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> Airbus prevailed because it was the least European version of a European industrial strategy project ever. It put its customer first, was uninterested in bein

by quacked 11mo ago

> Airbus prevailed because it was the least European version of a European industrial strategy project ever. It put its customer first, was uninterested in being seen as European, had leadership willing to risk political blowback in the pursuit of a good product, and operated in a unique industry This really buries the lede, given that over the past 40 years Boeing sawed off both its own feet and drank cyanide. Total cultural change at the executive level that prioritized returns over good engineering.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
eastbound 11mo ago
I’m a staunch capitalist but Boeing vs Airbus is a demonstration of a big failure mode of capitalism (However, both have huge state intervention - Boeing’s factories are placed to give jobs to populations, it’s electoral choices, and that caused the airframe scandal).
- nocoiner 11mo ago
  What are you talking about? Which airframe scandal?
  - mdorazio 11mo ago
    737 MAX. That whole saga was because of Boeing trying really hard to not certify a new airframe so that they could quickly push out a competitor to A320 Neo. The result was hundreds of deaths.
    - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
      737 Max was a compendium of failures. Airframe wasn’t one of them. If anything, the 737 series’ airframes are perfected to a fault.
      - ViewTrick1002 11mo ago
        Tons of problems that only are accepted due being grandfathered in.
        JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > Tons of problems that only are accepted due being grandfathered in What are you basing this on?
        ViewTrick1002 11mo ago
        For example a modern EICAS system is required today, and all modern passenger aircraft have one. Except the 737 Max. The 737 Max 7 and 10 had to get a waiver due to not being certified in time by the hard requirement to have one when updating old types. Let alone certifying new types.
        JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > a modern EICAS system is required today, and all modern passenger aircraft have one. Except the 737 Max Instrumentation. Not airframe. Boeing’s failure was in trying to make a great airframe compensate for failings in other systems.
        ViewTrick1002 11mo ago
        It is a lackluster airframe but with an entire workforce certified to fly it and thus it is forced to stay around. Just look at the anti-ice issues preventing 737 Max 7 and 10 to be certified.
        JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > Just look at the anti-ice issues preventing 737 Max 7 and 10 to be certified Not airframe!
    - 05 11mo ago
      Southwest's 737 MAX contract had a penalty clause of $1 million per aircraft that would trigger if Boeing's delivery contract for the 737 MAX failed to meet certain standards, particularly Southwest's insistence that no flight simulator training be required for the MAX Meaning, the roots of the “no new type rating” requirement come from Southwest, not Boeing.
      - rwmj 11mo ago
        Presumably Boeing weren't under duress when they signed the contract.
        elteto 11mo ago
        The Boeing execs had their bonuses held against their heads.
      - getpost 11mo ago
        This is an interesting detail I had not heard. Can you link to a backstory on this? Why would such a contract ever be signed (especially for a technological product)?
        acdha 11mo ago
        There’s a really good podcast episode here: https://engineered.network/causality/episode-33-737-max/ https://engineered.network/causality/episode-33-737-max/ Basically they were looking for an edge against Airbus and a really big one was being able to promise that pilots wouldn’t need a separate certification from the existing 737, which is where that MCAS software came in trying to make the new hardware behave like the existing planes. The allegations about Southwest in particular got the most attention in this lawsuit: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/legal-filing-reveals-southwest-airlines-proposed-a-ploy-to-deceive-faa-on-boeing-737-max/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/legal...
      - raverbashing 11mo ago
        Southwest and all the legacy carriers So, how much they spent with the grounding again?
  - wood_spirit 11mo ago
    Wasn’t there a scandal about doors falling off that came back to missing screws missed in cutback inspections that had been outsourced to a split off subsidiary or something like that?
    - toast0 11mo ago
      You've got the whole thing wrong. Only one door plug fell out. Other door plugs were inspected but there was no reporting on their condition. The door plug seems to have fallen out due to lack of nuts, not missing screws. There was rework due to poor work from a spun out former subsidiary that required the door plug to be opened, but I think? the door plug was opened and closed by Boeing, and not properly recorded by Boeing in the work log, resulting in no inspection/verification and nobody else noticed the missing nuts either; IIRC the opening was recorded 'in the wrong place' and the closing wasn't recorded at all. I wouldn't call that a 'cutback inspection' I don't remember which party is responsible for installing the interior trim that covers the door plug, but their checklist must not have included verifying that the door plug nuts and their retaining wire were in place, either.
  - eastbound 11mo ago
    In 2013, they externalized the construction of the metal rings that make the body. It was supposed to be CNC’d, but the provider obviously made them manually, with all the mistakes that entails, including sloppy sawing and cutting holes in the wrong places. It was validated for production, because of political pressure to not blame the provider. Boeing re-cut the holes in the right places, making them twice weaker. So yes, the MAX isn’t the first unsafe plane of Boeing. That it wasn’t proven that it caused accidents, doesn’t mean it was safe. And there are countless other affairs like this. The lithium batteries.
- lazide 11mo ago
  They became monopolies/state sponsored entities. It happens everywhere under every market system. Typically, in most capitalist systems they get (eventually) broken up as it stifles competition, which (non-winning) capitalists don’t like. Same as in Soviet systems a patron gets too fat/corrupt and other patrons start vying for attention. But that is far from certain, and aerospace & military has always been rife with this issue. The ‘merge until they become too big/important to fail’ playbook isn’t just for banks! Messerschmitt, Sukoi, Tupolev, Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas, etc.
  - CPLX 11mo ago
    This really isn't an accurate description of what happened. In fact, the contrast between Boeing and Airbus is instructive. Boeing is exactly what happens in the event of unregulated capitalism, which is endless mergers and attempts to exploit monopoly power and relentless efforts to satisfy the financial sector. The end state of unregulated capitalism for a company like Boeing is a “capital-light” company based entirely on monopoly power and relationships that hardly manufactures anything at all, having outsourced everything to subsidiaries and suppliers to satisfy the return on capital requirements of Wall Street. The Airbus approach is a clear contrast to this. The fact that Boeing has imploded while Airbus has thrived is, in fact, a very helpful counterpoint to reflexive and idiotic market fundamentalist ideology.
    - lazide 11mo ago
      Airbus literally is the result of mergers of many countries aircraft manufacturers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus], including - from that list, Messerschmitt. In capitalist systems. Boeing is also still a going concern, and is a major competitor to Airbus. It hasn’t ’imploded’. It is having some difficulty right now - but more due to the entire US economy going through a ‘narcissistic’ phase. Airbus has plenty of issues a decade or two ago, including very similar issues to what Boeing has recently been going through.
      - CPLX 11mo ago

by quacked 11mo ago

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

eastbound 11mo ago

I’m a staunch capitalist but Boeing vs Airbus is a demonstration of a big failure mode of capitalism (However, both have huge state intervention - Boeing’s factories are placed to give jobs to populations, it’s electoral choices, and that caused the airframe scandal).

nocoiner 11mo ago
What are you talking about? Which airframe scandal?
- mdorazio 11mo ago
  737 MAX. That whole saga was because of Boeing trying really hard to not certify a new airframe so that they could quickly push out a competitor to A320 Neo. The result was hundreds of deaths.
  - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
    737 Max was a compendium of failures. Airframe wasn’t one of them. If anything, the 737 series’ airframes are perfected to a fault.
    - ViewTrick1002 11mo ago
      Tons of problems that only are accepted due being grandfathered in.
      - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > Tons of problems that only are accepted due being grandfathered in What are you basing this on?
        ViewTrick1002 11mo ago
        For example a modern EICAS system is required today, and all modern passenger aircraft have one. Except the 737 Max. The 737 Max 7 and 10 had to get a waiver due to not being certified in time by the hard requirement to have one when updating old types. Let alone certifying new types.
        JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > a modern EICAS system is required today, and all modern passenger aircraft have one. Except the 737 Max Instrumentation. Not airframe. Boeing’s failure was in trying to make a great airframe compensate for failings in other systems.
        ViewTrick1002 11mo ago
        It is a lackluster airframe but with an entire workforce certified to fly it and thus it is forced to stay around. Just look at the anti-ice issues preventing 737 Max 7 and 10 to be certified.
        JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > Just look at the anti-ice issues preventing 737 Max 7 and 10 to be certified Not airframe!
  - 05 11mo ago
    Southwest's 737 MAX contract had a penalty clause of $1 million per aircraft that would trigger if Boeing's delivery contract for the 737 MAX failed to meet certain standards, particularly Southwest's insistence that no flight simulator training be required for the MAX Meaning, the roots of the “no new type rating” requirement come from Southwest, not Boeing.
    - rwmj 11mo ago
      Presumably Boeing weren't under duress when they signed the contract.
      - elteto 11mo ago
        The Boeing execs had their bonuses held against their heads.
    - getpost 11mo ago
      This is an interesting detail I had not heard. Can you link to a backstory on this? Why would such a contract ever be signed (especially for a technological product)?
      - acdha 11mo ago
        There’s a really good podcast episode here: https://engineered.network/causality/episode-33-737-max/ https://engineered.network/causality/episode-33-737-max/ Basically they were looking for an edge against Airbus and a really big one was being able to promise that pilots wouldn’t need a separate certification from the existing 737, which is where that MCAS software came in trying to make the new hardware behave like the existing planes. The allegations about Southwest in particular got the most attention in this lawsuit: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/legal-filing-reveals-southwest-airlines-proposed-a-ploy-to-deceive-faa-on-boeing-737-max/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/legal...
    - raverbashing 11mo ago
      Southwest and all the legacy carriers So, how much they spent with the grounding again?
- wood_spirit 11mo ago
  Wasn’t there a scandal about doors falling off that came back to missing screws missed in cutback inspections that had been outsourced to a split off subsidiary or something like that?
  - toast0 11mo ago
    You've got the whole thing wrong. Only one door plug fell out. Other door plugs were inspected but there was no reporting on their condition. The door plug seems to have fallen out due to lack of nuts, not missing screws. There was rework due to poor work from a spun out former subsidiary that required the door plug to be opened, but I think? the door plug was opened and closed by Boeing, and not properly recorded by Boeing in the work log, resulting in no inspection/verification and nobody else noticed the missing nuts either; IIRC the opening was recorded 'in the wrong place' and the closing wasn't recorded at all. I wouldn't call that a 'cutback inspection' I don't remember which party is responsible for installing the interior trim that covers the door plug, but their checklist must not have included verifying that the door plug nuts and their retaining wire were in place, either.
- eastbound 11mo ago
  In 2013, they externalized the construction of the metal rings that make the body. It was supposed to be CNC’d, but the provider obviously made them manually, with all the mistakes that entails, including sloppy sawing and cutting holes in the wrong places. It was validated for production, because of political pressure to not blame the provider. Boeing re-cut the holes in the right places, making them twice weaker. So yes, the MAX isn’t the first unsafe plane of Boeing. That it wasn’t proven that it caused accidents, doesn’t mean it was safe. And there are countless other affairs like this. The lithium batteries.
lazide 11mo ago
They became monopolies/state sponsored entities. It happens everywhere under every market system. Typically, in most capitalist systems they get (eventually) broken up as it stifles competition, which (non-winning) capitalists don’t like. Same as in Soviet systems a patron gets too fat/corrupt and other patrons start vying for attention. But that is far from certain, and aerospace & military has always been rife with this issue. The ‘merge until they become too big/important to fail’ playbook isn’t just for banks! Messerschmitt, Sukoi, Tupolev, Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas, etc.
- CPLX 11mo ago
  This really isn't an accurate description of what happened. In fact, the contrast between Boeing and Airbus is instructive. Boeing is exactly what happens in the event of unregulated capitalism, which is endless mergers and attempts to exploit monopoly power and relentless efforts to satisfy the financial sector. The end state of unregulated capitalism for a company like Boeing is a “capital-light” company based entirely on monopoly power and relationships that hardly manufactures anything at all, having outsourced everything to subsidiaries and suppliers to satisfy the return on capital requirements of Wall Street. The Airbus approach is a clear contrast to this. The fact that Boeing has imploded while Airbus has thrived is, in fact, a very helpful counterpoint to reflexive and idiotic market fundamentalist ideology.
  - lazide 11mo ago
    Airbus literally is the result of mergers of many countries aircraft manufacturers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus], including - from that list, Messerschmitt. In capitalist systems. Boeing is also still a going concern, and is a major competitor to Airbus. It hasn’t ’imploded’. It is having some difficulty right now - but more due to the entire US economy going through a ‘narcissistic’ phase. Airbus has plenty of issues a decade or two ago, including very similar issues to what Boeing has recently been going through.
    - CPLX 11mo ago