst company I have ever had the displeasure of being contracted at. Can't wait to be done edit: thought of another wonderful example, I once heard a member of the "security" team say that their job is to just say no to everything that comes their way

rargramble 8y ago
> Old, sad white men Would it be better if they were old, sad black men?

socrates1998 8y ago

Wow, good to know. I won't be going anywhere near a 787.

spookthesunset 8y ago
Good thing the poster of the story is totally verified legit and not at all making things up for fun or profit.
- zanmat0 8y ago
  All that sweet karma profit!

MagicPropmaker 8y ago

This was interesting > When I showed up at my first day of work, the first words out of my supervisor's mouth were, "I don't know why you are here, we have no need for programmers." (The Boeing interview process is done so that at no point, do you ever have contact or communication with the team you will be working with.) My first job out of college in 1984 was with Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage Long Island. I was hired by a college recruiter and didn't speak to anyone on the team I would be on 'til my first day of work. They had no work for us to do. I left after exactly one year. I wrote some utility programs to format compiler errors just for fun. They had these "cost plus" contracts with the Navy and they could make a few extra dollars by making a small profit charging for some junior workers on a project. The F-14D project was canceled a few years after I left.

JustACoward123 8y ago

Not every big company is bad at this. I used to work for a large company in the aerospace sector (not an aircraft maker) where software was a big part of what they did. I was in the safety assurance part of the company, and on a couple of occasions I had to tell management that the software wasn't up to scratch. One of them was The Big Project On Which Everything Depends. Management didn't even blink. They went straight back to the supplier and spent the next several weeks in tough negotiations about timescale and how the additional costs were going to be split. The project was delayed, and I got zero blowback. They didn't even argue with me. The nearest I got to argument was some careful review of my report, which was perfectly reasonable given the amount of money at stake. I'm posting anonymously here and not naming names because I stand by my duty of confidentiality. But I am proud to have worked there.

starpilot 8y ago

In his other comments, he walks back on his remarks: > Also, in all fairness to my hated former employer, air travel is still by far the safest form of travel. Even with the shitshow at Boeing, Boeing planes manage to be incredibly safe. I'm really not sure how, but they are. > And it might be because I grew up around Boeing, but I'd still fly Boeing over Airbus, to be perfectly honest. Airbus makes good planes, but that reliance on computers over pilots just makes me nervous. > Even the 787, despite all the horrible issues with the initial run, is probably going to be an exceptionally safe plane due to the carbon fiber construction. So it sounds like much of his commentary is of the "how the sausage is made" nature that is common to the gestation of many (all?) complex products. You probably have nothing to worry about with air travel.

pas 8y ago
> You probably have nothing to worry about with air travel. Well, the conclusion is already made in the statistics, and air travel is the safest, yes, but it's worrying that it's safe despite the enormous fallacies, despite the insane pressure of market forces. A very eye-opening thing is to watch what the pilots should have done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xixM_cwSLcQ&t=16m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xixM_cwSLcQ&t=16m55s Runaway stabilizer scenario has associated memory items (meaning the pilot must have the checklist committed to memory). There are big wheels that turn, with noise and a big visibility marking. This was Boeing's initial defense too, that the pilots fucked up, because disabling any electronics works the same way. (There's a cutoff switch.) So if something is doing something, shut off the power, rotate the wheels manually. And in this regard Boeing is right. Pilots decisionmaking was suboptimal. However, it is Boeing's fault that they opted for a no-training-required strategy. A similar WTF is that pilots don't keep up with the aviation industry news. How - the fuck - can you pilot a plane that you know nothing about (except that your license is valid for it)!?
- starpilot 8y ago
  Commercial pilots these days are glorified bus drivers. Pay is similar too.
AWildC182 8y ago

jedberg 8y ago

Interesting. I was hanging out at a wedding with someone right around that time frame who was one of the lead engineers on the 787 rollout. He too had similar comments about safety. He told us that the 787 was failing it's FAA tests, but since the head of Boeing's relationship with the FAA was a former FAA tester, he "helped" the FAA rewrite the tests so that the 787 would pass. I told him he may want to consider being a whistleblower, but his response was "well the AirBus didn't pass their FAA test either until they rewrote the tests". I still look at the overall safety numbers and realize that flying is still safer than driving, but it sounds like it could be safer still.

ActorNightly 8y ago
The difference is that driving is mostly under your control, while flying is not.

JohnFen 8y ago

"When I showed up at my first day of work, the first words out of my supervisor's mouth were, "I don't know why you are here, we have no need for programmers."" Wow. If that's not a huge red flag that you shouldn't work there, I don't know what one is. The only appropriate response to that, I think, is to say "OK, then, it was nice to meet you. I quit."

SkyMarshal 8y ago
Another appropriate response: “That’s odd, you build major products that sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, that tens of thousands of peoples’ lives literally depend on, and that are completely controlled by software, fly-by-wire, etc. And yet you have no need for programmers?”

anonfounder747 8y ago

It would be presumptuous to think "this is the real Boeing" based on anecdotes from people who worked there. Even in big companies, where a lot of folks are twiddling thumbs, there are undoubtedly teams where real quality work gets done. These teams are somewhat insulated from the bureaucratic environment around them and attract true performers.

RealityVoid 8y ago
Do you think that the teams are insular or the people who know what they are doing are insular? Because in my experience the people that do the heavy lifting are just randomly distributed and are bright spots in a otherwise gray landscape.
- anonfounder747 8y ago
  You do find good talent embedded in poorly performing teams, but that doesn't last very long (few years at most). People like to be around others with similar standards. Good talent will gravitate to teams with high quality talent and conversely good teams tend to pick good quality people. It's a form of sorting that over time results in people with similar standards working with one another.

cynoclast 8y ago

Most big government/military contractors are absolute shitshows because they get too much money and it's not very competitive. Instead of having a good product or even marketing, they just bribe congress to have a gargantuan budget and somehow they always wind up getting a big chunk of it. They should all be broken up as they're stifling the planet.

notoriousjpg 8y ago

I've had similar experiences with Airbus when we conducted technical feasibility on one of their maintenance mobility products. Couldn't get any technical documentation for the life of us, and once the product was presented, the design assumptions were so clearly flawed it was laughable. Authentication was implemented using iPad name. Yes, that name anyone can edit to be anything. No password. The assumption was just that everyone on the corporate network could be trusted.

nswest23 8y ago

I also worked there in that time frame and do not find most of the things in this post familiar. Boeing is a large company and things are not as homogeneous as this person implies.