Originally Posted by
Pilot DAR
. We can hardly have efficient aircraft when the structure has a capacity many times the ultimate load cases - it'll be needlessly heavy.
Well that's just silly hyperbole. Nobody is proposing that the structures handle 300% ("many times") of requirement. But we hope they will put a little bit of contingency in there. Maybe 110%. But the desperation to get it down to 100.001% of the requirement is what alas leads to this situation, where it fails at the 99% point. Which means, bluntly, it's a fail. And shows among other things overall poor design ability..
Originally Posted by lomapaseo
Boeing only needs to report details to the certifying agency and not to the public or its competitors
I'm afraid to tell you that if it goes on for much longer like this, where Chicago gives the heave-ho to anyone with a different opinion to theirs, or too much experience (= expensive), or any designer/supplier who is not the low bidder, it's going to get quite soon to the stage where Airbus, and soon the other up-and-coming competitors, are going to have forgotten more about aircraft design than the remaining staffers at Boeing ever knew. So no worries about what the competition might learn there. And very many of us would be really disappointed if that happened.