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Comment by dghlsakjg | Hacker News Reader

Traditionally, these threads will have a bunch of people that will proclaim that they will never fly in one of these planes.

Am I the only one that actually has no problem with flying on Boeing planes and the MAX?

The FAA and Boeing were publicly embarrassed on the world stage. They have every incentive to have gotten this right, the future of American commercial aviation basically rides on this outcome. Both organizations have the technical competency to get it done, and the management culture has been thoroughly slapped down. At this point, I just don't think it is possible for real concerns to have been ignored.

As to future development, it would be nice to see Boeing become an engineering first organization.

As an aside: the plane was never 'aerodynamically unstable' as so many people purport. MCAS was designed to make the stick pressures identical to the old models.

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Reminds me of those who said they'd never ride in a Toyota again after the unintended acceleration catastrophe. It cost them BILLIONS, now people hardly remember it.

Utterly different scenario. Toyota was not a "too-big-to-fail" US defense contractor, and thus there was not a domestic entity allowing Toyota to police itself on engineering practices that should have oversight.

I'm not convinced that relationship has changed that much due to this debacle, so I remain skeptical of Boeing and its products, as well as the FAA to give correct oversight over the long term.

I guarantee that everyone, including you, will have forgotten this completely in 5 years. I would put money on it.

It would be cool if carriers caved into this fear and sold 737 MAX tickets at a discount.

Also, you're forgetting EASA and other countries' regulators. I'm sure they've picked over everything as well. I think they had egg on their face, as they're supposed to act as another foreign check on these designs.

> I guarantee that everyone, including you, will have forgotten this completely in 5 years.

You have a point, but Everyone is a lot of people.

I absolutely will not forget this, if not for the actual tragedy of it, then for the sheer engineering laziness/ineptitude/corruption that occurred here. Boeing is tarnished and will remain so in my book.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25474668

>As an aside: the plane was never 'aerodynamically unstable' as so many people purport. MCAS was designed to make the stick pressures identical to the old models.

In most of these discussions, "Aerodynamically unstable" is just a layperson's term used when the speaker doesn't realize that stability has a specific quantitative definition in aerodynamics, and is used to generally mean "an airplane that isn't safe". 99% of HN users have exactly zero idea what they're talking about when it comes to aircraft.

Yeah the discussions about aircraft have really opened me up to how much BS HN generates outside of the "tech" subject. Many people clearly have no idea what they are talking about, but write statements like it is a hard fact.

Makes me wonder what else I read on here that is clearly false.

HN Bingo item: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

Dunning Kruger Effect and all

Just s/Aerodynamically unstable/unstable/ on people's comments and it's fine. Unstable as in not kept stably in the air.

> They have every incentive to have gotten this right

I mean, they had this from the beginning. Do they have the technical competency? Did their management get thoroughly slapped down? Building planes is not easy.

I 100% believe they put in a good faith effort to fix their planes. I don't know if I believe that was enough.

I will probably fly on one because its not an especially transparent process to choose plane models, but I would definitely prefer not to.

I agree. I tend to believe it's gonna be the closest vetted plane in some time at this point - including by European regulators, who've less reason to be nice to Boeing.

> They have every incentive to have gotten this right

They had 346 incentives to have gotten it right from the beginning, but that didn't happen.

I'd actually be quite curious to check one out. I think Ryanair have ordered a bunch.

Would you also drive a Lamborghini that had contrived controls to make it as if you were driving a Ford Taurus?

If so, why?

To avoid crashing it as a brand-new owner who's never driven one before?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHs6uGhj41M

Cars already have this sort of thing - anti-lock brakes, traction control, differential braking, etc. All the computer working to make it easier for the driver.

Yes, but you can’t be saying it’s no different from driving a Taurus?!

I'm saying I can see the potential utility of such a feature.

I think the decision to use MCAS to avoid retraining pilots was a bad one in hindsight, but it's just one of many situations where we use computers to assist pilots/drivers with this sort of task.

Obviously we use computers to aid pilots/drivers, but MCAS is required.

Without it, the max is like a very badly designed fighter jet.

MCAS is not required. The plane flies just fine without it.

MCAS was added so the minor differences in how it flies could be adjusted away by computer to avoid needing to retrain pilots already certified for the 737-NG.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-boeing-737-ma...

> Boeing put MCAS on the plane not to make it stable in maneuvers approaching a stall but to make it handle and feel exactly the same as the earlier model 737NG.

> “If MCAS is deactivated, you can still fly the aircraft and it is not unstable,” said Fehrm. “The Max without MCAS is a perfectly flyable aircraft.”

Its not legal for the MAX to be flown without MCAS. It corrects a control force issue that must be corrected for it to obtain an airworthiness certificate.

Cite: FARs §25.173, §25.175.

> Its not legal for the MAX to be flown without MCAS.

That's an entirely different claim, though, than this:

> Without it, the max is like a very badly designed fighter jet.

Boeing isn't taking the "get rid of MCAS" approach, they're taking the "fix MCAS" one. If they wanted to get rid of MCAS, though, they'd have to apply for a new cert, without the "737-NG pilots can fly it just fine" piggybacking they did - pilots would have to be trained to the new aircraft type.

What. This is a completely wrong comment. How is this related to fighter planes at all?

So not Harrison Bergeron with cars necessarily

If you drive any car in Canada, the US, or the EU built after 2014 then you already have something similar in mandated ESC.

The car will apply uncommanded brake inputs to assist in steering the car in what the car determines to be the intended direction.

Would I drive a 2014 or later model year Lamborghini? Yes, I absolutely would.

I do get your point.

But the whole reason for MCAS was so that it WOULD be identical.

They weren't selling a lambo as a taurus. They were selling a more efficient taurus with more seats and promising that it would drive just like the old one so you didn't have to retrain your drivers.

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