737 max returning to service ?
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I’m not too sure how SLF think they are qualified to comment whether they have 5 hours or 5 zillion hours they have no idea about the mess this incident highlights in the competency of the regulator and company. Nor the erosion of confidence in the pilots who have to operate these aircraft. It has become an increasingly common occurrence that pilots are being trained to a minimum standard with only a rudimentary level of technical knowledge for too long. As I approach my retirement I only hope this marks a watershed and the reversal of these trends. I think recent posts highlighting where Boeing were able to get away with a single source of information on a critical system without a warning to the pilots if this system was faulty, unless the company accountants ticked an option box, is simply criminal.
The current senior team at both Boeing and FAA must be dismissed and replaced before any thought of releasing this aircraft to service can be considered.
The current senior team at both Boeing and FAA must be dismissed and replaced before any thought of releasing this aircraft to service can be considered.
Or we could just read the investigation report.
they all said more or less the same thing “debris on runway left by previous aircraft which damaged plane etc etc”.
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Hi there again Cows!
in another thread I pointed out by way of agreement with you that the 737 is not a sixties design but actually it’s a 707 fifties design with two engines missing and will eventually when max retires have flown for over 100 years! Now, is this unreasonable? To have a trim system from 1950 still the same a century later? My view, if it’s not broke don’t fix it. MCAS is in need of three design changes. Fix those and off we go
y
But is broke. The basic aircraft (which has been a world leader) is outgrowing it's clothes. What are they going to do when son-of-LEAP pitches up, pump a bit more air in the tyres, give MCAS 2.7 units and call it a Max+? Time to buy a few reams of A1 paper and employ some more draftsmen, methinks.
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BA/BY It was a runaway trim not a stab. A trim cutout switch was installed on the centre bit right by the captain's hand. Almost every sim ride included a trim runaway thereafter. I lived through it!
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I asked yesterday a large group about what caused the demise of the last jet liner to be grounded forever- Concorde.
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Dear member
My best guess is that except the FAA no one will re-certify the Max before the final investigations of the two accidents are out
Don’t hold your breath for the final report which will no doubt absolve the pilots. I asked yesterday a large group about what caused the demise of the last jet liner to be grounded forever- Concorde.
Readers- please close your eyes and think what you believe and pause for ten seconds——————————
they all said more or less the same thing “debris on runway left by previous aircraft which damaged plane etc etc”.
oh dear!
We are in similar territory here.
Y
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That final permanent grounding was not caused by the crash. That, I believe, was the original poster's point, which seems to have gone over several people's heads, probably in flames...
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"Grounded" typically means grounded by authorities. Concorde got phased out by it's operators for economical reasons and because Airbus wanted to end the product support.
Concorde had been grounded for some time after the Paris accident. Then it got modified and was cleared to fly again. The grounding ended.
Concorde had been grounded for some time after the Paris accident. Then it got modified and was cleared to fly again. The grounding ended.
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Your opinion !
Although now retired and only SLF but I have over 10 ,000 hours command time on 73s 75s and 76 s.
I have never flown a Max but have looked at a LOT of documentation re MCAS.
I still cant understand how the Max was certified for operation with just ONE component able to drive the most powerful control surface.
Further , despite current Boeing. philosophy, I would want to know and understand EVERYTHING. about a system, particularly one which could kill me, exactly how it works, how it can fail. and how to deal with it and have seen and practiced operation and failures in the simulator, BEFORE becoming type rated.
Many years ago I was posted to an RAF squadron as a replacement pilot for one killed in the Valiant crash believed to have been caused by a runaway stab. The aircraft were not modified BUT we all went into the sim to practice the recovery procedure as it was found that full elevator could just overcome the stab. Deflection. Boeing please note.
After that experience I absolutely beleive that if MCAS is retained its authority should not be greater than can be overcome be elevator input.
Until the. MAX crashes I had the very highest respect for Boeing aircraft. With the Max MCAS they, to quote a senior retired NTSB. inspector , dropped the ball, bigtime.
I am sure the Max will be returned to service in due course as a very safe aircraft. But in its single A of A Sensor coupled to its MCAS system it should never have been certified.
When I did my 737 conversion at Boeing in Seattle back in 1980 our instructors were adamant that all their aircraft were designed to be flown with ease by any and all of the worlds airline pilots. The Max seems to have beaten four with tragic results.
I suspect that the FMEA showed that a rare AOA failure could cause MCAS to operate despite not being at high AOA but the crew were expected to react by trimming the aircraft. After all who would expect a professional crew to let the aircraft repeatedly trim down and not use the control column trim to put it back in trim? If MCAS operated with uncommanded nose down trim repeatedly after being recovered back to trim as in the Lion Air flights - then the flight crew would be expected to switch the stab trim off as the penultimate Lion Air flight did do. Nobody at Boeing thought that pilots would be saying "no the stab trim cut out switches are only for _runaway_ trim and that is _repeated_ trim". So now the single point of failure - which definitely should not have been there - even with FMEA showing that crews were expected to stop the problem- has been removed the repeated operation in a failure mode has been removed. What has not been removed is that concern about what NNCs are being considered as extremely specific by crews due to the tick box simulator training approach. There are going to be other complex failures (as in rodent eating a cable) that cannot be described in NNCs and where =Fly the aircraft= is really important regardless of horns shakers cavalry charges etc etc, and yet we have crews that will not even trim.
As 737 Driver has said this is looking more like a training issue
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Small aircraft pilot for 35+ years, land and sea. To all those on this board who say when confronted with unreliable airspeed indications, "fly the aircraft" or 'Pitch and power".... doesn't the fact that the automatic trim functions triggered by the MCAS software require Herculean back preesure on the yoke change the equation for you even a little? And the fact that at certain airspeeds, it is difficult or nearly impossible to manually trim the aircraft to reduce or remove the need for massive back pressure?
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Small aircraft pilot for 35+ years, land and sea. To all those on this board who say when confronted with unreliable airspeed indications, "fly the aircraft" or 'Pitch and power".... doesn't the fact that the automatic trim functions triggered by the MCAS software require Herculean back preesure on the yoke change the equation for you even a little? And the fact that at certain airspeeds, it is difficult or nearly impossible to manually trim the aircraft to reduce or remove the need for massive back pressure?
Because of a lack of application of basic airmanship skills, the aircraft entered a flight regime where basic flying skills were no longer sufficient to save the ship. Some people keep looking at the condition of the aircraft at the five minute mark and declare it was no longer flyable without seriously considering what happened in the previous 4 minutes and 59 seconds.
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MCAS put in 2.5 units of nose down and the pilots responded by putting .5 (half a unit) of nose up trim. This is a lack of hand flying ability. Competent airmanship would have you trim till the back stick pressure is trimmed out. Clearly they didn't do this. They could have. In fact, to use an extreme and silly point, they could have flown with MCAS operating continually. MCAS trims down and they trim it right back out. Of course at some point you would think you would decide to use the checklist and kill power to the trim. It would be reasonable to use the electric trim to trim to stable stick pressure, THEN stab trim cutout. Not the reverse. Also, you can't wait till you are going the speed of heat and full nose down trim. Won't work at that point.
The guy above nailed it. Looking at the last moments of the flight and ignoring the basic lack of flying skillset that preceded it is to miss a huge lesson. Flying skills, the basic hand flying stuff, needs to make a comeback. That plane was flyable, right up until they flight crew made one too many mistakes. They made a bunch of errors, but eventually it was one too many.
That isn't racism that is just observing and recognizing mistakes. Pretty much the point of an AI.
The guy above nailed it. Looking at the last moments of the flight and ignoring the basic lack of flying skillset that preceded it is to miss a huge lesson. Flying skills, the basic hand flying stuff, needs to make a comeback. That plane was flyable, right up until they flight crew made one too many mistakes. They made a bunch of errors, but eventually it was one too many.
That isn't racism that is just observing and recognizing mistakes. Pretty much the point of an AI.
Concorde had a design flaw which had previously been brought to the attention of the regulators by the FAA, the fuel tanks were vulnerable to damage from debris thrown up from the runway. The disaster proved that and the type was grounded until a satisfactory modification was approved, the tanks got armour plating. Commercial considerations led to the withdraw of the aircraft from service, the fuel consumption is horrendous.
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To be precise about Concorde's withdrawal from service:
Concorde used tremendous amounts of costly fuel even at the time of the Paris crash. On the other hand, Concorde was a flagship product (think marketing) for British Airways and Air France. Analysis showed the marketing benefit outweighed the losses per flight, so the operators and manufacturer fixed the problem and put Concorde back into the air. In other words, "commercial considerations" kept Concorde flying.
Several years later, though, a different problem cropped up. The airframes were reaching the end of their certified number of cycles. In order to keep flying, the manufacturer would have had to re-certify for a longer life. That would have been extremely costly, and the costs of any required remediation were unknown. With less than a dozen airframes in service, the decision was made to end the project. This time around, "commercial considerations" let the Concorde expire at the end of its design life.
YYZjim
Concorde used tremendous amounts of costly fuel even at the time of the Paris crash. On the other hand, Concorde was a flagship product (think marketing) for British Airways and Air France. Analysis showed the marketing benefit outweighed the losses per flight, so the operators and manufacturer fixed the problem and put Concorde back into the air. In other words, "commercial considerations" kept Concorde flying.
Several years later, though, a different problem cropped up. The airframes were reaching the end of their certified number of cycles. In order to keep flying, the manufacturer would have had to re-certify for a longer life. That would have been extremely costly, and the costs of any required remediation were unknown. With less than a dozen airframes in service, the decision was made to end the project. This time around, "commercial considerations" let the Concorde expire at the end of its design life.
YYZjim
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Reading through these posts has been painful for this MAX qualified pilot but since this is a public board, and many non-fliers are making comments and contributions that defy reason and logic, that are coming from an emotional basis, and one not based upon any experience or knowledge, I should not be surprised.
RetiredBA/BY:
How do today's airline pilots compare with those of 1980? If there has been a downward trend in competence in non-normal situations, has Boeing tailored its design philosophy to suit? How reasonable is it to expect Boeing to be able to make such an adjustment?
When I did my 737 conversion at Boeing in Seattle back in 1980 our instructors were adamant that all their aircraft were designed to be flown with ease by any and all of the worlds airline pilots. The Max seems to have beaten four with tragic results.
RetiredBA/BY:
How do today's airline pilots compare with those of 1980? If there has been a downward trend in competence in non-normal situations, has Boeing tailored its design philosophy to suit? How reasonable is it to expect Boeing to be able to make such an adjustment?
How do today's airline pilots compare with those of 1980? If there has been a downward trend in competence in non-normal situations, has Boeing tailored its design philosophy to suit? How reasonable is it to expect Boeing to be able to make such an adjustment?
Perhaps I am fortunate having cut my teeth on the Canberra, no autopilot, no autothrottle, and a real handful on one engine, and I regularly hand flew my Boeing up and down to/ from around 20,000 feet and actually really enjoyed doing it.
But we actually flew the bloody things !
And as an aside, BA operated Concorde because it was profitable. Lord King and Colin Marshall challenged Brian Walpole, the then Flight manager, to make it so or it would be grounded, and with Jock Lowe’s acumen they did so. I was one of the main charterers for many years. That may not have been the case for AF.
Last edited by RetiredBA/BY; 1st May 2019 at 17:18.
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If MCAS is creating more troubles than solving and if it is of no use for stall protection (Boeing's claim) why not just take out the entire MCAS? If authorities require heavier stick feel close to the stall for certification why not modify the feel system instead of violently interfering with the steering and using the trim to brute force the nose down? That dramatic amount of brute force applied by MCAS looks like more than just needed to create just some better "feel" for the pilots.
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Less training/competence ==> more automation ==> less training ==> more automation ==> no pilot
If pilots can't fly a plane, why have them?
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If MCAS is creating more troubles than solving and if it is of no use for stall protection (Boeing's claim) why not just take out the entire MCAS? If authorities require heavier stick feel close to the stall for certification why not modify the feel system instead of violently interfering with the steering and using the trim to brute force the nose down? That dramatic amount of brute force applied by MCAS looks like more than just needed to create just some better "feel" for the pilots.