"Various hacks (as we would call them in the software industry) were developed."
Dear God. That's a sentence I never, ever wanted to hear about an aircraft.
Dear God. That's a sentence I never, ever wanted to hear about an aircraft.
For just a taste of this, an airliner flies at high altitude, and at low altitude. It flies at low speeds, and high speeds. It flies heavily loaded and empty. Optimizing for any one of these regimes means unacceptable behavior on the others. So compromises are necessary.
Ever notice the flaps on the wings? They're a compromise (a "hack" if you will) to change the shape of the wing to make it work better across different flight regimes. Because metal isn't very flexible, and a long list of other issues with the machinery that operates the flaps, the shape of them is hardly anything but compromises.
The "multiple cascading changes" is always an issue with a complex design, and in fact Boeing's approach with the Max was choosing a route which minimized those cascading changes.
» The "multiple cascading changes" is always an issue with a complex design, and in fact Boeing's approach with the Max was choosing a route which minimized those cascading changes.
I think the charges people are bringing is that Boeing wanted to make the new airplane acceptable by airliners by making the 737 Max the same as the old plane so there was no need to certify pilots for the new plane. My vote is that this is criminal negligence at best and under an ideal government, the then CEO and board would be in jail pending charges right now.
That's aircraft in a nutshell. I read a book on light aircraft design by a now long dead professor[2]. He had a penciled out analysis of what would happen to a 2 seater light plane if you replaced the simple and light stick with cables design[1] with a hydraulic one. Only added about 40lbs more weigh. Or 300lbs when that was propagated through the design. And needed a bigger engine.
[1] Control surfaces operated by a system of cables and pulleys controlled by a stick.
[2] KD Wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Dawson_Wood
I wonder what the equivalent of "Developing in Production" looks like for planes, or if this is it?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.