Europe says 737 Max won't fly until it completes it own design review
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
This may be as close to an ‘open and shut’ case for corporate gross negligence as we will find in quite a while (at least I hope so).
I would hate to see them go under but it should be clear that this type of corner cutting is unacceptable and future manufacturers of all kinds should think twice before stretching to put a round peg in a square hole.... especially with lives on the line.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004#Lauda's_v...
They already have several contracts which states victims can't sue the company. Maybe not everyone signed, but then it's about how much they can pay their lawyers.
I think the right way to go here is (proactive) regulation and certification, not (reactive) law suits.
"Boeing's bigger so I don't have to care about that dynamic" is not the right way to react to that concern.
This will also add a serious line item to the various civil lawsuits regarding the loss of life as a government level entity has now said 'this was a different plane, Boeing lied.' It will be extremely hard for Boeing defense attorneys and likely lead to triplicate damages settlements.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be happening.
While I can't speak for the aviation industry, in my experience lower and middle management is just as much at fault, if not more. That's often where the real cowards sit, tyrannizing downwards and lying upwards. I'm not saying upper management is faultless, but presumably they aren't the only ones.
Middle managers don't have the power to drive institutional change in a hierarchical organization. Cultures flows from whomever can fire your ass.
Perhaps we’ll ser the same: Europe arresting and trialling Boeing officials one by one as they ser foot in Europe. Perhaps there are already negociations on immunity for Vw against immunity for Boeing.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-wint...
Contracts with whom? A member country EU court with a dead passenger could presumably make life very very uncomfortable for senior Boeing management.
The contracts are with the surviving familing members. If you don't consider them as victims then give me another word for it.
edit: If you downvote me at least give me a chance to defend why I chose the word victim. The reply gizmo is there.
>a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action
"Victim's family" is how people would normally refer to them.
Second, it will hurt sales. No airline wants to buy a plane they can’t fly, but they also don’t want to buy more old planes that use more fuel. My bet is that companies like Southwest will half all orders and see what happens.
Finally, it’ll drive companies that straddle the Boeing airbus decide deeper into Airbus’ arms.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-14/boeing-73...
1. These kinds of contracts don't come with provisions for compensation for every foreseeable contingency.
2. You can sue anyone for anything in America. But it's going to cost you.
3. You can also make future purchases conditional on how these contingencies were handled in the past.
So, it's likely that a lot of negotiation between Southwest and Boeing will happen. Possibly even some arbitration. If the two firms ever end up in court over this, that would indicate a colossal failure in all the processes that lead up to that moment. (As litigation is incredibly expensive.)
"crappy old airframe"
It's actually an incredible good design with a proven history. What exactly makes you think its such a "crappy" design?
A lot of people say "It's no big deal, they just need to update the MCAS software", but I see this entire situation as a sign of much deeper issues at Boeing, issues that can't be fixed with a simple software update and could affect every plane they make.
What worries me is not the MCAS (now), but what else might be lurking under the surface that Boeing pretends is not a problem.
I don't feel confident that Boeing would accept the cost of grounding the fleet the next time something serious-but-not-yet-crashing shows up. It's clear that to Boeing, their numbers are more important than lives.
They wouldn't even ground the fleet if death and destruction occurs. Like they didn't do after the Lion Air crash.
Even after the Ethiopian plane they tried hell and high water, including a call to the president, to not have the plane grounded.
It's clear that to Boeing, their numbers are more important than lives.
Absolutely. Nicely demonstrated by lies, deflections, omissions and still smearing everybody else but themselves after killing more than 300 people by bad design and greed.
Isn't it the case by design for any corporation?
If you have a hard time competing and every day is a fight anyways, why would you act in a way that is sustainable in the long term?
If you listened to the NYT’s the Daily podcast where they interview a former Boeing quality manager/whistleblower this is clearly the picture that is painted here: Managment doesn’t give a shit if they use potentially broken or dangerous parts, they leave metal debree and garbage inside the wmhull right next to important control lines, in one case they forgot a whole ladder inside.
The 737 Max is not the illness, it is just the first visible symptom.
It has been the case, recently, that a company that is traded publicly cannot have a long term goal - any such goal is held in place solely by the ephemeral existence of an autocratic executive and will dissipate once they are removed or retire, instead corporations seek constantly to maximize short term gain since incentive systems like stock options and our current form of performance evaluations reinforce this strategy.
Most of the companies that have had long term clout or tried to invest in long term research have been acquired and butchered by venture capitalists for a quick payday.
Sure, some company management may be spurred to be good actors because they feel it will cause long term vale creation.
But then again you could just do the right thing because by and large people are not assholes.
That's why when I hear of exploitative predation by companies I get so mad: because it's ultimately exploitative predation by people. Even if the person on the phone to you / writing that code may not have enough context to understand the evil they might be doing, someone set the context that way, and in many cases it was deliberate.
They are required to do what the shareholders want, which is usually maximizing returns.
It's a shameful state of affairs, but the entire system is set up to reward this kind of behavior now.
I'd love to hear someone who understands the problem explain how we got here.
But to categorically say this about any corporation is nonsense.
It is basically a result of agency theory (principal agent problem) in the typical setting of economic theory (no transaction costs, bla bla bla).
The question is what a corporation should do, which aims it should strive for. That's an extremely difficult question, in particular if there are many owners ("principals", shareholders) who have different utility functions (goals), who are furthermore distinct from the CEO and managers actually running the business ("agents"), who might have their own interests (enlarging their fiefdom, job security, what have you).
The theoretical solution is to say: maximise the net present value of the firm (which goes to the shareholders, after paying debt), and then they can decide what to do with it, and pursue their own goals. Now, this makes some sense in a no-transaction cost world - if shareholders care about workers and peace and the sick, they can use the shareholder value created, and put some of it in, dunno, charity and health insurances, and what have you.
Thus, goal should be shareholder value maximisation, and to get the agents on board, you "align their interests" by incentives, specifically by giving the CEO options.
(Note that shareholder value maximisation is not the same as profit maximisation, and definitely not the same as short-term profit maximisation - the value of the shares is theoretically the sum of discounted cashflows in all eternity).
The other argument, of course, is that shareholders care only about maximisation of the value of their share, and thus a firm which does not pursue shareholder value maximisation will lose shareholders and go out of business.
Both arguments are not all bad, but of course the real world is much more complicated. Shareholders might have more goals than maximising the value of their shares (not in Econ 101, of course). A company might be in a much better position to achieve some of those aims directly, rather than via the circuitous route of handing it to the shareholder and them pouring it back into the game.
At any rate, the notion of shareholder value maximisation is not some God-given absolute truth, but one proposed solution for specific problems within a specific theoretic framework, and it's not clear at all that it's always optimal, and should not be reflexively trotted out when talking about corporations, and not serve as a defense for corporations acting badly.
a news alert popped up on my phone today about "bird strike possible in ethiopian crash...". I didn't bother reading it, but I thought seriously ? What media outlet did they pay off to even think of trying to divert attention and who in their right mind would think propaganda like that would be effective ?
Aside from a bird strike the possibilities are just as unlikely. There could be sabotage. There could have been an impact with the passenger boarding equipment. Somebody cleaning or painting the plane could have smashed it.
Choosing to use a competing product as an end consumer would require an immense sacrifice (like refusing to board your flight if it happened to be a Boeing, which you might get a rebate for?). Only if a significant amount of end consumers protested would the actual plane consumers (the airlines themselves) take notice - or if public opinion shifted to the point where there was a significant externality attached to purchasing a Boeing plane, but that certainly isn't the case now and I'd bet that Boeing has found some way to compensate airlines for the cost of having their planes grounded.
For example, if airline A flies MAX and has a ticket for 200 and another airline B has the same route for 400 on A320, most people I know would still fly the MAX because they cant afford to be picky.
I think talking with your wallet works only when the price is relatively inelastic
It's not like they're sitting by the gate sucking the blood of passengers. They're still delivering the safest method of transportation around, not only by distance, but also by time. I know some Boeing employees, they want to deliver great airplanes.
You're assuming they have no stock or stock options in Boeing.
That would not be bad by itself. It is only important that regulators and customers make sure that this leaves really big dent in their numbers.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/inves...
BTW (I'm not folowing this very closely) is there already, or will there be a criminal investigation?
They knew there were problems with the design and flew the planes any way.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-09/former-bo...
Norwegian Air Shuttle has been in a lot of trouble over that when they sold tickets promising Dreamliner but instead leased in a much older airplane to fly that trip. (well they have done it multiple times on different trips)
Air Canada is getting a bunch of A220s which from all reports seem like a much nicer plane to fly on.
But airplane tech moves kind of slowly, no? Non-MAX 737s can't really change, and so are as safe today as they were 6 month or 6 years ago. The MAX debacle makes me SUPER SUPER leery of any new airframe, though.
The competing aircraft are all much newer and nicer. The only reason anyone was buying the MAX was 1) because they had already bought into Boeing and the 737 and it's cheaper to just get a 737MAX which doesn't require any pilot retraining (thanks to keeping the MCAS a secret), and 2) because Boeing was selling them really cheap (possibly "dumping") to compete against Airbus.
Newer planes also tend to have better environmental controls (air pressure, lighting, etc).
Pilots can only hold one type certification at a time, and have to retrain to switch between them. Southwest pretty much only flies 737’s and is heavily interested in the MAX because it means they don’t lose the ability for pilots to fly their other aircraft due to retaining the same type certification.
Boeing tried so hard to avoid "retraining". Yet the training isn't that expensive. It's about $22,000 for an airline pilot to move from another aircraft to a 737 family aircraft. Takes about a month. And that's like an Airbus to a Boeing switch, not just between similar models. If Boeing threw in a few training credits with each aircraft (each costs about $100 million) that would have solved the problem.
Source? I am pretty sure pilots could hold any number of type ratings (sic) at any time, but it's uneconomical for the airline to keep them rated (and current), so it's rarely done.
Even if my chances of dying on a 737 MAX are much higher than dying on a tried and true A340, they are probably around the same as me dying from pancreatic cancer and I don't get my pancreas checked regularly.
Fear, anxiety, apprehension, are legitimate human conditions regardless of how irrational they are. And regardless of what the numbers say, there's an effective treatment available: filter flights by plane type.
I personally don't care. But my wife does, and therefore I do care after all.
Took me too many years to learn this fact about coexisting with others: addressing how they feel is almost always easier than trying to convince them not to feel that way.
Peace of mind is worth much more than many many things.
A better analogy would be if you found out your favorite drink gave you a 100x greater chance of getting pancreatic cancer, would you stop drinking it? (Note: the odds of you getting pancreatic cancer on the whole are still immeasurably small even at 100x) What if you found out this new drink recipe never went through any safety testing but the company claimed it was basically the same as the old tested drink you enjoyed previously from the same company?
The fix wasn't to reengineer the large amount of electrical systems, lack of bleed air or use of different batteries.
The fix was to put them in a stronger container with a hole in it so they can vent outside when they inevitably blow up again.
That has worked well. So far.
Kind of - https://aeronauticsonline.com/united-787-battery-failure-pro...
The main issue IIRC was manufacturing defects in some batteries that caused internal short circuits.
> The fix was to put them in a stronger container with a hole in it so they can vent outside
And this is an acceptable fix (beyond better QA/manufacturing practices of the battery). If the batteries fail the fault should be contained.
The article you linked explains the changes Boeing implemented.
Yes, batteries failed. The battery failure was contained correctly. Besides improving the reliability of the battery (which was addressed with some changes) that's what Boeing should have done (and did).
They're not going back to NiCa or Lead batteries
I’ve also heard that the 787 was a boondoggle.
Firstly, Boeing totally re-invented their approach to assembling planes. Previously they built most of the aireframe components and assembled them in their own plants. But the 787 was specced out during an ongoing Boeing/Airbus anti-trust dispute over government cross-subsidies that turned nasty (escalated to USA/EU level, mediated via the WTO, with sanctions threatened). For strategic reasons Boeing decided to outsource subassembly production to third parties and retain only overall control and final assembly (the goal was to have 51% of the work go through the EU, so that the EU would shoot themselves in the head if they applied sanctions against Boeing aircraft). (Similarly, Airbus did much the same: you can buy A320s—the 737 series' Airbus rival—built entirely in China, for example.)
Anyway, this resulted in huge cost overruns, delays as small suppliers grappled with trying to supply components of reliable quality and consistency in Boeing-scale quantities, and so on. On the other hand, it gave Boeing a shiny new 21st century supply chain which they're using on new projects, so the $30Bn wasn't entirely wasted on just one bird.
Secondly, Boeing went full-tilt for composites in place of aluminum as the main structural material.
Now, Airbus had been building composite airframes for decades at this point, but they got there incrementally, and not without fatal accidents. See for example the crash of American Airlines flight 587:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587
It turns out that switching to all-composites from aluminum has some serious gotchas, including entirely different wear/fatigue/delamination issues.
Boeing has done surprisingly well up to this point with the 787 (although the early Ethiopian Airlines hull loss ground-side due to a runaway battery fire should be a warning—it was a shiny new plane and the battery fire burned through the top of the hull, turning it into a $200M write-off; an aluminum bird could probably have been patched and repaired). But we have no idea whether Boeing managed to avoid baked-in long term weaknesses in the airframe, of the kind that only show up 10-30 years into an aircraft's life. Such weaknesses can show up suddenly and kill an entire type within a matter of months (see for example the fate of the Vickers Valiant, a British strategic bomber of the 1950s that succumbed to cracked wing spars and was hastily scrapped).
Anyway: this is why I'm very dubious about flying on 787s, at least for another few years. Your mileage may vary, obviously ...
this is not entirely true. applying throttle to the max causes a pitching momentum, something you don't want during a deep stall when control surfaces are totally unresponsive, because it would make the exit procedure (throttle up, nose naturally pitches down, gain airpseed and regain control) unsafe (throttle up, whops the plane is now pointing upward and going backward)
> The purpose of MCAS was just to prevent the need for pilots to recertify by masking the difference
This is a Boeing talking-point as well. The real purpose of MCAS might be to make an otherwise wildly-unsafe plane flyable, and without it it's a disaster waiting to happen. Again, we don't actually know how safe the plane is without it.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-...
737 Max experiences dynamic instability, where a high angle of attack is prone to increase the angle of attack at an increasing rate.
As I understand, parts of the certification process had been outsourced by the FAA to 3rd parties with monetary incentive to accelerate approvals and downplay safety critical issues.
That just seems to be asking for trouble and a step backwards in vetting the safety of new aircraft designs.
However, that's a step back from the previous approach, where fundamental architecture concepts are needlessly cooked into the airframe regulations. As a simple example, under the previous approach, the law stated that light sport aircraft needed a reciprocating engine, and that reciprocating engine must meet XYZ standards. However that means you couldn't certify and sell an electric LSA in the United States. To certify such an aircraft would have required literally an act of congress.
Overall, this was generally holding back the industry a great deal. The new rules have been in place for a couple of years now (they came into effect just at the end of the Obama administration) and the result has been an enormous improvement in technology available to certified aircraft owners and designers.
So personally I don't think it is a step backwards. The MCAS/CG issue is unfortunate, but it's also part of an industry-wide adjustment that is in general leading to better airplanes.
And you can make it that much more safe by doing yourself a favor and avoiding the 737 MAX.
I have no idea, but I suspect they're all still orders of magnitude safer than driving.
The better measure is time: deaths per hour traveled. And by that measure buses are actually safest, followed by rail, then air [1][2]. Cars are still 4x more dangerous, but that's much less stark than the common wisdom. And even that is misleading because with cars specifically, there is much more variability of drivers, car quality, maintenance, etc. If you are sober, responsible, educated, with a well maintained car, etc. your odds are significantly lower. Think drunk drivers who only kill themselves in accidents (this is a significant portion of car deaths).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety
[2] http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_5_No_7_1_July_2015/15.p...
I'm not sure why you think just doubling the speed would impact the crash/unit of distance ratio. If ten planes do a 600km trip and one crashes, that's 1 crash per 6000km regardless of the speed at which they're traveling.
You're right that fixed per-trip risks are diluted, but that's because plane trips are longer, not because they're faster. The right comparison, in my opinion, would be to draw the curves of death rate / trip length.
No, they really cannot. Jetliners can't even increase their speed by 20%, because that puts them through the sound barrier, which they can't handle. Planes must specifically be designed to handle that, like the Concorde or fighter jets. All planes currently used for civilian aviation cannot handle it.
Are you suggesting that people take a bus from New York to Los Angeles, because though the chance of being injured or killed is higher, it is worth it because the trip takes so much longer?
In the US, some overwhelming majority of these accidents are alcohol-involved and (I believe) single-vehicle.
The more you scratch the more the Boeing-FAA relationship stinks. The way Boeing is dealing with this, they way FAA "trusts" Boeing.
Deep down we know most of them don't care much about the people who fly on their planes, but damn seeing it how exactly that plays out is terrifying.
Do you think most Boeing employees only fly Airbus?
Recent history tells us the 737-MAX has also been marred with some serious design issues relating to it's MCAS system, which have resulted in multiple fatal crashes.
That history suggests passengers should be wary of boarding a 737-MAX any time soon.
I for one will give it a few years before taking up that boarding pass.
Airbus A380, Boeing 717, Boeing 787, Bombardier CRJ700, Airbus A340. And I'm pretty sure there are more.
Let's put it in perspective. Boeing has built over ten thousand 737s. Airbus has produced just 265 A350s.
Heck, at the moment Boeing crossed 265 737-MAX-8s in production, they might very well have had zero fatalities as well :)
Well, 737 MAX and 787, for me. The 777 is rock solid, as far as I can tell - and it was designed before the significant changes at Boeing and FAA.
> Safety lapses at the North Charleston plant have drawn the scrutiny of airlines and regulators. Qatar Airways stopped accepting planes from the factory after manufacturing mishaps damaged jets and delayed deliveries. Workers have filed nearly a dozen whistle-blower claims and safety complaints with federal regulators, describing issues like defective manufacturing, debris left on planes and pressure to not report violations. Others have sued Boeing, saying they were retaliated against for flagging manufacturing mistakes.
I hate the 787 for those terrible stupid windows and the ability the crew has to bypass local controls and prevent me from looking out whenever I want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004#Lauda's_v...
I'm reluctant to continue the self regulation. The EU is doing it's own design review.
Awesome. They will find a lot of ugly, and some of that will be debatable.
Have those debates.
All companies involved will see some costs. But, they will also see opportunity as they work through this stuff.
We benefit.
yes but limited to -MAX
the others have a good track record and for some reason they seem to takeoff and land smoother, even if probably it's selection bias due to the high correlation of [airline, plane, destination] variables.
If any billionaires out there were considering starting a company in the commercial airliner market, now would be an opportune moment...
Spirit and Frontier are all-Airbus
I doubt they will be certified to fly without adding the triple redundant AOA sensors the A320neo has and that should have been included from the very beginning. If the FAA certified the 737 MAX without a mandatory upgrade (doubtful, given the glare of publicity), then yes, I'd be worried.
I think they just need to update the pricing structure.
Let the MAX fly as is but just halve the ticket prices, use cabin crew that are coming close to retirement (or have failed performance reviews), make the routes be in developing countries/states and keep the profits rolling in.
I am joking, however, if Boeing sold medicines, pesticides, lead paint, food additives or any number of other things deemed deadly in the home market then it could be exported overseas to be sold at a profit.
Even though Boeing, the FAA and Trump can be criticised for the handling of the 737 Max, the wider international community has done good, we haven't got these shambolic planes relegated to poorer parts of the world where lives are cheap.
To put a finer point on it, I believe a 737-MAX is still safer than general aviation, which I think most rational people aren't scared of.
Naturally it'll be skewed but also naturally it tells something about its risk given the safety record of the aviation industry.
That's just crazy talk. If it's more dangerous than a car I'll eat my hat.
According to NYT/Flightaware, there were ~8600 737Max flights per week. Let's call it 8000, and limit our analysis to the past year. Let's also make the very low assumption there are only 100 passengers on each.
8000 * 100 * 50 is very conservative 40 million passenger trips per year. And there were 350 deaths.
Cars have a fatality rate of ~1 per 100 million miles. That means that the average distance traveled needs to be ~1000 miles to be better than cars.
I challenge you to find better numbers estimates, but my very conservative numbers says they're on par or better than cars. I must confess I'm a little surprised how close it was.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-737-max-8-compares-142...
"Well-known and popular commercial aircraft have been involved in far more fatal accidents than the Boeing 737 Max 8. The 3,065 fatalities onboard the Tupolev Tu-154 are more than any of the 47 aircraft models Quartz analyzed. But commercial staples from Boeing, the 737-200 and 747-200, rank second and third on the list, with 2,910 and 1,664 fatalities respectively."
Any of their newer stuff? No way.
What I'm curious is whether EASA has similar certification shortcu... optimizations for Airbus.
And they risked the lives of passengers and crew. Which, at least in my book, are cardinal sins in aerospace. A sector that brides itself with safety. This just cannot happen and yet it did. That now Boeing and others are trying to blame dead pilots is only making things worse.
When the US elected Trump, that should have been the signal that the US could no longer be relied on. Of course, there were many signs and problems before (like when W. Bush was elected and started 2 wars), but Trump being elected should have been the obvious last straw.
Perhaps for future large orders this may be a boon for Airbus, but that would be in the longer medium term, and a lot can happen between then and now.
As it is, having two large companies trading blows is better than one dominating the market, so I hope Boeing are humbled, have a root and branch overhaul of how they conduct business, and shareholders take a hit, but that they survive.
Yes it is costly but you know what? It's BS
Because the 737 line (nor the A320 nor any other line) is not going to last forever. (Especially wrt widebodies but that's another issue as I don't know if the A330Neo and the 777X have the same type as their predecessors)
EVERY airline should be planning ahead. I'm thinking if Southwest and/or Ryanair are not thinking about keep flying their NGs and forget all about this MAX stuff for one or two years at least (FR delayed their MAX deliveries last I heard)
Now Airbus just put out the NEO and they probably have room for another refresh on that platform but probably not two refreshes. But again, it won't last forever
Though the tough part for airlines is two: pilots can't switch between 2 types and bringing another type slowly is hard. But it is something they will have to do eventually
First of all they will not capitalize on this. Airlines as well as manufacturers never use (lack of) security with a competitor as a marketing argument.
Moreover. Order books for the main competitor, The A320NEO and derivatives, are full until something like 2025.
It's possible that it's an advantage for the A220 (Bombardier C series) as some commenter pointed out. Which, incidentally, is a fantastic passenger experience for short - to medium haul flights.
Suspect they're very happy to use consumer confidence as a marketing argument though.
At the same time, Boeing and the FAA have already taken pretty big hits. So game theoretically speaking, why not go all in?
Tough to say which is the worse tactic for the US government to follow right now? (If we're talking about landing in the best position long term.) Taking the high road? Or just letting the corruption show?
I had a diagnostic medical imaging startup. You can't even imagine the pain the FDA inflicted on our bottom line before they would give an OK on anything. But the FAA is out there just taking the word of some company's engineers that "Yeah. We're good."?
I guess I just thought that all of the regulation, was like it was in the healthcare field. Guess not.
I could ALMOST understand it if they would do it in the medical field because there are so many companies small and large working in the field. But no, the FDA is indeed stringent and thorough.
But airplane manufacturing in the US? Hello? How many aircraft do they have to verify? It's not like there's 100s of manufacturers releasing 100s of plane designs.
The 787 and 737max were the only ones released in the last decade. And both were partly self-certified!
And look, I'm not saying it's wrong that Boeing has it a lot easier than I did. I'm just asking what's the justification? In my case I get it. Imagine you're submitting a device that shoots high levels of radiation, at extremely high power, into the human body to kill cancer cells?
Well yeah. I understand. The FDA doesn't care that you believe this device is the same as the last one.
You're shooting high yield radiation...
At levels fatal to humans...
In the middle of a hospital...
Which itself is potentially in the middle of a population center?
OK, yeah, I get it. They're gonna check the new device as thoroughly as they checked the old one. No one wants the equivalent of a dirty bomb going off in some small town. I'm not complaining about that.
I even understand that Boeing doesn't shoot radiation all over the place, so maybe things can be a bit more lenient? I get that maybe that was the justification? But here's the thing, Boeing can still kill people, as is plainly evident. Why is the government being so lax on them, while at the same time giving my RTP product the equivalent of a regulatory colonoscopy?
I mean, if anything, both products should get the regulatory colonoscopy.
It is easy to see the scheduled type of aircraft when you book tickets.
The 737 MAX needed to retain the unusual fuselage design of the 737 to retain the type rating, leading to the unusual positioning of the new, larger engines, leading to MCAS.
Even if they gave the 737 MAX a new type rating at this point, the fuselage would still be the same shape as a 737 with the engine positioning driving the need for MCAS.
The only way to get rid of the need for MCAS at this point, AFAICT, would be to create a new fuselage which doesn't inherit the historical baggage of the 737 (which was designed to support airstairs). That would be a whole new plane, not just a new rating. The 737 MAXes built so far would be scrap.
It's been remarked before, but if Boeing hadn't been so determined to keep the same type rating, reviving the 757 might have made more sense.
It may still have issues hence the “wait a few years” in my response.
Most jets have their quirks. I recall many 727 pilots telling me they put nose down pressure just before or at touchdown to make the plane land more nicely due to the relative location of center of lift and landing gear. Not something i usually do when flying a tricycle gear plane...
I'm not sure where the quirks bit comes in. Sure, all planes have their quirks but obviously taildraggers don't intentionally squat their props _closer_ to the pavement on landing. There's no danger of a prop strike on a jet-powered airliner, so reducing nose bounce with some elevator is not a problem. That's not a quirk.
Secondly, landing a taildragger on its wheels does involve a distinct “push the nose forward” on touchdown to keep the plane on the ground. Takes a bit of practice to get used to it. Even more fun is landing on just one wheel in a strong crosswind. Consider that if you don’t push the nose forward the tail will naturally sink (as it is still going down when the main gear hits the ground). This will increase the angle of attack causing the plane to take off again. Hence why we land on the wheels this way. (Or do a three point landing...)
I had never considered that aspect of increasing angle of attack on bringing the rear wheel down. Considering that and the fact that there is no rotation on takeoff, what is the appeal of a taildragger? I've even seen 152's converted to taildragger. Why would one do that? Do taildraggers have any advantage that I cannot fathom?
is it? I've never noticed it.
I guess it's possible to infer it by the seat configuration when you get to choose it, but I never saw "you'll be flying XYZ" when I booked tickets in the past.
Note, though, that planes can be swaped on short notice, or no notice at all.
That's as maybe, but is far from guaranteed to remain as-is - and how many people maintain an ExpertFlyer membership and enter their itinerary for aircraft change alerts? Unless a seat changes†, IME most airlines don't proactively send out change alerts to passengers already booked when one aircraft is swapped for another. Furthermore I would sincerely doubt anyone's ability to extract a refund because the airline changed to a plane they weren't willing to board.
† and even then it isn't guaranteed, and rarely do I notice the alerts highlighting the reason being an aircraft change
it's possible a last minute wet-lease could put you on a max, but it's unlikely.
then you will never be able to fly one. It cannot get its own type certificate.
I am happy not flying on it as a 737-typed aircraft.
They also don't have the ability to differentiate between planes in general, so this is probably just as likely to affect their perceptions of the A320.
https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-dont-want-to-fly-b...
"If you had a flight on a Boeing 737 Max next week, and the FAA decided to clear the aircraft for flight, given the issues the plane has experienced, what would you do?
53.1% of respondents said they would reschedule. Of those, the survey found that 18.7% of respondents would reschedule their flight only if it didn't require a fee. Another 4.4% of respondents said they would pay to reschedule their flight up to a certain monetary fee, which they then typed in. A full 30% of people would cancel or reschedule their flights, regardless of the cost to them"
Of course, if you live near a smaller airport there's less choice -- but you are probably more used to connecting flights in that case.
The initial question should be - have you ever checked what aircraft you will be flying ?
99% of passengers have no idea.
It wasn't really a concern in the past because Boeing and the FAA didn't appear to be failing. They have impressive mountains of data that they hid behind while just operating with staggering negligence and incompetence, day after day.
I don't care how many agencies certify the max, I know way too much about it's design and how much pilots hate it now, I'm never flying on it.
Also, since you can't know which flights are using which planes (usually), many carriers use thes planes interchangably with non-MAX (737-800s), and you can't use the choice of plane as a reason to get a refund on your ticket, avoiding these planes is likely expensive. You need to fly another route, pick an airline that isn't the cheapest for the leg you are flying and so on. I mean I'm as scared of crashing as the next guy but I'm not "5% more expensive trip"-scared.
You have so much believe in authorities that even if proven they didn't do their job, you still trust in them with your life?
They might not always do their job the way I want them to, but there are no other authorities in this case to go to for a second opinion.
Otherwise I have no idea how you could even remotely compare these two situations
Now, the situation is a bit special now that there are efffectively TWO competing authorities. It's not that there used to be just one, but that one used to be the authortitive one (or that they spoke with one voice). This complicates things. So OK - when there are conflicting information I might trust the cautious one. But for all practical purposes, these authorities are opaque to the average traveler. I must either trust them or stay on the ground.
Flightaware and others show it too if you just search for the flight number
I've actually selected a different flight a few hours after another so I would be on an A380 vs 747 because two hours extra waiting to come home is worth it for the comfort on a longer flight, and feeling more refreshed the other end, especially with a long drive back from the airport waiting for me.
My trip just after the second accident but not before teh grounding.
Edit: Don't forget the 737 airframe was already a modified 727 airframe...
Also, I wonder how this will affect the Boeing-Embraer partnership. It would certainly be cheaper to spec-up an E-Jet to have the capacity of a 737 than to design a new airframe from scratch.
Also, the E195 has less than half the capacity of the largest 737. That would be a hell of an extension.
I won't be flying on one anytime soon if I can help it.
The planes are very similar (which is the whole selling point). That's why they can use the same safety instructions, which is probably where you saw the text "737-800/737 MAX8" printed. As others said, they are most easily told apart by the different look of their wing tips.
There are two features you can look for:
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/48929/is-this-a...
tl;dr on the MAX the wing tips split into two (above and below the main wing), on all previous 737s, the wingtips only curve up. Also the engine cowling has some cool looky jaggies on the trailing edge.
However there are aftermarket wingtips for the 737NG (737-600/700/800/900) which are similarly split that a number of major operators have fitted.
However, Europe is not obviously at war against the US.
But as a contra Point: there are tons of Max operators in the EU as well.