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Offhand, what I remember reading during the initial 737 MAX crashes: Part of the appeal of the 737 series of airplanes was pilot certification across a wide fl
by mjevans 1y ago
Offhand, what I remember reading during the initial 737 MAX crashes:
Part of the appeal of the 737 series of airplanes was pilot certification across a wide fleet allowed for carrier flexibility and cost savings. Same airframe, same 'response', 'same certification'. So they tried to lie to everyone. Mount the engines on the same airframe a bit differently. Use software to make the behavior (in most circumstances) the same as the older models. etc.
The rational was that they 'couldn't' spend the time, money, or above pilot training needs to field a new competitive model. They'd just come off of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner . Which skimming the Wikipedia article, probably also dovetails in with the seemingly eternal struggle between the Machinists union and Boeing the company who used to be headquartered in Seattle. Penny pinching decisions there probably had negative effects on safety too.
- raverbashing 1y agoYeah, because the legacy carriers apparently can't be bothered with spending any more money in moving out of the 70s But pray tell me, did you save money in having part of your fleet grounded for 1.5yrs?
- jiggawatts 1y ago"That's a different budget." -- a comment I've heard several times, from several bean counters, justifying $billions wasted.
- henry2023 1y agoThis is not the carriers fault. Boeing promised one thing and was lying about it. Why would the customers take the heat?
- philosophty 1y agoA miser pays twice...and kills 346 people.
- dehrmann 1y agoI'm actually sympathetic to using fly-by-wire technology to keep the interface the same. When it works, it can be safer since pilots' experience transfers directly, they don't mix up subtle differences between the models, and it makes it an easy sell to airlines. I fault Boeing for not making it robust enough. It needed to be bullet-proof, and it wasn't.
- saurik 1y agoI mean, it is easy to be sympathetic to something if you add the constraint that it must be perfect under the assumption that it could be perfect... the issue is that there is no way this wasn't going to be a leaky abstraction, and so I would thereby offer the decision no sympathy.
- tim333 1y agoAircraft rely on a lot of systems that are not perfect. They are however generally very well made. The implementation that caused the 737 max crashes was terrible.
- immibis 1y agoBecause if it had redundancy, that would be a sign to the FAA that it was important. If it was important, the FAA would make them teach their customers and pilots about it. Obviously the problem here is the fact that aeroplanes are regulated.
- yread 1y agoproblem is you can't just take pilots input alone. You need angle of attack, air speed and probably other inputs to correct it. When your sensors disagree or are unreliable you get garbage out. Or you can switch the system off and revert to something like direct law mode. But then pilots would have to train flying a plane in that mode to be familiar with it. Which is the thing you want to avoid in the first place.
- Tuna-Fish 1y agoIt's the company providing their customers what they asked for. Because of the way pilot licensing works, the airliners really want to field as few separate types as they possibly can. If a Boeing executive goes to meet the people who buy his airplanes, upgrades that fit on existing type certificates is the first (and only) thing they ask for. The job of a CEO is sometimes to tell the customers no. It's just really hard to do.
- kelseydh 1y agoLittle else symbolises technological stagnation better than Boeing reusing the design of its 737 series for its new airplane.
- graceevans 1y ago[dead]