5 ms·

> Bickeböller's complaint endangered the planned inauguration of the 787, which had already been delayed due to technical difficulties. The problems identified

by nness 7y ago

> Bickeböller's complaint endangered the planned inauguration of the 787, which had already been delayed due to technical difficulties. The problems identified by the engineer, however, weren't addressed by Boeing, which is why he turned to EASA in June. [...] In those papers, it states that management and top executives at Boeing had ordered that the coordination problems with the company's suppliers be "closed." The reason: "to get the 787 production certificate." I, for one, hope this plane never flies again.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
We're talking about the 787 here, not the 737 variant that's falling out of the sky. Despite initial teething issues (something all big systems like this have to some extent) the 787 has gone on to be a successful design. To say "I, for one, hope this plane never flies again" is an overreaction, especially since said problems have been fixed and the plane is in service without the issue popping up.
- CivBase 7y ago
  If those are teething issues, I'm scared to find out what you'd consider to be a serious problem.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    They're fixed now, is the point. It wouldn't make sense to pull 787s now because the problems are fixed and it would throw global air travel into chaos and disarray (since this plane is now so widely used).
    - denton-scratch 7y ago
      Wot? Potentially-dangerous planes must be kept flying, because air-travel chaos and widely-used-ness?
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        I think you missed the point. "They're fixed now" != "potentially dangerous". (Unless you define all planes to be "potentially dangerous". But if you ground all such planes, you don't have an air travel industry at all.)
        salawat 7y ago
        They (787's) aren't necessarily all fixed. And in fact, I recall reading somewhere that the fix was to ensure that a 787 could not fly with any more than 1 of the batch of engines that has a penchant for premature turbine failure due to the high sulfur content of the atmosphere where the turbine blades were manufactured. Still not necessarily an "oh God, ground it", but there is a growing pile of very hard to stomach problems that the aviation industry is having to cope with this year. https://www.theengineer.co.uk/rolls-royce-problems-trent-1000/ https://www.theengineer.co.uk/rolls-royce-problems-trent-100...
      - tidepod12 7y ago
        You seem to have missed the multiple times that it was mentioned that the "potential problems" have been fixed. And yes, by the way, we keep potentially dangerous products in use all the time because the benefit of them remaining in service far outweighs the danger. Nearly every single medicine on the market comes with significant, dangerous side effects, but do we pull them all off the shelves and abandon the practice of medicine altogether? No, because that would be stupid.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Per TFA QA wasn't definitively being done not because they were too stupid to want it done but because of coordination issues with the suppliers because it was a new plane and they didn't have the process down yet. That is almost by definition teething issues. It takes some serious mental gymnastics to say with a straight face that coordination issues with suppliers when a product is first being made are not "teething issues." Sure, it points to systemic incompetency on some level but to say "I, for one, hope this plane never flies again." when the plane now has a proven track record of not being crap is an overreaction, to say the least.
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      The problem is expecting suppliers to do QA and judge whether something is fit for your purpose. Regardless of whatever indemnity the supplier provides it will always be your name on the product, and you should be solely responsible for ensuring the product meets your requirements. I do consider it evidence of organizational incompetence to state that you're staking your organization's reputation on some other organization that you don't own.
    - salawat 7y ago
      My issue as a Quality Assurance practitioner, is that this excuse (coordination issues) quite literally pops up everywhere, and one of the first skills you need to master to get anywhere with a business is to nip that attitude in the bud. No one will let you have the license to test what needs to be tested unless you are willing to hold up the entire project until you get your results/questions answered. It is not sufficient to get an unproven platform out there to build up "track record" to prove it is safe. That's ludicrous. That's how you get things blowing up, catching on fire, losing power, throwing turbine blades, what have you. You have to have your your fundamental analysis done, and if you are integrating with a major system from someone else, you need to bloody coordinate with them, and ideally talk with their Quality department. If your plane is going to be spending a lot of time in Asia, testing how your turbine should up to the atmosphere there is not an unreasonable experiment to run. Expensive? Yes. Difficult to prepare? Yes. Unreasonable? Goodness, no. The thing that scares the bajeezus out of me, is that I've not once come across anywhere that makes that kind of contact between organizational Quality departments feasible or efficient. In my pursuits, I basically end up having to do end runs around obstacles and become such a subject matter expert, I start asking questions that make other service providers nervous, because they don't know whether they're saying too much. I've spent so much time tearing stuff apart it's just natural to me to do so; but as I'm frequently reminded, I'm apparently not a typical specimen in my craft.
  - samstave 7y ago
    >...a serious problem Well the plane literally overriding the pilots physical commands of the controls and crashing into the ground killing ~300 people, IMHO is a “serious problem” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
    - magduf 7y ago
      I didn't look at your link, but if you're talking about the 737MAX, the OP isn't talking about that, he's talking about the 787. AFAIK, the "teething issues" the 787 had were about some batteries catching fire.
      - samstave 7y ago
        Please click the link
        magduf 7y ago
        No, I can't watch anything that has sound at work. Please don't post links for videos unless you're going to provide a transcription or something, as I'm sure me watching the video without any sound isn't going to get me anywhere.

by nness 7y ago

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

We're talking about the 787 here, not the 737 variant that's falling out of the sky. Despite initial teething issues (something all big systems like this have to some extent) the 787 has gone on to be a successful design. To say "I, for one, hope this plane never flies again" is an overreaction, especially since said problems have been fixed and the plane is in service without the issue popping up.

CivBase 7y ago
If those are teething issues, I'm scared to find out what you'd consider to be a serious problem.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  They're fixed now, is the point. It wouldn't make sense to pull 787s now because the problems are fixed and it would throw global air travel into chaos and disarray (since this plane is now so widely used).
  - denton-scratch 7y ago
    Wot? Potentially-dangerous planes must be kept flying, because air-travel chaos and widely-used-ness?
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      I think you missed the point. "They're fixed now" != "potentially dangerous". (Unless you define all planes to be "potentially dangerous". But if you ground all such planes, you don't have an air travel industry at all.)
      - salawat 7y ago
        They (787's) aren't necessarily all fixed. And in fact, I recall reading somewhere that the fix was to ensure that a 787 could not fly with any more than 1 of the batch of engines that has a penchant for premature turbine failure due to the high sulfur content of the atmosphere where the turbine blades were manufactured. Still not necessarily an "oh God, ground it", but there is a growing pile of very hard to stomach problems that the aviation industry is having to cope with this year. https://www.theengineer.co.uk/rolls-royce-problems-trent-1000/ https://www.theengineer.co.uk/rolls-royce-problems-trent-100...
    - tidepod12 7y ago
      You seem to have missed the multiple times that it was mentioned that the "potential problems" have been fixed. And yes, by the way, we keep potentially dangerous products in use all the time because the benefit of them remaining in service far outweighs the danger. Nearly every single medicine on the market comes with significant, dangerous side effects, but do we pull them all off the shelves and abandon the practice of medicine altogether? No, because that would be stupid.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Per TFA QA wasn't definitively being done not because they were too stupid to want it done but because of coordination issues with the suppliers because it was a new plane and they didn't have the process down yet. That is almost by definition teething issues. It takes some serious mental gymnastics to say with a straight face that coordination issues with suppliers when a product is first being made are not "teething issues." Sure, it points to systemic incompetency on some level but to say "I, for one, hope this plane never flies again." when the plane now has a proven track record of not being crap is an overreaction, to say the least.
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    The problem is expecting suppliers to do QA and judge whether something is fit for your purpose. Regardless of whatever indemnity the supplier provides it will always be your name on the product, and you should be solely responsible for ensuring the product meets your requirements. I do consider it evidence of organizational incompetence to state that you're staking your organization's reputation on some other organization that you don't own.
  - salawat 7y ago
    My issue as a Quality Assurance practitioner, is that this excuse (coordination issues) quite literally pops up everywhere, and one of the first skills you need to master to get anywhere with a business is to nip that attitude in the bud. No one will let you have the license to test what needs to be tested unless you are willing to hold up the entire project until you get your results/questions answered. It is not sufficient to get an unproven platform out there to build up "track record" to prove it is safe. That's ludicrous. That's how you get things blowing up, catching on fire, losing power, throwing turbine blades, what have you. You have to have your your fundamental analysis done, and if you are integrating with a major system from someone else, you need to bloody coordinate with them, and ideally talk with their Quality department. If your plane is going to be spending a lot of time in Asia, testing how your turbine should up to the atmosphere there is not an unreasonable experiment to run. Expensive? Yes. Difficult to prepare? Yes. Unreasonable? Goodness, no. The thing that scares the bajeezus out of me, is that I've not once come across anywhere that makes that kind of contact between organizational Quality departments feasible or efficient. In my pursuits, I basically end up having to do end runs around obstacles and become such a subject matter expert, I start asking questions that make other service providers nervous, because they don't know whether they're saying too much. I've spent so much time tearing stuff apart it's just natural to me to do so; but as I'm frequently reminded, I'm apparently not a typical specimen in my craft.
- samstave 7y ago
  >...a serious problem Well the plane literally overriding the pilots physical commands of the controls and crashing into the ground killing ~300 people, IMHO is a “serious problem” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
  - magduf 7y ago
    I didn't look at your link, but if you're talking about the 737MAX, the OP isn't talking about that, he's talking about the 787. AFAIK, the "teething issues" the 787 had were about some batteries catching fire.
    - samstave 7y ago
      Please click the link
      - magduf 7y ago
        No, I can't watch anything that has sound at work. Please don't post links for videos unless you're going to provide a transcription or something, as I'm sure me watching the video without any sound isn't going to get me anywhere.