Ethiopian Airlines Crash/ B737MAX grounding

Why didnt we get the 757 NEO? or OLE or any shortened version?

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

Often wondered why Boeing didn't do a wholesale redesign of the 737 main gear somewhere along the line. Low clearance has been a constraint since the -300.

Because it would be too significant a change for it to keep the current certification.

They might as well design a new plane if they're going to have to recertify and retrain all the pilots.

The whole certification of pilots things seems like a regulatory construct driving poor behavior. Perhaps regulators should stipulate that you get x# of variations of your plane or years in service before new type certification is mandatory. That would create its own incentives for certain behavior and you could also argue regulators would then be setting the pace of new model development. Difficult one.

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

Often wondered why Boeing didn't do a wholesale redesign of the 737 main gear somewhere along the line. Low clearance has been a constraint since the -300.

It all boils down to the airline customers, all about keeping costs down...

banie01 wrote: »

Similar argument could be made that it all boils down to Manufacturers keeping margins artificially high.

I agree, the commercial imperative overrides everything. If the airline customer won’t pay X for a totally shiny new airplane, then the manufacturer will have to do something to reduce X and make their margin.

Unless and until of course this commercial argument is overridden by a higher authority, or some event that forces the higher authority to act.

Shedite27 wrote: »

99% of travelers don't know if they're on Airbus or Boeing

When I say airline customers, I mean the airline itself buying the aircraft, not the passenger paying for the seat. Apologies for any confusion.

Bob24 wrote: »

Don’t agree with this as a general statement. Many passengers won’t know alright, but 99% is stretching it a lot.

Not saying a lot of passengers will book a specific flight to get a Boeing or and Airbus of course, but once they are on the plane I am sure much more than 1% know what the maker is. At the very least because they will be a cabin announcement mentioning it or a safety card in front of them with that information.

Also while it is not necessarily as relevant for the 737/320, for long haul flights I think passengers will on average be more savvy about what plane they are flying on including at time of booking: airlines will sometimes display the airplane type when you book - especially if it’s a new model, confort differences will be more pronounced on long flights depending on which plane you are flying, and I think you’ll get a higher proportion of “knowledgeable” travellers who might know which planes they prefer or consult specialised websites for planes/seats recommandation.

I flew Dubai-Beijing with Emirates once and when I bought the tkt it was mentioned it was on the A380.
It was the only A380 on the round trip Dublin-Dubai-Beijing, Hong-Kong-Dubai-Dublin. All others were Boeing 777.
Before boarding I could see the plane was a 777. I was a bit disappointed and have still not flown on the A380. I even mentioned it to the cabin crew as I got on (in a friendly way).

Brennus335 wrote: »

I think that proves the previous posters point that most travellers haven't got a clue what kind of plane they're on.

Lol it was a Boeing 777 so.
I just got mixed up when writing the post as thought it strange that they had the A380 planned for 1 trip and Boeing for the others. I shouldn’t have replied to my own post!! The only purpose of my post was to put on record here my disappointment with missing out on the A380 when other poster mentioned the type of plane was referenced when booking.

Boeing had zero orders in April apparently.

Oh dear this won't go down well accross the industry/pilot representative bodies:-

After two faulty Boeing jets crash, the Trump administration blames foreign pilots

Link may not open for some so here's the stand out quote

Washington Post wrote:

The U.S. aviation system needs urgently to restore the world’s confidence after two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets.

Instead, the Trump administration’s top aviation official, goaded by some Republican lawmakers, informed the world Wednesday that the problem isn’t that Boeing put a faulty aircraft into the skies, nor that the Federal Aviation Administration’s lax oversight kept it flying. The trouble, they argued, comes from lousy foreign pilots — particularly the ones on Ethiopian Airlines and Indonesia’s Lion Air who died struggling to pull the Max jets from death plunges.

“I’m trying to be respectful because they’re deceased,” Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.) said of the doomed crews. But, “do we not have concerns not only with the training of pilots in other nations, but the reliability of their logs?”

The acting FAA administrator, Daniel Elwell, shared this skepticism and said he “absolutely” wants to “take a hard look at the training standards globally.”

This in particular stands out:-

Washington Post wrote:

“You have to know how to fly the plane!” Graves said, faulting “pilot error” and “a lot of misidentification” by the crew.

An odd comment by Elwell to the House Transportation Committee considering it is well known pilots were unaware of some of the systems and how to correct issues with them through no fault of their own.

Edit: Just noticed it has already been mentioned in another thread here.

For anyone interested Daniel Elwelsl's (Acting Administrator, FAA) statement from May 15ths Aviation Sub-committee hearing on the current status of the 737MAX is available direct from the The House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure here

You can also read Robert Sumwalt's (NTSB) statement here.

Above the wing? Doesn't work very well been done before - VFW614

It was already pushed forward of the wing compared to the JT8 mounting position

The point I didn't make very well was that Boeing chose not to raise the engine above the level of the leading edge as they did on the max.
I have read "Wide-body" by Clive Irving and it deals with how the that wing mounted engine design evolved from the B-47, to the 707 and eventually the 747.
The precise relationship between the podded engine and wing behaviour was extremely complex, and it strikes me that maybe Boeing were not willing to raise the engine higher on the next gen 737 for engineering reasons.

I begin to wonder if MCAS was a "kludge" fix to an inherent instability problem which in previous incarnations of Boeing engineering would not be countenanced.

Even being tipped off in advance the sheer physical strength needed to trim the stabilizer while it is aerodynamically loaded is a challenge, the trim wheel on the max is smaller than the older 737 so requires more effort per turn, while you are holding onto the yoke to full elevator in.

The Ethiopian pilots followed the procedure but could not recover and then started to look at alternatives and switched the trim back in. Ethiopian is a highly regarded outfit and don't deserve even a suggestion that they didn't meet FAA or EASA training standards.

The escape is to trade height to unload the stabilizer, counter intuitive deliberately lose altitude in a aircraft that wants to plant itself in the ground, scramble to trim manually as fast as you can and then level off and try to get some climb and repeat. This was in the 737-200 manual (and 707) but not in the classic or NG.

Do you have enough altitude? Its basically the AF crash in reverse, the stabilizer gets to a place where aerodynamically you can't get back to a safe attitude without a fairly aggressive and non standard recovery (hard bank over?) which is limited by available altitude, not forgetting a rapid attitude change risks stall or overspeed depending on circumstances or worse a structural overload.

Tenger wrote: »

Sobering reading;

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/business/boeing-737-max-crash.html

The end paragraph suggest the system is going back to what it was initially set up to do - Make the plane feel like a a 737NG.

Does this mean that the Pilots will now have to have expensive training as they are basically now back to flying a plane that acts differently to a 737NG

I do remember reading somewhere that even if the pilots disabled the MCAS permanently for the rest of the flight - the pilots were left with a plane that they had never flown before.

More 737 NG and Max related issues:

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration said on Sunday that some Boeing 737 Max planes might have parts that were improperly manufactured, requiring replacements, the latest issue to hit the world’s largest plane maker.

The F.A.A. said up to 148 “leading edge slat tracks” manufactured by a Boeing supplier were affected and cover 179 Max aircraft as well as 133 of Boeing’s 737 NG jets, for Next Generation, the model before the Max. The agency said a complete failure of a leading edge slat track would not bring down an aircraft, but a failed part could damage the plane in flight.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/business/boeing-faa-737-part.html

Tenger wrote: »

I’m wondering if this manufacturing issue is connected to the labor issues they had around Q3 last year? I have mates in Seattle, they were telling me that there were staffing issues last year, Boeing had to shuffle workers around to keep the line moving , this resulted in less experienced ppl working on unfamiliar areas.

Part was supplied by a external supplier, so the fault would be with them.

Also I believe the part had been replaced on a number of RA's NG's by now..