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The 737 Max issues are complicated, real and should be the object of study for generations of engineers and business students. That said, this article is useles

The 737 Max issues are complicated, real and should be the object of study for generations of engineers and business students. That said, this article is useless aside from anecdotal (and not surprising) morale issues in Boeing.

salawat 7y ago
Unfortunately, I believe that more value can be extracted from grinding the lessons into future management types, government representatives, and regulators. All the engineers in the world can't stop a bunch of executives capable of creating an environment so full of confusion, second guessing, and clouded communication capable of allowing these types of tragedies to occur. The mechanics of the problem laid bare were simple. The problem ended up being the levels of obfuscation and lack of coordination/miscommunication surrounding the certification process that allowed the aircraft to be certified and flown with a clearly uncategorized avionics system, and insufficient communications to pilot's that in the end could have negated the technical need for a more robust system, if they'd only known to look out for it..
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Honestly, I think it's crappy engineering, too. You can't throw this on the feet of generic execs or regulators. The behavior with AoA sensor disagreement (and the treatment of malfunctioning sensors) seems wrong. MCAS should have had failsafes around the number of trim adjustments it could do. You can talk all you want about how regulators should have required recertification, how Boeing shouldn't have just strapped a couple of higher bypass ratio engines onto the bottom of a 737 in the first place, or how it information about MCAS should have been presented.... but in the end, it's possible there would not have been accidents (or maybe more of them because of unexpected stalls, we'll never know) if there had been sanity checking of response values from either of the AoA sensors and if MCAS capped how many times it could trim. edit: it sucks to work on critical systems. In case it comes off differently, I feel badly for those involved. Nobody gives them credit thousands (more?) times a year an automatic flight control system engages and saves hundreds of lives without any passengers knowing. They ended up making MCAS because of decisions made outside of the realm of their control.
  - salawat 7y ago
    >Honestly, I think it's crappy engineering, too. You can't throw this on the feet of generic execs or regulators. The behavior with AoA sensor disagreement (and the treatment of malfunctioning sensors) seems wrong. MCAS should have had failsafes around the number of trim adjustments it could do. Watch the Australian 60 Minutes Expose on the MAX. A whistleblower has come forward and stated that they had to pipe in only a single sensor's input to avoid costly simulator training, which management pushed as an absolute necessity to avoid. I love Engineering. I love doing things right. I can't deny though that when you've got business breathing down your back, everyone seems more interested in getting what they want instead of what actually solves the problem in a sound way, that things never degenerate to the point where the engineering teams throw up their hands and say "Eff it! Take your plane and choke on it!" This is a textbook case of toxic engineering culture yielding toxic engineered product. Richard Feynman said it best after the Challenger disaster, and his words ring as true now as they did back then. "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public [or customer] relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
dan_quixote 7y ago
Speaking as a Seattle resident, heavy skepticism should follow any mynorthwest.com article. It basically exists as a foil to Seattle predominantly progressive culture.

salawat 7y ago

Unfortunately, I believe that more value can be extracted from grinding the lessons into future management types, government representatives, and regulators. All the engineers in the world can't stop a bunch of executives capable of creating an environment so full of confusion, second guessing, and clouded communication capable of allowing these types of tragedies to occur. The mechanics of the problem laid bare were simple. The problem ended up being the levels of obfuscation and lack of coordination/miscommunication surrounding the certification process that allowed the aircraft to be certified and flown with a clearly uncategorized avionics system, and insufficient communications to pilot's that in the end could have negated the technical need for a more robust system, if they'd only known to look out for it..

throwaway5752 7y ago
Honestly, I think it's crappy engineering, too. You can't throw this on the feet of generic execs or regulators. The behavior with AoA sensor disagreement (and the treatment of malfunctioning sensors) seems wrong. MCAS should have had failsafes around the number of trim adjustments it could do. You can talk all you want about how regulators should have required recertification, how Boeing shouldn't have just strapped a couple of higher bypass ratio engines onto the bottom of a 737 in the first place, or how it information about MCAS should have been presented.... but in the end, it's possible there would not have been accidents (or maybe more of them because of unexpected stalls, we'll never know) if there had been sanity checking of response values from either of the AoA sensors and if MCAS capped how many times it could trim. edit: it sucks to work on critical systems. In case it comes off differently, I feel badly for those involved. Nobody gives them credit thousands (more?) times a year an automatic flight control system engages and saves hundreds of lives without any passengers knowing. They ended up making MCAS because of decisions made outside of the realm of their control.
- salawat 7y ago
  >Honestly, I think it's crappy engineering, too. You can't throw this on the feet of generic execs or regulators. The behavior with AoA sensor disagreement (and the treatment of malfunctioning sensors) seems wrong. MCAS should have had failsafes around the number of trim adjustments it could do. Watch the Australian 60 Minutes Expose on the MAX. A whistleblower has come forward and stated that they had to pipe in only a single sensor's input to avoid costly simulator training, which management pushed as an absolute necessity to avoid. I love Engineering. I love doing things right. I can't deny though that when you've got business breathing down your back, everyone seems more interested in getting what they want instead of what actually solves the problem in a sound way, that things never degenerate to the point where the engineering teams throw up their hands and say "Eff it! Take your plane and choke on it!" This is a textbook case of toxic engineering culture yielding toxic engineered product. Richard Feynman said it best after the Challenger disaster, and his words ring as true now as they did back then. "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public [or customer] relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

dan_quixote 7y ago

Speaking as a Seattle resident, heavy skepticism should follow any mynorthwest.com article. It basically exists as a foil to Seattle predominantly progressive culture.