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While not great, the MAX would have been fine if Boeing (and their airlines) had not clung so hard to the type rating. Without that, MCAS could have been left o

While not great, the MAX would have been fine if Boeing (and their airlines) had not clung so hard to the type rating. Without that, MCAS could have been left out entirely alongside its utterly botched implementation. But that would have required a heavier certification process, and some pilot re-training. And they couldn't have that. Of course that wouldn't have freed Boeing from the rest of its dismal record (MCAS didn't cause door blowouts), but...

hinkley 1y ago
Indeed. A fully new airframe likely won’t try to avoid training and certification overhead. Ripping that bandaid off will cut a lot of bullshit. But, there’s only so much engine you can shove under a narrow body aircraft. Landing gear is limited by physics and just making it taller won’t fix everything. I just looked and from what I can find on Wikipedia this may warrant a new model from P&W or CFM because I’m not seeing a documented turbofan family with similar thrust and smaller diameter except ones with much lower bypass ratios and thus garbage fuel efficiency. RR seems to be concentrating on bigger engines. They have a demonstrator that’s 2x the diameter of the Max’s engines. JFC.
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  >Landing gear is limited by physics and just making it taller won’t fix everything. Every other plane is higher than the 737. The only reason the engines needed to be pushed forward on the 737, is that the 737 was built back in the day to be lower to the ground for easier operations at poorer airports, with things like stairs and baggage. The 737 doesn't need to be as short as it is anymore because the vast majority of them now fly to airports with jetbridges and modern bag handling equipment. The A320 is not as short as the 737 despite serving the same market, and can handle bigger engines. But the entire problem stems from wanting to abuse the 737 type rating even further. If they were fine with a new type rating, they could put the engines pretty much wherever they want, put nice tall landing gear, etc.
  - TylerE 1y ago
    That isn’t really true. Air stairs are still very common in much of Europe and Asia. It’s only places like the US and the Middle East that jet bridges are ubiquitous.
    - spogbiper 1y ago
      also common in south america in my experience
      - travisjungroth 1y ago
        Can confirm, about to board an airplane with an air stair in Peru. An A320, actually.
      - rescbr 1y ago
        Which is absolutely not a problem on the A320. I have boarded plenty of narrow-body Airbuses using the stairs.
    - hinkley 1y ago
      The software I wrote for them had to be legal to ship to every country except The Four, which created some new copyright scenarios I’d never dealt with before. When you’re trying to sell to 190 countries, you gotta be ready for a lot, and I’m not surprised that the external stairs are still a thing. Doubly so for a regional jet, which could be flying from all of your country to the nearest international airport.
linuxftw 1y ago
This is at best a Boeing talking-point. We don't have any data that states it is safe to operate the MAX without MCAS. It's quite possible that probable scenarios would result in stall faster than a human can react.
- masklinn 1y ago
  Afaik all analysis of the max’s design have come to the conclusion that its natural behaviour was nothing special or dangerous. It’s just that in some edge cases the nose would lift faster than on an NG, and that was not acceptable if it was sold as a 737 with no retraining.
  - linuxftw 1y ago
    One would think this question would have been answered directly in the FAA report, but it got zero mentions. We got zero data on how often MCAS made adjustments and how often in the report. Basically, we only have Boeing's word for it, which is worthless. They self-certified everything, and we see how that went.
    - masklinn 1y ago
      > One would think this question would have been answered directly in the FAA report No, one would not, as it is of no interest to any regulator. They’re not dealing with any sort of non-mcas non-737 max. > We got zero data on how often MCAS made adjustments and how often in the report. This has no relevance to what I am talking about. > we only have Boeing's word for it We don’t have that because it is of no interest to Boeing either.

hinkley 1y ago

Indeed. A fully new airframe likely won’t try to avoid training and certification overhead. Ripping that bandaid off will cut a lot of bullshit. But, there’s only so much engine you can shove under a narrow body aircraft. Landing gear is limited by physics and just making it taller won’t fix everything. I just looked and from what I can find on Wikipedia this may warrant a new model from P&W or CFM because I’m not seeing a documented turbofan family with similar thrust and smaller diameter except ones with much lower bypass ratios and thus garbage fuel efficiency. RR seems to be concentrating on bigger engines. They have a demonstrator that’s 2x the diameter of the Max’s engines. JFC.

mrguyorama 1y ago
>Landing gear is limited by physics and just making it taller won’t fix everything. Every other plane is higher than the 737. The only reason the engines needed to be pushed forward on the 737, is that the 737 was built back in the day to be lower to the ground for easier operations at poorer airports, with things like stairs and baggage. The 737 doesn't need to be as short as it is anymore because the vast majority of them now fly to airports with jetbridges and modern bag handling equipment. The A320 is not as short as the 737 despite serving the same market, and can handle bigger engines. But the entire problem stems from wanting to abuse the 737 type rating even further. If they were fine with a new type rating, they could put the engines pretty much wherever they want, put nice tall landing gear, etc.
- TylerE 1y ago
  That isn’t really true. Air stairs are still very common in much of Europe and Asia. It’s only places like the US and the Middle East that jet bridges are ubiquitous.
  - spogbiper 1y ago
    also common in south america in my experience
    - travisjungroth 1y ago
      Can confirm, about to board an airplane with an air stair in Peru. An A320, actually.
    - rescbr 1y ago
      Which is absolutely not a problem on the A320. I have boarded plenty of narrow-body Airbuses using the stairs.
  - hinkley 1y ago
    The software I wrote for them had to be legal to ship to every country except The Four, which created some new copyright scenarios I’d never dealt with before. When you’re trying to sell to 190 countries, you gotta be ready for a lot, and I’m not surprised that the external stairs are still a thing. Doubly so for a regional jet, which could be flying from all of your country to the nearest international airport.

linuxftw 1y ago

This is at best a Boeing talking-point. We don't have any data that states it is safe to operate the MAX without MCAS. It's quite possible that probable scenarios would result in stall faster than a human can react.

masklinn 1y ago
Afaik all analysis of the max’s design have come to the conclusion that its natural behaviour was nothing special or dangerous. It’s just that in some edge cases the nose would lift faster than on an NG, and that was not acceptable if it was sold as a 737 with no retraining.
- linuxftw 1y ago
  One would think this question would have been answered directly in the FAA report, but it got zero mentions. We got zero data on how often MCAS made adjustments and how often in the report. Basically, we only have Boeing's word for it, which is worthless. They self-certified everything, and we see how that went.
  - masklinn 1y ago
    > One would think this question would have been answered directly in the FAA report No, one would not, as it is of no interest to any regulator. They’re not dealing with any sort of non-mcas non-737 max. > We got zero data on how often MCAS made adjustments and how often in the report. This has no relevance to what I am talking about. > we only have Boeing's word for it We don’t have that because it is of no interest to Boeing either.