Senators Call for the Grounding of the 737 MAX

[Orangeburst]

I recently spent 2 years on the A350, and Airbus is light years ahead of Boeing in technology. The A350 has the most beautiful wing of any airplane I have ever flown, and it actually moves flight controls in response to turbulence and CG movement as fuel burns off.

What about a Dreamliner? Or is that a different class?

 

[rjd970]

What about a Dreamliner? Or is that a different class?

I would bet nothing airbus has can challenge the 787 in terms of composite materials and flight efficiency.

The 737 problem was they took the cheap route when trying to fix an older design. When designed from the ground up I would take Boeing over airbus every single day.

 

[VolStrom]

I would bet nothing airbus has can challenge the 787 in terms of composite materials and flight efficiency.

The 737 problem was they took the cheap route when trying to fix an older design. When designed from the ground up I would take Boeing over airbus every single day.

After having gone head to head with European engineers I'd take the US every day of the week. The Europeans are so damn rigid they can't see how the real world works and everything they design that moves is +/- a few millimeters over a football field of travel. Apparently their operators are stupid whether it's a plane or a roller coaster and they feel the need to have software take over.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

I would bet nothing airbus has can challenge the 787 in terms of composite materials and flight efficiency.

The 737 problem was they took the cheap route when trying to fix an older design. When designed from the ground up I would take Boeing over airbus every single day.

I'll take that bet.

And...... I have 20,000 hours in Boeings, and a little over 1000 in the A350.

 

[rjd970]

I'll take that bet.

And...... I have 20,000 hours in Boeings, and a little over 1000 in the A350.

I’m not a pilot, so I don’t know how they handle. But I’m an engineer and I have worked for Boeing and I know the composite structures and flight envelope numbers for the 787. I can guarantee nothing else in the market compares to it. Many of the new technologies developed for the 787 have crossed over into the defense side of Boeing as well. Airbus is only a competitor because they are cheaper, due in part to being government subsidized. However, long run operation costs makes the 787 superior in almost every category.

From a pilot perspective it may be different, but from an airline perspective Boeing makes the better aircraft.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

I’m not a pilot, so I don’t know how they handle. But I’m an engineer and I have worked for Boeing and I know the composite structures and flight envelope numbers for the 787. I can guarantee nothing else in the market compares to it. Many of the new technologies developed for the 787 have crossed over into the defense side of Boeing as well. Airbus is only a competitor because they are cheaper, due in part to being government subsidized. However, long run operation costs makes the 787 superior in almost every category.

From a pilot perspective it may be different, but from an airline perspective Boeing makes the better aircraft.

The 787 was a disaster when it initially rolled out. Way overweight due to having to beef up the wing boxes, and do you remember the battery fire fiasco?

And Boeing is heavily subsidized as well.

Sell to Foreign Customers On Credit Terms | EXIM.gov

Ever wonder why so many foreign carriers are flying 787s? See the above. Airbus makes airplanes. Boeing makes a ton of other stuff. Yes Airbus is subsidized, but EVERY customer benefits. ONLY foreign carriers can get terms/financing under the US TAXPAYER funded ExIm bank. That POS is as un-American as it gets. It is propping up BA which is rapidly proving it forgot how to design airplanes.

From a pilot perspective on ultra long haul airplanes, I can tell you this: For takeoff and landings, the yoke is a better option. But for a 14 hour flight, I'll take that sidestick and the tray table all day long. In a 14 hour flight, the autopilot is on for 13 hours and 30 minutes.

So... IMHO... and I have admittedly not studied the MAX issue that closely, but BA tried to out-Airbus Airbus with a computer controlled product that was not ready for prime time... BUT.... it was kind of like putting a Hemi in a VW.... and it was just to please LUV. Again... only my opinion, but President Trump was right on this; BA should have recalled/canceled all of them, and rebranded the whole thing. This will cost BA billions when all is said and done, and it was all because they were trying to be cheap.

 

[Rasputin_Vol]

BA should have recalled/canceled all of them, and rebranded the whole thing. This will cost BA billions when all is said and done, and it was all because they were trying to be cheap.

How long will it take for Boeing to eventually make that move?

 

[rjd970]

The 787 was a disaster when it initially rolled out. Way overweight due to having to beef up the wing boxes, and do you remember the battery fire fiasco?

And Boeing is heavily subsidized as well.

Sell to Foreign Customers On Credit Terms | EXIM.gov

Ever wonder why so many foreign carriers are flying 787s? See the above. Airbus makes airplanes. Boeing makes a ton of other stuff. Yes Airbus is subsidized, but EVERY customer benefits. ONLY foreign carriers can get terms/financing under the US TAXPAYER funded ExIm bank. That POS is as un-American as it gets. It is propping up BA which is rapidly proving it forgot how to design airplanes.

From a pilot perspective on ultra long haul airplanes, I can tell you this: For takeoff and landings, the yoke is a better option. But for a 14 hour flight, I'll take that sidestick and the tray table all day long. In a 14 hour flight, the autopilot is on for 13 hours and 30 minutes.

So... IMHO... and I have admittedly not studied the MAX issue that closely, but BA tried to out-Airbus Airbus with a computer controlled product that was not ready for prime time... BUT.... it was kind of like putting a Hemi in a VW.... and it was just to please LUV. Again... only my opinion, but President Trump was right on this; BA should have recalled/canceled all of them, and rebranded the whole thing. This will cost BA billions when all is said and done, and it was all because they were trying to be cheap.

You won’t find me defending the max stuff happening, and admittedly, I no longer work for Boeing. They screwed the pooch on that one and they will, deservedly, pay a heavy price for it.

The 787 had its initial production setbacks, and most new aircraft do, but as it stands today I’m not sure anything flying commercially can match its speed/distance ratio at a given weight. Perhaps airbus has something but I haven’t kept up with the information over the last several years. I would also venture to say it’s maintenance costs over its entire lifecycle can’t be matched either. It may not be best for what a pilot wants, but that is somewhat to be expected if it was designed with cost and passengers first.

Maybe all that has changed and it was just a bill of goods that never panned out long term, but from my seat there were a ton of patents, proprietary and new technologies that came out of that 787 design.

 

[AM64]

The 787 was a disaster when it initially rolled out. Way overweight due to having to beef up the wing boxes, and do you remember the battery fire fiasco?

And Boeing is heavily subsidized as well.

Sell to Foreign Customers On Credit Terms | EXIM.gov

Ever wonder why so many foreign carriers are flying 787s? See the above. Airbus makes airplanes. Boeing makes a ton of other stuff. Yes Airbus is subsidized, but EVERY customer benefits. ONLY foreign carriers can get terms/financing under the US TAXPAYER funded ExIm bank. That POS is as un-American as it gets. It is propping up BA which is rapidly proving it forgot how to design airplanes.

From a pilot perspective on ultra long haul airplanes, I can tell you this: For takeoff and landings, the yoke is a better option. But for a 14 hour flight, I'll take that sidestick and the tray table all day long. In a 14 hour flight, the autopilot is on for 13 hours and 30 minutes.

So... IMHO... and I have admittedly not studied the MAX issue that closely, but BA tried to out-Airbus Airbus with a computer controlled product that was not ready for prime time... BUT.... it was kind of like putting a Hemi in a VW.... and it was just to please LUV. Again... only my opinion, but President Trump was right on this; BA should have recalled/canceled all of them, and rebranded the whole thing. This will cost BA billions when all is said and done, and it was all because they were trying to be cheap.

As a retired engineer, I get what rjd970 is saying. And at the same time I have a strong sense of outrage over what Boeing has done ... and many other companies the world around do. Every time there's a major problem whether safety like the 737 MAX or VW with their diesel emission scandal, I feel certain there are multiple engineers who are livid because they tried to call attention to and address the issue before the failures started stacking up.

As I've mentioned before, my brother is retired both from the AF and Delta where he also flew internationally. As much as I respect most engineers, I generally have more admiration for guys like you. We as engineers get the chance to correct errors in a much safer (and when it all goes bad) much saner environment, and we almost never have the time factor and the immediacy of lost lives to figure in as we analyze problems.

Having said that, the biggest problem in both what you like about Airbus and in the MAX problem would be are we too reliant in computer control? For example, how well does manual override work? And probably even more (especially in the MAX issue) how much do pilots know about the computer control. With the 737 MAX it honestly appears that the automation rather than the pilots was the big problem - that is, they didn't know why the plane was fighting them and how to deal with it. So do we do too much with automation in a lot of areas, and forget why it's a pilot in the cockpit rather than a gamer, and does excessive automation that reduces human responsibility in turn lead to increased risk of failure? I may be oversensitive in that respect because over the years when I deal with something I want to know how it works, and companies don't put out theory of operation, and frankly most users wouldn't want or understand anyway.

When the Air France Airbus crashed over the Atlantic because of pitot tube icing, would pilots more used to flying by the seat of the pants have diagnosed a stall in time to recover? To me it's about awareness and perhaps excess automation is both a blessing and a curse if the electronics do things that a pilot may have questioned if he was aware of it.

 

[NorthDallas40]

I’m not a pilot, so I don’t know how they handle. But I’m an engineer and I have worked for Boeing and I know the composite structures and flight envelope numbers for the 787. I can guarantee nothing else in the market compares to it. Many of the new technologies developed for the 787 have crossed over into the defense side of Boeing as well. Airbus is only a competitor because they are cheaper, due in part to being government subsidized. However, long run operation costs makes the 787 superior in almost every category.

From a pilot perspective it may be different, but from an airline perspective Boeing makes the better aircraft.

Ok so if you worked at Boeing WTF happened with their engineering culture on this MAX debacle? It absolutely SCREAMS of bean counters guiding design team decisions.

 

[AM64]

Ok so if you worked at Boeing WTF happened with their engineering culture on this MAX debacle? It absolutely SCREAMS of bean counters guiding design team decisions.

I'd bet on that, too. Pointing out problems that impact schedules and costs will get you shuffled off the the side or looking for a new job much much faster than incompetence. Incompetence can be promoted or moved to lateral positions. Conscience and dedication are far more difficult problems for the bean counters.

 

[rjd970]

Ok so if you worked at Boeing WTF happened with their engineering culture on this MAX debacle? It absolutely SCREAMS of bean counters guiding design team decisions.

I never worked 737, I was on the leading edge of new technology development (both commercial and defense). There was a lot of development behind closed doors that benefitted both divisions of Boeing. We typically had more freedom from the bean counters. That was all going on 10 years ago and I’ve only been following it marginally since.

The max stuff seems to come from relying more on fly by wire and software type applications which was all the rage when I worked there. I’m sure the bean counters took those applications and saw dollar savings and ran with it instead of listening to the designers as to how it would actually work.

I can’t comment on the culture now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that is how it went down. The company leadership should have bit the bullet and been upfront about what it was going to take to solve the problem instead of sugar coating and giving half truths. I’m betting that is why they have a new CEO now.

 

[NorthDallas40]

After having gone head to head with European engineers I'd take the US every day of the week. The Europeans are so damn rigid they can't see how the real world works and everything they design that moves is +/- a few millimeters over a football field of travel. Apparently their operators are stupid whether it's a plane or a roller coaster and they feel the need to have software take over.

From my own experience over the years US and Brit engineers excel at abstract thinking and getting outside of the box in problem solving. The Germans are incredibly good but closed minded and stubborn to outside inputs. The French don’t really excel at anything but they aren’t bad, they just don’t excel.

 

[rjd970]

From my own experience over the years US and Brit engineers excel at abstract thinking and getting outside of the box in problem solving. The Germans are incredibly good but closed minded and stubborn to outside inputs. The French don’t really excel at anything but they aren’t bad, they just don’t excel.

From my experience there is a lot of truth to this.

I will say the Germans have their quirks, but they are extremely good at what they know how to do.

 

[AM64]

Ok so if you worked at Boeing WTF happened with their engineering culture on this MAX debacle? It absolutely SCREAMS of bean counters guiding design team decisions.

Boeing moved corporate management from Seattle to Chicago. Boeing also took over McDonnell-Douglas, and the story is that McDonnell-Douglas bean counters took over Boeing in that move. Separate the cultures like that, and it's like believing that "good" management doesn't differ whether you are baking cookies or airplanes.

I had a big fight with marketing and management in my last job about "we needed to do what XYZ was doing". I eventually proved that while it looked impressive, what they did was simply unethical ... you simply couldn't take data and manufacture a result like they were doing - the analysis was far too complex and their system was nowhere sophisticated enough to give that kind of result - neither was ours and it would run circles around theirs.

 

[NorthDallas40]

I'd bet on that, too. Pointing out problems that impact schedules and costs will get you shuffled off the the side or looking for a new job much much faster than incompetence. Incompetence can be promoted or moved to lateral positions. Conscience and dedication are far more difficult problems for the bean counters.

I’ve led a couple of Tiger Teams over the years and been a key player on several others. Nothing wrong with hearing out the company’s concerns and impacts on the bottom line, but when it comes time to control design integrity that falls squarely on the engineering leadership. And I’ve had to give that message to non engineering team members over the years. You don’t have to be a jerk on delivery but you have to be clear who owns the decision. If you’re moved aside as a result... I’ve never had that threat leveled at me but I’d like to think I’d maintain my professional integrity on a critical decision. The key is to make sure you know the criticality of what you’re going to the mat over and if it’s a safety issue I don’t see where it’s even negotiable. Hopefully I won’t get put in this position I’m the four years I’ve got left.

I never worked 737, I was on the leading edge of new technology development (both commercial and defense). There was a lot of development behind closed doors that benefitted both divisions of Boeing. We typically had more freedom from the bean counters. That was all going on 10 years ago and I’ve only been following it marginally since.

The max stuff seems to come from relying more on fly by wire and software type applications which was all the rage when I worked there. I’m sure the bean counters took those applications and saw dollar savings and ran with it instead of listening to the designers as to how it would actually work.

I can’t comment on the culture now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that is how it went down. The company leadership should have bit the bullet and been upfront about what it was going to take to solve the problem instead of sugar coating and giving half truths. I’m betting that is why they have a new CEO now.

Thanks for the reply. I too work the DoD side of the house and frankly many times the trade isn’t a cost vs function it’s a straight up innovation “how the hell do we even do this.” There was a time when Boeing was revered in large multiengine aircraft design. This debacle is going to put a tarnish on that image that may never polish back out. Kinda like NASA back in the day. They went from alpha nerd engineers to getting forced into making a piss poor decision and killing a whole shuttle crew on launch.

 

[NorthDallas40]

Boeing moved corporate management from Seattle to Chicago. Boeing also took over McDonnell-Douglas, and the story is that McDonnell-Douglas bean counters took over Boeing in that move. Separate the cultures like that, and it's like believing that "good" management doesn't differ whether you are baking cookies or airplanes.

I had a big fight with marketing and management in my last job about "we needed to do what XYZ was doing". I eventually proved that while it looked impressive, what they did was simply unethical ... you simply couldn't take data and manufacture a result like they were doing - the analysis was far too complex and their system was nowhere sophisticated enough to give that kind of result - neither was ours and it would run circles around theirs.

Good for you on sticking to your guns. Frankly I believe that’s why they pay us what they do in the senior roles.

 

[Rasputin_Vol]

Ok so if you worked at Boeing WTF happened with their engineering culture on this MAX debacle? It absolutely SCREAMS of bean counters guiding design team decisions.

You just nailed it.

 

[Rasputin_Vol]

I’ve led a couple of Tiger Teams over the years and been a key player on several others. Nothing wrong with hearing out the company’s concerns and impacts on the bottom line, but when it comes time to control design integrity that falls squarely on the engineering leadership. And I’ve had to give that message to non engineering team members over the years. You don’t have to be a jerk on delivery but you have to be clear who owns the decision. If you’re moved aside as a result... I’ve never had that threat leveled at me but I’d like to think I’d maintain my professional integrity on a critical decision. The key is to make sure you know the criticality of what you’re going to the mat over and if it’s a safety issue I don’t see where it’s even negotiable. Hopefully I won’t get put in this position I’m the four years I’ve got left.



Thanks for the reply. I too work the DoD side of the house and frankly many times the trade isn’t a cost vs function it’s a straight up innovation “how the hell do we even do this.” There was a time when Boeing was revered in large multiengine aircraft design. This debacle is going to put a tarnish on that image that may never polish back out. Kinda like NASA back in the day. They went from alpha nerd engineers to getting forced into making a piss poor decision and killing a whole shuttle crew on launch.

If you don't have engineers that are able to come up through the ranks and eventually be able to have seats at the table where the decisions are being made, then you don't have a culture conducive for engineering and innovation. And its not just like this in the aerospace industry in this country.

 

[rjd970]

Boeing moved corporate management from Seattle to Chicago. Boeing also took over McDonnell-Douglas, and the story is that McDonnell-Douglas bean counters took over Boeing in that move. Separate the cultures like that, and it's like believing that "good" management doesn't differ whether you are baking cookies or airplanes.

I had a big fight with marketing and management in my last job about "we needed to do what XYZ was doing". I eventually proved that while it looked impressive, what they did was simply unethical ... you simply couldn't take data and manufacture a result like they were doing - the analysis was far too complex and their system was nowhere sophisticated enough to give that kind of result - neither was ours and it would run circles around theirs.

While my badge said Boeing, I technically worked for “McDonnel Douglas, a wholly owned Subsidary of the Boeing Company”.

The grey-beard McDonnel Douglas guys I worked with used to get so pissed when they heard it called the “Boeing F-15” or “Boeing F-18” or “Boeing JDAM”. Lol.

 

[rjd970]

I’ve led a couple of Tiger Teams over the years and been a key player on several others. Nothing wrong with hearing out the company’s concerns and impacts on the bottom line, but when it comes time to control design integrity that falls squarely on the engineering leadership. And I’ve had to give that message to non engineering team members over the years. You don’t have to be a jerk on delivery but you have to be clear who owns the decision. If you’re moved aside as a result... I’ve never had that threat leveled at me but I’d like to think I’d maintain my professional integrity on a critical decision. The key is to make sure you know the criticality of what you’re going to the mat over and if it’s a safety issue I don’t see where it’s even negotiable. Hopefully I won’t get put in this position I’m the four years I’ve got left.



Thanks for the reply. I too work the DoD side of the house and frankly many times the trade isn’t a cost vs function it’s a straight up innovation “how the hell do we even do this.” There was a time when Boeing was revered in large multiengine aircraft design. This debacle is going to put a tarnish on that image that may never polish back out. Kinda like NASA back in the day. They went from alpha nerd engineers to getting forced into making a piss poor decision and killing a whole shuttle crew on launch.

NASA is just one big bureaucracy at this point. The Apollo and Von Braun days are done. Now it’s full of lowest common denominator type engineers and incompetence is advanced up the chain because that is the only way to get rid of them. There are exceptions of course, but that is the general rule from my experience. I would go crazy working in that environment.

 

[AM64]

While my badge said Boeing, I technically worked for “McDonnel Douglas, a wholly owned Subsidary of the Boeing Company”.

The grey-beard McDonnel Douglas guys I worked with used to get so pissed when they heard it called the “Boeing F-15” or “Boeing F-18” or “Boeing JDAM”. Lol.

You mentioned a couple of comments back that Boeing had a lot of experience in large multi-engine planes, and it never seemed right that they picked up McDonnell-Douglas fighters. Just seems like there should always be different cultures for planes that radically different. My dad flew F-101Bs and my brother flew F-15s and they sure didn't look or act like anything else Boeing built. Back when my dad was in primary flight training, Boeing did take over Stearman, so those old PT-13s and PT-17s were single engined "Boeing" planes.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

As a retired engineer, I get what rjd970 is saying. And at the same time I have a strong sense of outrage over what Boeing has done ... and many other companies the world around do. Every time there's a major problem whether safety like the 737 MAX or VW with their diesel emission scandal, I feel certain there are multiple engineers who are livid because they tried to call attention to and address the issue before the failures started stacking up.

As I've mentioned before, my brother is retired both from the AF and Delta where he also flew internationally. As much as I respect most engineers, I generally have more admiration for guys like you. We as engineers get the chance to correct errors in a much safer (and when it all goes bad) much saner environment, and we almost never have the time factor and the immediacy of lost lives to figure in as we analyze problems.

Having said that, the biggest problem in both what you like about Airbus and in the MAX problem would be are we too reliant in computer control? For example, how well does manual override work? And probably even more (especially in the MAX issue) how much do pilots know about the computer control. With the 737 MAX it honestly appears that the automation rather than the pilots was the big problem - that is, they didn't know why the plane was fighting them and how to deal with it. So do we do too much with automation in a lot of areas, and forget why it's a pilot in the cockpit rather than a gamer, and does excessive automation that reduces human responsibility in turn lead to increased risk of failure? I may be oversensitive in that respect because over the years when I deal with something I want to know how it works, and companies don't put out theory of operation, and frankly most users wouldn't want or understand anyway.

When the Air France Airbus crashed over the Atlantic because of pitot tube icing, would pilots more used to flying by the seat of the pants have diagnosed a stall in time to recover? To me it's about awareness and perhaps excess automation is both a blessing and a curse if the electronics do things that a pilot may have questioned if he was aware of it.

I love this post. I really do.

I flew the 737-200 for several years. (Anybody that flew to Orlando on Delta Express might have been with me) First bolded statement: We had a procedure for runaway stabilizer trim and the second step was to turn the system off. The controls still worked fine although they could be a little heavy, but you wouldn't be fighting them and could land on the wheels. I think that is still procedure in the 737-XXX although I have never flown any other version.

Second bolded statement: I both agree and disagree. I think the big part here is the training on this system or lack thereof. Had they left the system off, they would have landed. But what is unconscionable to me though is that the disagree light on this system was (apparently) an option. That I do not understand. If you are going to have a largely computer controlled airplane, then the human element needs to know when something is amiss so they either do or do not take action. That seems basic to me.

One of our pilots is a complete Airbus nerd. He came over from Northwest and knows everything there is to know about Airbus. He wrote a book on AF 447. Kind of techie, but interesting. To be honest I haven't read the whole thing. The upshot is that they didn't have much time to diagnose the problem, and there is a big difference in the flight controls between Airbus and Boeing that made that diagnosis more difficult. I have to say, if I am in the upper altitudes and I can imagine seeing the altimeter unwinding down at the rate they saw, it would be very hard to push the nose over -towards- the ground. That would have flown them out of it as they were in a deep stall, in an airplane that supposedly you cannot stall.


Oh, and thank you for the compliment.

 

[AM64]

I love this post. I really do.

I flew the 737-200 for several years. (Anybody that flew to Orlando on Delta Express might have been with me) First bolded statement: We had a procedure for runaway stabilizer trim and the second step was to turn the system off. The controls still worked fine although they could be a little heavy, but you wouldn't be fighting them and could land on the wheels. I think that is still procedure in the 737-XXX although I have never flown any other version.

Second bolded statement: I both agree and disagree. I think the big part here is the training on this system or lack thereof. Had they left the system off, they would have landed. But what is unconscionable to me though is that the disagree light on this system was (apparently) an option. That I do not understand. If you are going to have a largely computer controlled airplane, then the human element needs to know when something is amiss so they either do or do not take action. That seems basic to me.

One of our pilots is a complete Airbus nerd. He came over from Northwest and knows everything there is to know about Airbus. He wrote a book on AF 447. Kind of techie, but interesting. To be honest I haven't read the whole thing. The upshot is that they didn't have much time to diagnose the problem, and there is a big difference in the flight controls between Airbus and Boeing that made that diagnosis more difficult. I have to say, if I am in the upper altitudes and I can imagine seeing the altimeter unwinding down at the rate they saw, it would be very hard to push the nose over -towards- the ground. That would have flown them out of it as they were in a deep stall, in an airplane that supposedly you cannot stall.


Oh, and thank you for the compliment.

The respect comes easily. You have done what I intended to do with my life. However, the military in particular takes a dim view of people who might find the big E on a chart but couldn't tell you which way it points. Engineering was interesting as long as I could get out into plants to do testing and diagnostics, but even that was definitely down the list of professional choices. I've never gotten over going to the alert barn at Langley when my brother was flying F-106s - one of the guys was asking me all about Three Mile Island, and I was thinking what I had been doing at TMI still seemed so insignificant and dull in comparison to what they did.

 

[Matt2496]

Boeing deliberately left off the fact they had even implemented an MCAS system out of the pilot's manual that captain's are required to read. The pilots wouldn't have had any idea how to disable such a system.