in reply to Romulus[QUOTE] [the ball being played is the use of hindsight. It's easy to be critical of this decision now, I would suggest Boeing had done their work beforehand but something just hasn't worked as tested. /QUOTE]
The world was presented with a Certified and working airliner. nobody outside the regulatory authorities has any mandate to investigate the financial or engineering decisions behind the product.
I'd suggest that if you bought a TV,certified to meet international environmental and safety standards,then found it kept losing all it's settings,and reports were coming in that these sets were catching fire........your reaction????
Boeing's test procedures were , defacto, intrinsically flawed.OR they avoided testing the "difficult" areas that are KNOWN to exist.
(otherwise the problems with discharged/self-combusting batteries would have been found and dealt with before release.)
I do NOT accept that NOBODY in the whole of Boeing had any doubts about incorporating this "risky" technology.
Eventually, I suspect, a sacked/disaffected dissenter will spill the beans.
A poor decision was made to put all their eggs in one very fragile basket which failed virtually immediately
These batteries were changed-out at ludicrously low service intervals and still no warning-bells?
IMHO there would have been plenty of engineers who were well aware that the battery/charger/plane combination was sadly lacking.
I would point the finger at "suits" who were desperate to bring a much-hyped, much-delayed project to market.
Nothing to do with "hindsight" I do not accept that the system worked perfectly before release....the Kludge of putting it in a tin box didn't work.so let's make a bigger, stronger Kludge.....FFS...what sort of third-world "engineering" is that???