737 MAX future
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737 MAX future
Notice all 3 threads are closed , a good mod decision to merge the 3 , and indeed some of the discussions became a bit personal but these threads have seen very valuable discussions and were a very valuable source of info from the US newspapers covering the issue ( WSJ, NYT and especially Seattle times) which are not all available in many countries.
With the aircraft still grounded it would be nice to continue to have a constructive discussion both on the still coming proposed fix but basically on the future of the Max.
on that point , heard in a waterhole last night that Norwegian is transferring a large parts of their Max crews for conversion training on the 787s.. not sure what it means for the long term.
With the aircraft still grounded it would be nice to continue to have a constructive discussion both on the still coming proposed fix but basically on the future of the Max.
on that point , heard in a waterhole last night that Norwegian is transferring a large parts of their Max crews for conversion training on the 787s.. not sure what it means for the long term.
Last edited by ATC Watcher; 10th May 2019 at 09:45. Reason: note from PPruneTowers on main thread
Notice all 3 thread closed , a good mod decision to merge the 3 , but why close it ? pressure from Boeing ? there threads have had very valuable discussions and a very valuable source of info from the US newspapers covering the issue ( WSJ, NYT and especially Seattle time s, not all available in many countries.
With the aircraft still grounded it would be nice to continue to have a constructive discussion both on the still coming proposed fix and basically on the future of the Max.
With the aircraft still grounded it would be nice to continue to have a constructive discussion both on the still coming proposed fix and basically on the future of the Max.
I looked else where today and found some interesting stuff on other web pages, a really good post from a pilot (as well as other accomplishments) regarding the grounding of the 737 MAX aircraft or Grounding the MAX 737 pilots.
Almost daily, new news was being presented in relation to Boeing, Max, FAA and customers not to mention some excellent feed back from 737 and MAX 737 pilots and some people that seemed "in the know" regarding engineering.
Psychophysiological entity
I read every post from the first day and became fascinated by the detective work - but there was a need to bring to a halt the many circular arguments.
Since it is such a vital issue for world aviation, and this is a worldwide forum, could we not establish a thread with a set of known items that could sit at the front end? Graphs, function of relays, what would happen when we do so-and-so. Ideally, two such threads, one specifically technical. This part would be there once for perpetual reference and could be updated by the OP by installing posts by others that could then be deleted.
The big problem with the original was that you could not expect the average newcomer to read it, so their bright ideas were just a yawn-inducing noise.
If folk new that rambling on about something repeatedly would just met with RTFSticky, then perhaps a lot could be achieved in a 1000 posts, and not to put too larger emphasis on it, it would be a real service to aviation. I think it probable a lot of 737 pilots have read it even if not contributing. And this would be carried on by word of mouth.
The problem is, one can't edit such a first post unless one is the OP, so again the workload would fall on the mods. A lot of workload. So, I'm not sure how it would be achieved, but something like that.
Since it is such a vital issue for world aviation, and this is a worldwide forum, could we not establish a thread with a set of known items that could sit at the front end? Graphs, function of relays, what would happen when we do so-and-so. Ideally, two such threads, one specifically technical. This part would be there once for perpetual reference and could be updated by the OP by installing posts by others that could then be deleted.
The big problem with the original was that you could not expect the average newcomer to read it, so their bright ideas were just a yawn-inducing noise.
If folk new that rambling on about something repeatedly would just met with RTFSticky, then perhaps a lot could be achieved in a 1000 posts, and not to put too larger emphasis on it, it would be a real service to aviation. I think it probable a lot of 737 pilots have read it even if not contributing. And this would be carried on by word of mouth.
The problem is, one can't edit such a first post unless one is the OP, so again the workload would fall on the mods. A lot of workload. So, I'm not sure how it would be achieved, but something like that.
Psychophysiological entity
To a great extent, Bend's post describes a lot of what was happening here. The three major publications providing a lot of Seattle information. Mentor and Peter Lemme's contributions were interesting, but then there'd be a gap and their very content would be being questioned anew.
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This news article says B knew about the software problem about a year ago.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/boeing-kn...g-faa-airlines
https://www.foxnews.com/us/boeing-kn...g-faa-airlines
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/b...g-737-max.html
With 737 Max, Boeing Wants to Win Back Trust. Many Are Skeptical.
By Natalie Kitroeff and David Gelles
May 8, 2019
A charm offensive by Boeing to persuade airlines, crews and passengers to rally behind its 737 Max plane is already running into resistance.
The effort, which includes daily calls with carriers as well as meetings with pilots and flight attendants, is being hampered by a problem of the company’s own making. After a bungled response to two deadly crashes involving the jet, Boeing is facing credibility problems.
When Boeing dispatched one of its top lobbyists, John Moloney, to the headquarters of the influential union representing flight attendants a couple of weeks ago, he arrived determined to win their support. He met a skeptical audience.
“Reading your body language, you look cynical,” Mr. Moloney said, according to three people who were present and took notes during the discussion with the Association of Flight Attendants. “If this explanation doesn’t address your concerns, I’ll come back. I’ll bring a pilot.”
Sara Nelson, the head of the union, told Mr. Moloney that she was rooting for Boeing, but wasn’t ready to tell flight attendants and travelers to fly on the Max.
“I don’t know, sitting here right now, that I can tell you there’s complete confidence that everything’s been fixed at Boeing,” she told Mr. Moloney.
The meeting, punctuated by contentious moments between the two sides, underscores how difficult it will be for Boeing to restore credibility with airlines and passengers.
In recent weeks, the company’s chief executive, Dennis A. Muilenburg, updated the heads of Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines — the three carriers in the United States that fly the Max — on progress. On Tuesday, Boeing held a meeting in Amsterdam for European airlines to discuss new training for the Max, plans for a public affairs campaign and how to get idled planes ready to fly again. Similar meetings will happen in Shanghai, Singapore, Moscow, Dubai and Miami in the coming weeks.
Boeing, a juggernaut with deep ties in Washington and one of the country’s largest exporters, is on the defensive. The company is facing multiple federal investigations into design flaws that contributed to the accidents, along with a spate of lawsuits from the families of victims. Company executives and board members are deeply worried about the damage that has been done to Boeing’s once-sterling reputation.
“Certainly there’s concern,” David Calhoun, the lead independent director of Boeing’s board, said in an interview. “There is recognition on all of our parts that we’re going to have to get out with restoring confidence in the Boeing brand broadly for years.”
But there’s a limit to how much Boeing can say. “It’s an impossible situation because we’re not allowed to comment on anything related to these accidents,” Mr. Calhoun said.
“There’s only one thing to do, and that’s to get a safe airplane back up in the sky,” he said. “I can’t message my way into it. Boeing can’t message its way into it.”
Boeing has been working furiously to get the Max flying again since its grounding in March. The company is preparing to submit a software fix in the coming weeks for American regulators to approve.
It hosted hundreds of airline officials and pilots last month at the 737 Max factory in Renton, Wash. And it is in constant dialogue with regulators ahead of a meeting that the Federal Aviation Administration will host with global aviation authorities in Fort Worth on May 23.
“Ultimately, the decision to return the Max to commercial service rests in the hands of global regulators,” Gordon Johndroe, a Boeing spokesman, said in a statement.
Simultaneously, Boeing is shaping a public relations strategy to reach passengers. Although the final media plan is still in the works, Boeing will not be relying solely on its executives to win back the public’s trust — a recognition that its leadership has lost some good will.
The company and airlines agree that the chief executive, Mr. Muilenburg, as the face of a company under intense scrutiny, may not be the most effective messenger. Instead, the initial plan calls for pilots to play a major role in the campaign.
“We think a key voice in all of this will be the pilots for our airlines, and their voice is very important,” Mr. Muilenburg said on Boeing’s earnings call last month. “That bond between the passenger and the pilot is one that’s critical, and so we’re working with our airline customers and those pilot voices to ensure that we can build on that going forward.”
Boeing has enlisted media agencies, including Edelman, to plan the strategy for reintroducing the Max, and is considering buying ads to promote the plane.
Airline executives in the United States are eager for the Max to return to service and for Boeing to succeed. But many are privately frustrated with the company’s handling of the crisis, according to three people briefed on the matter. They believe that Boeing has badly mismanaged the public response to the crashes and are irked that the public relations blitz will fall to their pilots.
Pilots, too, are reluctant to become brand ambassadors for Boeing, which barely interacted with them before the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last October, the first of the two deadly accidents.
“Our response is, yeah, that’s cute, but we aren’t going to hop into bed with you,” said Mike Trevino, the spokesman for the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. “We are still going to maintain an independent voice and call it as we see it.”
In part, the reluctance stems from Boeing’s mixed messaging. Despite having said, “We own it,” Mr. Muilenburg has not acknowledged that anything was wrong with the design of the 737 Max, saying that the design process followed standard procedures.
“We clearly have areas where we need to improve, including transparency,” Mr. Johndroe, the Boeing spokesman, said in a statement.
During the meeting last month, the flight attendants pushed Mr. Moloney to explain why the company didn’t inform pilots about the software that contributed to both crashes. He acknowledged that Boeing should have told them, but kept reiterating that pilots were expected to be able to handle the conditions on both doomed flights.
Passenger groups have demanded that Boeing take more responsibility for the Max debacle. “If they really wanted to fix the problem, you would think they would admit that it’s their fault,” said Paul Hudson, the president of Flyers Rights, a nonprofit group advocating for passengers. “You can’t say, ‘Oh, we own it, but we didn’t do anything wrong and it’s someone else’s fault.’”
Pilots and airlines say Boeing has also struggled to communicate with them about how basic systems on the Max work. After the crash in Indonesia, pilots criticized Boeing for not informing them about the new software, which automatically pushes down the nose of the plane when the system deems it necessary. They have also been concerned by revelations that Boeing provided incomplete information about features in the cockpit.
This week, Boeing said it believed a key cockpit warning light was standard on all Max jets, but learned several months after beginning deliveries in 2017 that the light worked only if airlines had bought a separate feature, known as the angle of attack indicator. Southwest bought the plane without the indicator, on the assumption that the warning light was activated. It was only after the Lion Air accident that Boeing told regulators and some pilots that the light wasn’t functional.
Boeing told United something else entirely, creating even more confusion over Boeing’s understanding, according to a person who took notes at the meeting. When United Airlines ordered 100 Max jets in 2017, Boeing told United that the alert and the angle of attack indicator came as a package deal. United declined the options at the time.
“Every day it seems like a new set of questions pops up,” said Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the union representing American Airlines pilots. “I’m not here to be your arm candy. I’m here to know about the airplane.”
Toward the end of the meeting with the flight attendants, Mr. Moloney made a last-ditch effort to win them over.
“We want you to be able to tell your members this plane is safe to fly,” Mr. Moloney said, according to the three people in attendance. “Whatever it takes.”
Ms. Nelson, the union’s leader, rattled off a list of things she needed from Boeing before agreeing. One was a letter from engineers working on the software update, saying they felt confident in the fix. Another was a full-throated apology from Boeing. Mr. Moloney promised to follow up.
“We think that Boeing’s credibility directly relates to the credibility of U.S. aviation,” Ms. Nelson told him. “It’s important to us that the credibility and the leadership of U.S. aviation is maintained around the world.”
A version of this article appears in print on May 9, 2019, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Boeing’s Tough Sell: Trust Us.
By Natalie Kitroeff and David Gelles
May 8, 2019
A charm offensive by Boeing to persuade airlines, crews and passengers to rally behind its 737 Max plane is already running into resistance.
The effort, which includes daily calls with carriers as well as meetings with pilots and flight attendants, is being hampered by a problem of the company’s own making. After a bungled response to two deadly crashes involving the jet, Boeing is facing credibility problems.
When Boeing dispatched one of its top lobbyists, John Moloney, to the headquarters of the influential union representing flight attendants a couple of weeks ago, he arrived determined to win their support. He met a skeptical audience.
“Reading your body language, you look cynical,” Mr. Moloney said, according to three people who were present and took notes during the discussion with the Association of Flight Attendants. “If this explanation doesn’t address your concerns, I’ll come back. I’ll bring a pilot.”
Sara Nelson, the head of the union, told Mr. Moloney that she was rooting for Boeing, but wasn’t ready to tell flight attendants and travelers to fly on the Max.
“I don’t know, sitting here right now, that I can tell you there’s complete confidence that everything’s been fixed at Boeing,” she told Mr. Moloney.
The meeting, punctuated by contentious moments between the two sides, underscores how difficult it will be for Boeing to restore credibility with airlines and passengers.
In recent weeks, the company’s chief executive, Dennis A. Muilenburg, updated the heads of Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines — the three carriers in the United States that fly the Max — on progress. On Tuesday, Boeing held a meeting in Amsterdam for European airlines to discuss new training for the Max, plans for a public affairs campaign and how to get idled planes ready to fly again. Similar meetings will happen in Shanghai, Singapore, Moscow, Dubai and Miami in the coming weeks.
Boeing, a juggernaut with deep ties in Washington and one of the country’s largest exporters, is on the defensive. The company is facing multiple federal investigations into design flaws that contributed to the accidents, along with a spate of lawsuits from the families of victims. Company executives and board members are deeply worried about the damage that has been done to Boeing’s once-sterling reputation.
“Certainly there’s concern,” David Calhoun, the lead independent director of Boeing’s board, said in an interview. “There is recognition on all of our parts that we’re going to have to get out with restoring confidence in the Boeing brand broadly for years.”
But there’s a limit to how much Boeing can say. “It’s an impossible situation because we’re not allowed to comment on anything related to these accidents,” Mr. Calhoun said.
“There’s only one thing to do, and that’s to get a safe airplane back up in the sky,” he said. “I can’t message my way into it. Boeing can’t message its way into it.”
Boeing has been working furiously to get the Max flying again since its grounding in March. The company is preparing to submit a software fix in the coming weeks for American regulators to approve.
It hosted hundreds of airline officials and pilots last month at the 737 Max factory in Renton, Wash. And it is in constant dialogue with regulators ahead of a meeting that the Federal Aviation Administration will host with global aviation authorities in Fort Worth on May 23.
“Ultimately, the decision to return the Max to commercial service rests in the hands of global regulators,” Gordon Johndroe, a Boeing spokesman, said in a statement.
Simultaneously, Boeing is shaping a public relations strategy to reach passengers. Although the final media plan is still in the works, Boeing will not be relying solely on its executives to win back the public’s trust — a recognition that its leadership has lost some good will.
The company and airlines agree that the chief executive, Mr. Muilenburg, as the face of a company under intense scrutiny, may not be the most effective messenger. Instead, the initial plan calls for pilots to play a major role in the campaign.
“We think a key voice in all of this will be the pilots for our airlines, and their voice is very important,” Mr. Muilenburg said on Boeing’s earnings call last month. “That bond between the passenger and the pilot is one that’s critical, and so we’re working with our airline customers and those pilot voices to ensure that we can build on that going forward.”
Boeing has enlisted media agencies, including Edelman, to plan the strategy for reintroducing the Max, and is considering buying ads to promote the plane.
Airline executives in the United States are eager for the Max to return to service and for Boeing to succeed. But many are privately frustrated with the company’s handling of the crisis, according to three people briefed on the matter. They believe that Boeing has badly mismanaged the public response to the crashes and are irked that the public relations blitz will fall to their pilots.
Pilots, too, are reluctant to become brand ambassadors for Boeing, which barely interacted with them before the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last October, the first of the two deadly accidents.
“Our response is, yeah, that’s cute, but we aren’t going to hop into bed with you,” said Mike Trevino, the spokesman for the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. “We are still going to maintain an independent voice and call it as we see it.”
In part, the reluctance stems from Boeing’s mixed messaging. Despite having said, “We own it,” Mr. Muilenburg has not acknowledged that anything was wrong with the design of the 737 Max, saying that the design process followed standard procedures.
“We clearly have areas where we need to improve, including transparency,” Mr. Johndroe, the Boeing spokesman, said in a statement.
During the meeting last month, the flight attendants pushed Mr. Moloney to explain why the company didn’t inform pilots about the software that contributed to both crashes. He acknowledged that Boeing should have told them, but kept reiterating that pilots were expected to be able to handle the conditions on both doomed flights.
Passenger groups have demanded that Boeing take more responsibility for the Max debacle. “If they really wanted to fix the problem, you would think they would admit that it’s their fault,” said Paul Hudson, the president of Flyers Rights, a nonprofit group advocating for passengers. “You can’t say, ‘Oh, we own it, but we didn’t do anything wrong and it’s someone else’s fault.’”
Pilots and airlines say Boeing has also struggled to communicate with them about how basic systems on the Max work. After the crash in Indonesia, pilots criticized Boeing for not informing them about the new software, which automatically pushes down the nose of the plane when the system deems it necessary. They have also been concerned by revelations that Boeing provided incomplete information about features in the cockpit.
This week, Boeing said it believed a key cockpit warning light was standard on all Max jets, but learned several months after beginning deliveries in 2017 that the light worked only if airlines had bought a separate feature, known as the angle of attack indicator. Southwest bought the plane without the indicator, on the assumption that the warning light was activated. It was only after the Lion Air accident that Boeing told regulators and some pilots that the light wasn’t functional.
Boeing told United something else entirely, creating even more confusion over Boeing’s understanding, according to a person who took notes at the meeting. When United Airlines ordered 100 Max jets in 2017, Boeing told United that the alert and the angle of attack indicator came as a package deal. United declined the options at the time.
“Every day it seems like a new set of questions pops up,” said Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the union representing American Airlines pilots. “I’m not here to be your arm candy. I’m here to know about the airplane.”
Toward the end of the meeting with the flight attendants, Mr. Moloney made a last-ditch effort to win them over.
“We want you to be able to tell your members this plane is safe to fly,” Mr. Moloney said, according to the three people in attendance. “Whatever it takes.”
Ms. Nelson, the union’s leader, rattled off a list of things she needed from Boeing before agreeing. One was a letter from engineers working on the software update, saying they felt confident in the fix. Another was a full-throated apology from Boeing. Mr. Moloney promised to follow up.
“We think that Boeing’s credibility directly relates to the credibility of U.S. aviation,” Ms. Nelson told him. “It’s important to us that the credibility and the leadership of U.S. aviation is maintained around the world.”
A version of this article appears in print on May 9, 2019, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Boeing’s Tough Sell: Trust Us.
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plans for a public affairs campaign
As I posted early on in the initial thread ... Boeing would have been wise to let the 'chief engineer with actual signature responsibility' (so not a manager, not even the CEO, and certainly not 'slick or legal talkers') publicly and clearly explain what Boeing had done before the accidents happened. That would not have been in conflict with the running investigations. The lack of timely and trustworthy information at an early stage has eroded confidence in many quarters. Even to this day Boeing information is lagging what is available and discussed in professional circles.
Openness is safety. Boeing has historically been able to be both more open and legally 'correct' at the same time.
What the Boeing approach seems to forget is that after 'the public' hears something that many people check up with professionals to further explain it to them. Questions like where do I sit and who should I fly with, have changed in how do I recognize a MAX, how do I recognize a 737, and are other Boeing aircraft even safe to fly with.
A new question among professionals is - did Boeing v1.0 morph into a Boeing v2.0 and when ... did it start with the 787 or is something else going on ... and what does it mean for the other designs ... for existing aircraft and future aircraft like the 777X...
It appears Boeing has to act much faster and much clearer or this goes out of hand even further.
One step further than this and we are talking about strategic and systemic failure, where both certainly include Boeing and the FAA and are now dragging in airlines too.
Last edited by A0283; 10th May 2019 at 12:21. Reason: Add - One step further.
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heard in a waterhole last night that Norwegian is transferring a large parts of their Max crews for conversion training on the 787s
https://simpleflying.com/norwegian-pilot-redundancies/
“We think a key voice in all of this will be the pilots for our airlines, and their voice is very important,” Mr. Muilenburg said on Boeing’s earnings call last month. “That bond between the passenger and the pilot is one that’s critical, and so we’re working with our airline customers and those pilot voices to ensure that we can build on that going forward.”
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Brings us quickly back to the thread on how pilots are perceived by the flying public.
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An important step in the re-gaining trust process will be for pilots to think through how the Lion and Ethiopian pilots would have coped if they had been using Boeing's MCAS fix (whatever it turns out to be). Two things have to happen first.
1. Boeing (or somebody) will have to disclose a lot more detail about MCAS-as-was and MCAS-fixed. For example, what does Boeing think caused the constant mismatch between left and right AOA sensors?
2. The CVR transcript and DVR dataset will have to be made public. The bits disclosed in the preliminary reports simply aren't detailed enough to figure out what the pilots did, and why.
Boeing's PR-campaign is no substitute for a hard-headed look by some independent engineers and pilots, Like those on this forum.
Unfortunately, the rules governing accident investigations don't permit releasing the data at this time. Somebody (or Boeing) will have to take the bull by the horns
to get the data out. The sooner it's out, the sooner the MAX can fly again.
YYZjim
1. Boeing (or somebody) will have to disclose a lot more detail about MCAS-as-was and MCAS-fixed. For example, what does Boeing think caused the constant mismatch between left and right AOA sensors?
2. The CVR transcript and DVR dataset will have to be made public. The bits disclosed in the preliminary reports simply aren't detailed enough to figure out what the pilots did, and why.
Boeing's PR-campaign is no substitute for a hard-headed look by some independent engineers and pilots, Like those on this forum.
Unfortunately, the rules governing accident investigations don't permit releasing the data at this time. Somebody (or Boeing) will have to take the bull by the horns
to get the data out. The sooner it's out, the sooner the MAX can fly again.
YYZjim
Boeing is in the tank for probably $5-10 billion because no matter what it does the public believes it frigged the software to sell aircraft.
Reality is irrelevant as public opinion does not rely on reality but perception and their perception is Boeing is lying.
I think Max will eventually fly again but we are a long way off from it and trust is the key issue here, there is none with Boeing and no amount of PR will win it back easily.
Reality is irrelevant as public opinion does not rely on reality but perception and their perception is Boeing is lying.
I think Max will eventually fly again but we are a long way off from it and trust is the key issue here, there is none with Boeing and no amount of PR will win it back easily.
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Based on historical experience, the MAX will be certified to fly again, there will be some initial public avoidance, but after a year (maybe less) most passengers will get over their qualms and the MAX will continue to roll of the assembly line for year to come. This assuming, of course, no other ugly issues raise their heads. Hopefully the folks at Boeing will engage in some deep soul searching and finally figure out that doing it right the first time is far cheaper in the long run than doing it quick.
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Assumptions made on how pilots would behave have proved unsafe -
Or to put it another way there is a huge problem with training - at all levels from ab initio to continuation training both live and simulated.
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