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yes and no. Like you said, automotive and aviation industries are bound by a lot regulatory and path dependent constraints. Elon's strength is his willingness

yes and no. Like you said, automotive and aviation industries are bound by a lot regulatory and path dependent constraints. Elon's strength is his willingness to pull the plug and transition away from suboptimal solutions. This is bolstered by his willingness to double down. Imagine if Boeing said "screw all this recertification technical debt for the 737 MAX airframe, we will start fresh. Customers can take it or leave it"

WalterBright 7d ago
The decision to re-engine the 737 rather than design a new airframe saved the airlines a vast amount of money.
InTheArena 7d ago
This is exactly correct in the context of the decision as it played out, but stretches and re-engines are very common in commercial airlines. Changing that decision without reinforcing the safety culture probably would have ended in the same place.
- saturn8601 7d ago
  Wasn't the whole point of the MAX that they had reached the limit of what their existing design had, but due to the demands of the airlines, as well as their current position in the market, they felt it was an easier idea to extend the lifespan of their already tired design by using software to overcome the physical limitations of the aircraft? I do understand that the airplane would have flown fine without the MCAS system, but then it would not have satisfied all their requirements. Taking a step back, I think it's more than that. It's just the company structure. It remains to be seen if SpaceX and Tesla survive long term. But if they do, a lot will be attributed to the company structure that Elon designed. When you have a company that does stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718 Compared to Airbus: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU You just think to yourself, even if the airplane was completely safe, and they are incredibly safe, this is just not a great look. Both doors accomplish the task but little thought was put into the operator of the door. The little things matter and I notice them more and more everywhere I go with a lot of legacy American companies.
- s1artibartfast 7d ago
  My point was more too highlight his approach to problems, not make the argument that this would have been successful or profitable for Boeing. In fact, I would say there's probably a very narrow set of circumstances where his back to the drawing board approach can be deployed successfuly. That said, the 787 Dreamliner remains statistically one of the safest widebody long-haul aircraft in commercial aviation history, which I think is a Counterpoint. It achieves this despite any more globally diverse supply chain, and moving production out of unionized Boeing manufacturing plants. Safety by Design and design for manufacturability can help eliminate the possibility of quality issues during production.
  - WalterBright 7d ago
    > very narrow He applied it to Tesla and SpaceX, which are very very different.
    - s1artibartfast 7d ago
      Sure, that is no accident. Elon seeks out markets ripe for disruptive engineering innovation. His approach probably wouldn't work as well if you threw him in as CEO of a random company like JC penny or Pizza Hut. Other CEO's are good at different things - like squeezing the extra 0.1% out of a 40 year old brand or product line Now I'm thinking about him firing the pizza cooks and bringing in a crack team of engineers to redesign the concept of Pizza from first principles.
      - WalterBright 7d ago
        > Elon seeks out markets ripe for disruptive engineering innovation. I.e. products that everyone else dismisses as impractical/impossible. And then people complain when he's late delivering the impossible products.
        s1artibartfast 7d ago
        Yes
everybodyknows 7d ago
According to a version I heard, Boeing engineering did say more or less just that, at which point Southwest, the near-monopoly in some regions, said something like, "Oh yeah? Then we'll plan to leave it." And Boeing upper management overruled the engineers.
- WalterBright 7d ago
  Color me skeptical. There was nothing wrong with the MCAS concept. The implementation of it, however, wasn't very good. Unfortunately, two of the 3 crews did not understand the runaway stabilizer trim procedure. The 3rd crew did, and landed safely, and the media never reports on that. The runaway stab trim procedure is a "memory item", meaning pilots shouldn't need a checklist to deal with it.
  - jiggawatts 7d ago
    > The runaway stab trim procedure… But doesn’t apply to MCAS because the symptoms and recovery procedures are distinct. The MCAS system wasn’t documented, pilots weren’t trained on it, it didn’t indicate anything distinct in the cockpit, and it could rapidly put the plane into an unrecoverable attitude where pilots no longer had the physical strength to overcome the forces involved.
    - WalterBright 7d ago
      I know how the stab trim system works. I worked on it (for the 757) for three years. Yes, it applies to MCAS. > the symptoms and recovery procedures are distinct Nope. MCAS failure manifests itself as runaway trim, and the emergency procedures for it are exactly what is needed to recover from it. 1. the stab trim switches override the MCAS signals. Override. That means the pilot can trim to normal using the column mounted trim switches. The column switches will power the trim back to normal. No physical strength is required. 2. there's a "stab trim cutoff" switch on the console. That turns off the trim system. MCAS cannot bypass it. The proof is the 3rd MCAS incident. The pilots trimmed it back to normal, and turned the stab trim system off. That's all they had to do. This is supposed to be a "memory item". The other two crews did not remember the memory item. Boeing even sent out an Emergency Airworthiness Directive reiterating this information. It was ignored by the EA pilots, who did everything wrong (including overspeeding the airplane at full thrust). The narrative you wrote is the typical one in the mass media, which is utterly wrong. The proof of that is they ignore the 3rd incident which didn't fit the narrative. I've talked with two 737 pilots about this. They agree with me, though I knew I was right anyway. Food for thought: ever wonder why the stab trim cutoff switch is in a prominent place on the center console in easy reach?

WalterBright 7d ago

The decision to re-engine the 737 rather than design a new airframe saved the airlines a vast amount of money.

InTheArena 7d ago

This is exactly correct in the context of the decision as it played out, but stretches and re-engines are very common in commercial airlines. Changing that decision without reinforcing the safety culture probably would have ended in the same place.

saturn8601 7d ago
Wasn't the whole point of the MAX that they had reached the limit of what their existing design had, but due to the demands of the airlines, as well as their current position in the market, they felt it was an easier idea to extend the lifespan of their already tired design by using software to overcome the physical limitations of the aircraft? I do understand that the airplane would have flown fine without the MCAS system, but then it would not have satisfied all their requirements. Taking a step back, I think it's more than that. It's just the company structure. It remains to be seen if SpaceX and Tesla survive long term. But if they do, a lot will be attributed to the company structure that Elon designed. When you have a company that does stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718 Compared to Airbus: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU You just think to yourself, even if the airplane was completely safe, and they are incredibly safe, this is just not a great look. Both doors accomplish the task but little thought was put into the operator of the door. The little things matter and I notice them more and more everywhere I go with a lot of legacy American companies.
s1artibartfast 7d ago
My point was more too highlight his approach to problems, not make the argument that this would have been successful or profitable for Boeing. In fact, I would say there's probably a very narrow set of circumstances where his back to the drawing board approach can be deployed successfuly. That said, the 787 Dreamliner remains statistically one of the safest widebody long-haul aircraft in commercial aviation history, which I think is a Counterpoint. It achieves this despite any more globally diverse supply chain, and moving production out of unionized Boeing manufacturing plants. Safety by Design and design for manufacturability can help eliminate the possibility of quality issues during production.
- WalterBright 7d ago
  > very narrow He applied it to Tesla and SpaceX, which are very very different.
  - s1artibartfast 7d ago
    Sure, that is no accident. Elon seeks out markets ripe for disruptive engineering innovation. His approach probably wouldn't work as well if you threw him in as CEO of a random company like JC penny or Pizza Hut. Other CEO's are good at different things - like squeezing the extra 0.1% out of a 40 year old brand or product line Now I'm thinking about him firing the pizza cooks and bringing in a crack team of engineers to redesign the concept of Pizza from first principles.
    - WalterBright 7d ago
      > Elon seeks out markets ripe for disruptive engineering innovation. I.e. products that everyone else dismisses as impractical/impossible. And then people complain when he's late delivering the impossible products.
      - s1artibartfast 7d ago
        Yes

everybodyknows 7d ago

According to a version I heard, Boeing engineering did say more or less just that, at which point Southwest, the near-monopoly in some regions, said something like, "Oh yeah? Then we'll plan to leave it." And Boeing upper management overruled the engineers.

WalterBright 7d ago
Color me skeptical. There was nothing wrong with the MCAS concept. The implementation of it, however, wasn't very good. Unfortunately, two of the 3 crews did not understand the runaway stabilizer trim procedure. The 3rd crew did, and landed safely, and the media never reports on that. The runaway stab trim procedure is a "memory item", meaning pilots shouldn't need a checklist to deal with it.
- jiggawatts 7d ago
  > The runaway stab trim procedure… But doesn’t apply to MCAS because the symptoms and recovery procedures are distinct. The MCAS system wasn’t documented, pilots weren’t trained on it, it didn’t indicate anything distinct in the cockpit, and it could rapidly put the plane into an unrecoverable attitude where pilots no longer had the physical strength to overcome the forces involved.
  - WalterBright 7d ago
    I know how the stab trim system works. I worked on it (for the 757) for three years. Yes, it applies to MCAS. > the symptoms and recovery procedures are distinct Nope. MCAS failure manifests itself as runaway trim, and the emergency procedures for it are exactly what is needed to recover from it. 1. the stab trim switches override the MCAS signals. Override. That means the pilot can trim to normal using the column mounted trim switches. The column switches will power the trim back to normal. No physical strength is required. 2. there's a "stab trim cutoff" switch on the console. That turns off the trim system. MCAS cannot bypass it. The proof is the 3rd MCAS incident. The pilots trimmed it back to normal, and turned the stab trim system off. That's all they had to do. This is supposed to be a "memory item". The other two crews did not remember the memory item. Boeing even sent out an Emergency Airworthiness Directive reiterating this information. It was ignored by the EA pilots, who did everything wrong (including overspeeding the airplane at full thrust). The narrative you wrote is the typical one in the mass media, which is utterly wrong. The proof of that is they ignore the 3rd incident which didn't fit the narrative. I've talked with two 737 pilots about this. They agree with me, though I knew I was right anyway. Food for thought: ever wonder why the stab trim cutoff switch is in a prominent place on the center console in easy reach?