> heavily updated versions of the original 1960s design
Isn't that the cause of many problems?
Isn't that the cause of many problems?
I can't imagine much of the original design would be left in the aircraft except for the overall shape of it. I'm guessing (remember now, basically zero aircraft development knowledge) that most tech has been updated to modern equivalents. Engines, controls, computers, ...?
So what would be changed in a complete overhaul of the aircraft?
That's the problem. It was designed for 60s-style boarding via air-stairs on the ground (rather than modern jetways from the terminal) so it's too low down. This requires doing funky things to fit modern, large, energy-efficient engines, starting with those weird flat-bottom cowlings and ending in moving the engines back and changing their angle, which changes the flight characteristics of the plane so much it needed MCAS to compensate.
> So what would be changed in a complete overhaul of the aircraft
The certification, meaning pilots would need re-training since it's no longer the same plane.
The MCAS thing clearly changed the plane so much it should have required re-training anyway, which is why the whole thing is so dumb.
Interesting.
Lots of cases in light aviation where some crashed plane is rebuilt basically from scratch but it's cheaper from regulatory perspective to say it's the same plane, just repaired, ie reuse the tail number.
Designing a completely new plane (which was considered for quite some time) would have taken far too long and Airbus would gave eaten Boeing's lunch in this important segment.
So, Boeing McGivered a solution and updated a 60s airframe for modern use.
To not having to recertify the plane they came up with a software hack, which they initially didn't even document and which far exceeded the capability of its original design.
This[0] is a fantastic read which will leave you with a "how the fuck could they ever do that"? feeling and makes you wonder why nobody went to jail for that
[0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-lo...
It seems like the flight charismatics have changed so much that pilot recertification should have been required anyway.
I have worked on eLearning courses for aerospace in the early-mid 00s but have forgotten mostb of what I learned in that domain back then. It was also mostly mechanic/diagnostic interfaces (ECU, etc)
Note that boarding a plane in the middle of the tarmac via bus+stairs is still quite common at many major European airports. Using jet bridges exclusively requires the planes to all be parked in one long line beside a building, which can never be as space-efficient as a 2D-grid parking lot.