5 ms·
Such a crappy aircraft - can we just get rid of these already?
by outside1234 3y ago
Such a crappy aircraft - can we just get rid of these already?
- jlmorton 3y agoAlways refactor
- kube-system 3y agoBolts can be loosened, or fail to be tightened on any aircraft. I suspect this may be a problem with people and/or procedure.
- RomanPushkin 3y agoThe question is not about bolts, but more about what else is hidden there, what else is mechanically neglected that's waiting in there to take lives
- adrian_b 3y agoSince the aircraft with the incident was extremely new, it is pretty certain that the bolts have not been properly assembled at Boeing, so the problem is with their assembly procedures.
- kube-system 3y agoThe fuselage of this plane is not built by Boeing. It could be an issue with the contractor, Spirit AeroSystems, who builds it. It could be an issue with some other final configuration procedure. We'll need to wait for the investigation to conclude.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thatjoeoverthr 3y agoIf it’s built so sloppily, will you manage to think of literally every mistake they might have made?
- infotainment 3y agoAgreed — while we’re at it, let’s break Boeing up into multiple firms. It has been “too big to fail” for too long.
- jerlam 3y agoNot sure that would help - the Boeing subcontractor that likely played a role in the defective parts, Spirit Aero, was previously part of Boeing and spun off in 2005.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoIf Boeing has insufficient competition, they don't have to care because their customers have limited alternatives. If they don't have to care then they don't have to care if their subcontractors care. They also have limited fear of regulators because the US government will be wary about damaging the country's sole supplier in an important industry. Break them up and it's easier for both the market and the government to punish bad behavior.
- hef19898 3y agoAnd how would you break up Boeing to create more competition for civil airliners exactly?
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoMake five of them that each have full rights to the existing company's designs and split their existing physical plant between them. Does one of the new companies have the only plant that makes a certain type of component? That's fine, customers can buy from them like they buy from the existing Boeing, but now the other sister companies have the incentive to build another plant to compete for that business, and the first company has the incentive to keep prices competitive to deter them from doing that. For five years they have to sell to each other for cost, giving them enough time to either negotiate with each other or build new facilities. They all have the rights to the existing designs, and can create derivatives, but they don't automatically get the rights to the others' derivatives, so they have the incentive to specialize or develop new designs to find a niche, for the same reason the Boeing 737 isn't an exact clone of the Airbus A320 or vice versa.
- KptMarchewa 3y agoForce it to develop actually new airplane, not rely on grandfathered type license from 60 years ago.
- selectodude 3y agoThey keep trying to do that. This mess of a plane is care of Southwest and Ryanair who wanted a re-engined 737, period.
- _jal 3y agoI don't know that they could. We're talking about Boeing, they're the sort of MBA hive that's embarrassed to have to employ engineers.
- Scoundreller 3y agoI wonder what automotive designs would look like if we allowed that kind of grandfathering. Or maybe we do but people keep wanting new car designs?
- RandallBrown 3y agoWe don't really get many new car designs do we? Aren't most cars just built on top of old platforms that only see iterative updates?
- toast0 3y agoI think a 2024 Boeing 737 Max is a lot closer to a 1968 737 original than a 2024 Honda Civic is to a 1972 Honda Civic. Car platforms change a lot more, a lot more often, IMHO.
- loloquwowndueo 3y agoI think you would be mistaken. The car’s engines probably have more in common than the two planes’ engines (low-bypass turbofans in the original, vs. latest high-bypass on the newest ones; engines so different that they changed the plane’s handling enough to require the maligned MCAS). Avionics are entirely different and arguably much more vital to the planes function than a car’s instruments. The interiors are also basically not comparable (sure they have seats but that’s about it).
- ramesh31 3y ago>Such a crappy aircraft - can we just get rid of these already? It was a beautiful aircraft, destroyed by years of management comittees. Boeing needs to be broken up and reorganized, full stop. Congress has to act. It is simply too important and vital of a company to US strategic interests to be left in this state.
- epicureanideal 3y agoMaybe Apple, or Elon Musk, or some other person or company with a spare hundred billion could spin up a decent aircraft company?
- ramesh31 3y ago>Maybe Apple, or Elon Musk, or some other person or company with a spare hundred billion could spin up a decent aircraft company? SV has tried and failed time and again to realize the enormity of undertaking that is commercial aviation. There are less than 10 countries in the world capable of producing and marketing a competitive modern civil airliner. And of those, a vast majority are state nationalized conglomerates, or in the case of Airbus multi-country efforts. It takes almost the entirety of a country's aviation workforce and industrial capacity to maintain just one of these companies. Boeing cannot be replaced. It has to be fixed.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoElon Musk doesn't have a spare hundred billion. Apple is one of the only entities that does, but it's not really their kind of market. Institutional customers that are going to expect gradual iteration and thorough specifications that allow independent third party repairs etc. That's more like Microsoft's kind of market, but uh... don't give them any ideas.
- bastardoperator 3y agoI can't even fathom what it would cost to ride an Apple airplane, coach.