6 ms·

Maybe they should have bit the bullet and fully redesigned the 737. Presumably future engines will be bigger still, will they just tack them onto this old desig

Maybe they should have bit the bullet and fully redesigned the 737. Presumably future engines will be bigger still, will they just tack them onto this old design as well? At the end of the day this is just a software fix.

Closi 6y ago
At this point they are in a corner, and from a corporate standpoint need this to compete with Airbus. The length of developing a fully new aircraft is too long considering the competition, assuming you aren’t particularly passionate about safety.
londons_explore 6y ago
> Maybe they should have bit the bullet and fully redesigned the 737. If I were the EU regulator, I would have forced them to... It's a great way to screw over Boeing (American) and boost sales for Airbus (EU), while having the fairly legit rationale that you no longer have confidence in the US regulator due to a long series of blunders, and you are not happy for a major new plane design to use a decades old type rating (and is therefore missing now-mandatory safety stuff).
- Cojen 6y ago
  Such a decision would also screw over EU airlines that still depend heavily on Boeing.
- chki 6y ago
  Doing that would mean acting in bad faith (obviously) but also breaking WTO Rules, i.e. international law, which can come with a big price tag if your caught (potentially unlikely in such a scenario and depends on the WTO being accepted by the US, which is also not very likely). That is on top of being sued by Boeing in Court for wrongfully denying the recertification. So I'm not sure whether that would really be a consideration.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Well there was the whole 300% tax on Bombardier debacle, boeing got them punished without even having a competing aircraft! https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/news/companies/boeing-bombardier-trade-ruling-tariff/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/news/companies/boeing-bomba...
    - FeistyOtter 6y ago
      Well, they drove Bombardier CSeries (a small barely competing program with some potential) into the hands of Airbus (a huge threat with production and logistics capabilities) for free. In the end USA won (they got production of new aircraft on their soil). Boeing? A total loss.
- cdolan 6y ago
  You must be a real gem to work with
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  > It's a great way to screw over Boeing (American) and boost sales for Airbus (EU), while having the fairly legit rationale that you no longer have confidence in the US regulator due to a long series of blunders Trade agreements are written to anticipate this sort of thing.
hindsightbias 6y ago
This is a 20 year old question. A new single or small twin isle would cost $10-20B and take 8 years to develop and certify on the optimistic side. Given they're still bleeding on the 787, the 777X may be cancelled, KC-46 fiasco, Airbus competition, they have to go with what they have.
- bmitc 6y ago
  Why is that the consumer’s problem? It’s literally playing with people’s lives just because a company is bad at what they do.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Not at all excusing what’s happened, but if Boeing and Airbus disappear, who’ll create the new jumbo jets? You can’t just kill a company like that. You can fine the living daylights out of them, sure, but don’t kill them.
    - bmitc 6y ago
      Regarding Boeing, it’s my opinion that you don’t kill off the whole company but rather kill off all the regulation loopholes that allowed this 737 Max mess to begin with. If Boeing can’t get their plane fixed and certified, properly, then big deal. That’s their problem. If they fail because they can’t sell their “new” broken plane, they killed themselves off. The even bigger problem is that our governments allow companies to get to these “too big to fail” states, and I myself am pretty tired of it. Every single time it is the consumer that pays, either literally or with their lives.
      - colejohnson66 6y ago
        Something definitely needs to be done about it, but “too big to fail” is a very real thing. Regulation fixes, corporate culture fixes, something, but killing the companies that are “too big to fail” isn’t a good idea in most cases.
MAGZine 6y ago
As with software, restarting from scratch can introduce many, many bugs. Boeing planes are super safe from millions of flighthours and the learnings and failures from before. The older aircraft annealed into a state of safety and reliability from known-ness. "fully redesigning," introduces a lot more risk.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  >Boeing planes are super safe from millions of flighthours and the learnings and failures from before. Which you use to build off of.
  - MAGZine 6y ago
    in mission critical systems, build from scratches are rarely the case because any hiccups are disastrous. It's why banks still run on mainframes despite trying (quite desperately) to get away from that.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
      Building from scratch isn't really building from scratch is my point. You build off of what you have and revisit designs. They aren't reinventing the aircraft.
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
Every time I say this I get told I don't know what I'm talking about. You shouldn't be able to say "we followed all regulations" when people die and leave it at that. They should stop playing games and just design an aircraft.
outworlder 6y ago
> Maybe they should have bit the bullet and fully redesigned the 737 That's EXACTLY what they didn't want to do. Airbus was able to do the 320Neo without a redesign. They essentially slapped new engines on it and made tiny adjustments. Boom, fuel savings. Boeing wanted to do the same. Their design didn't accommodate the bigger, more efficient engines they wanted. So they created a workaround. Redesigning essentially means creating an entirely new aircraft, even if it looks similar. Requires a new type certification, which is a very lengthy process in itself. Requires pilot training for the new type rating. Possibly new simulators, and simulator time. Not all airlines even own simulators. Airlines like Southwest use all 737s exactly because that makes pilots interchangeable(simplifies logistics and maintenance too, but mostly it's about pilots). If I'm an airline and now you tell me my pilots need training, including expensive simulators, it's no longer the same aircraft(as in, not the same type rating). If it is not the same aircraft, that means I could choose any other aircraft. Such as these new Airbus models I've been hearing about... See the problem? MCAS wasn't such a bad solution on paper, it's just that the implementation sucked. It should have required some minimal training (which is much better than a new type rating) but Boeing didn't even want that.
- foota 6y ago
  If this seems unavoidable maybe the government should require all but trivial changes to aircraft to go through the same process. That said, airplanes are still very safe even with these tragic incidents.
- Geminidog 6y ago
  You're not wrong but with the crashes an actual redesign is needed.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    The crashes wouldn't have happened with a better implementation of the same design.
    - Geminidog 6y ago
kayfox 6y ago
This is exactly what Boeing had originally proposed, but the airlines did not want to incur the equipment and training costs to do it.

Closi 6y ago

At this point they are in a corner, and from a corporate standpoint need this to compete with Airbus. The length of developing a fully new aircraft is too long considering the competition, assuming you aren’t particularly passionate about safety.

londons_explore 6y ago

> Maybe they should have bit the bullet and fully redesigned the 737. If I were the EU regulator, I would have forced them to... It's a great way to screw over Boeing (American) and boost sales for Airbus (EU), while having the fairly legit rationale that you no longer have confidence in the US regulator due to a long series of blunders, and you are not happy for a major new plane design to use a decades old type rating (and is therefore missing now-mandatory safety stuff).

Cojen 6y ago
Such a decision would also screw over EU airlines that still depend heavily on Boeing.
chki 6y ago
Doing that would mean acting in bad faith (obviously) but also breaking WTO Rules, i.e. international law, which can come with a big price tag if your caught (potentially unlikely in such a scenario and depends on the WTO being accepted by the US, which is also not very likely). That is on top of being sued by Boeing in Court for wrongfully denying the recertification. So I'm not sure whether that would really be a consideration.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Well there was the whole 300% tax on Bombardier debacle, boeing got them punished without even having a competing aircraft! https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/news/companies/boeing-bombardier-trade-ruling-tariff/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/news/companies/boeing-bomba...
  - FeistyOtter 6y ago
    Well, they drove Bombardier CSeries (a small barely competing program with some potential) into the hands of Airbus (a huge threat with production and logistics capabilities) for free. In the end USA won (they got production of new aircraft on their soil). Boeing? A total loss.
cdolan 6y ago
You must be a real gem to work with
dodobirdlord 6y ago
> It's a great way to screw over Boeing (American) and boost sales for Airbus (EU), while having the fairly legit rationale that you no longer have confidence in the US regulator due to a long series of blunders Trade agreements are written to anticipate this sort of thing.

hindsightbias 6y ago

This is a 20 year old question. A new single or small twin isle would cost $10-20B and take 8 years to develop and certify on the optimistic side. Given they're still bleeding on the 787, the 777X may be cancelled, KC-46 fiasco, Airbus competition, they have to go with what they have.

bmitc 6y ago
Why is that the consumer’s problem? It’s literally playing with people’s lives just because a company is bad at what they do.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Not at all excusing what’s happened, but if Boeing and Airbus disappear, who’ll create the new jumbo jets? You can’t just kill a company like that. You can fine the living daylights out of them, sure, but don’t kill them.
  - bmitc 6y ago
    Regarding Boeing, it’s my opinion that you don’t kill off the whole company but rather kill off all the regulation loopholes that allowed this 737 Max mess to begin with. If Boeing can’t get their plane fixed and certified, properly, then big deal. That’s their problem. If they fail because they can’t sell their “new” broken plane, they killed themselves off. The even bigger problem is that our governments allow companies to get to these “too big to fail” states, and I myself am pretty tired of it. Every single time it is the consumer that pays, either literally or with their lives.
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      Something definitely needs to be done about it, but “too big to fail” is a very real thing. Regulation fixes, corporate culture fixes, something, but killing the companies that are “too big to fail” isn’t a good idea in most cases.

MAGZine 6y ago

As with software, restarting from scratch can introduce many, many bugs. Boeing planes are super safe from millions of flighthours and the learnings and failures from before. The older aircraft annealed into a state of safety and reliability from known-ness. "fully redesigning," introduces a lot more risk.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
>Boeing planes are super safe from millions of flighthours and the learnings and failures from before. Which you use to build off of.
- MAGZine 6y ago
  in mission critical systems, build from scratches are rarely the case because any hiccups are disastrous. It's why banks still run on mainframes despite trying (quite desperately) to get away from that.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
    Building from scratch isn't really building from scratch is my point. You build off of what you have and revisit designs. They aren't reinventing the aircraft.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

Every time I say this I get told I don't know what I'm talking about. You shouldn't be able to say "we followed all regulations" when people die and leave it at that. They should stop playing games and just design an aircraft.

outworlder 6y ago

> Maybe they should have bit the bullet and fully redesigned the 737 That's EXACTLY what they didn't want to do. Airbus was able to do the 320Neo without a redesign. They essentially slapped new engines on it and made tiny adjustments. Boom, fuel savings. Boeing wanted to do the same. Their design didn't accommodate the bigger, more efficient engines they wanted. So they created a workaround. Redesigning essentially means creating an entirely new aircraft, even if it looks similar. Requires a new type certification, which is a very lengthy process in itself. Requires pilot training for the new type rating. Possibly new simulators, and simulator time. Not all airlines even own simulators. Airlines like Southwest use all 737s exactly because that makes pilots interchangeable(simplifies logistics and maintenance too, but mostly it's about pilots). If I'm an airline and now you tell me my pilots need training, including expensive simulators, it's no longer the same aircraft(as in, not the same type rating). If it is not the same aircraft, that means I could choose any other aircraft. Such as these new Airbus models I've been hearing about... See the problem? MCAS wasn't such a bad solution on paper, it's just that the implementation sucked. It should have required some minimal training (which is much better than a new type rating) but Boeing didn't even want that.

foota 6y ago
If this seems unavoidable maybe the government should require all but trivial changes to aircraft to go through the same process. That said, airplanes are still very safe even with these tragic incidents.
Geminidog 6y ago
You're not wrong but with the crashes an actual redesign is needed.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  The crashes wouldn't have happened with a better implementation of the same design.
  - Geminidog 6y ago

kayfox 6y ago

This is exactly what Boeing had originally proposed, but the airlines did not want to incur the equipment and training costs to do it.