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MAX’s Return Delayed by FAA Reevaluation of 737 Safety Procedures

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MAX’s Return Delayed by FAA Reevaluation of 737 Safety Procedures

Old 3rd Dec 2019, 22:10
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Originally Posted by gums
Way off topic now, are we?
----------------------------------------------------------
Salute!
Well, having done hundreds of rolls and "things you have not dreamed of", to borrow a line from High Flight.
You can roll easily without initially getting the nose high if in a small, or nimble plane. Problem with the big boys is inertia, and nose will dig in easily. Hence nose high to start. OTOH....

The ET flight had extreme nose down trim, so every degree of roll from normal erect provides less of a lift vector below the horizon, right? Eventually, all of its lift vector is above the horizon when completely inverted. So a technique I used on most jets to avoid the nose high entry was applying forward stick and a touch of nose down trim as bank angle increased past 90 deg, and maybe some top rudder until over 90 deg of bank. Could literally roll within 20 feet of initial altitude, and the T-birds and Bluers and Arrows and Snowbirds show this every performance. So Denzel's manuever is theoretically possible. And worry about motors quiting later. 737 flies O.K in glider mode due to the mechanical connections, right? We need "wonkazoo" to comment, as he flew aerobatic demos all the time.

The Alaska folks should get a post humous medal of honor for even trying the Denzel trick, as they had nothing to loose. And IMHO biggest mistake was not trying to land when things started acting up. Of course if they didn't turn off the electric trim motor, then they could have lost it over L.A.

I feel the complete ET flight report will assign some contributing factor to the crew for not slowing down, and likely mention CRM. I feel that they did not know enough about the mechanization of MCAS that kept applying nose down trim when they were not countering it with the button of the wheel, plus the 5 second delay, plus......

Gums opines...
Hi Gums,

Sorry for the late reply- busy week and a hockey tournament for kids so hadn't checked in for awhile.

It's a great question to ask, both to illuminate why this was not a possible out for either of the crews, and also realistically how real unusual attitude training and experience (as opposed to the lip service now given) could save lives.

First some clarification of definitions. The terms aileron roll and barrel roll have been variously conflated and misdescribed by numerous posters. I'm not going to revisit the descriptions, just describe each accurately here. An aileron roll is a roll performed in level flight, around the center horizontal axis of the airplane. It is an uncoordinated roll, meaning that all three primary controls are used individually to perform the maneuver. You start the roll by applying full left aileron (in western powered aircraft anyway) and as the airplane rolls through 45 towards 90 degrees you feed in right (top) rudder to keep the nose above the horizon. As you pass 90 degrees you start rolling out the rudder and adding nose down stick, again to keep the nose above the horizon. Rudder goes to neutral at the 180 degree point and maximum (necessary) forward stick is reached. As you roll towards 270 degrees forward stick is relaxed while left (top) rudder is added until at 270 degrees the elevator is neutral, left rudder is at it's max, which you begin to remove as you roll back towards positive 1G flight. I should properly note (ironically) that usually you set the trim to aerobatic neutral, which will require significant back pressure in level upright flight and less forward pressure when negative, so some of the timings I listed above would in reality be off a bit. Finally- you will go through a full range of +1 to -1 to +1G through the maneuver.

A barrel roll Is a roll begun from level flight and it is a fully coordinated roll. In an appropriately powered airplane you can start from straight and level, but for most you want to enter a shallow dive up to Vmc or so before beginning a smooth slightly more than 1G pullup to bring the nose anywhere from 30 to perhaps 50 degrees above the horizon if you have a really slow roll rate. If you do this properly you have placed the airplane on a ballistic trajectory which will allow you plenty of time to roll through 360 degrees before returning to your start altitude. Once you have a positive rate of climb you begin to roll in coordinated form (Aileron and rudder) until you pass through the inverted position hopefully a little before you reach the top of your climb. (This allows you to control exit altitude safely.) Throughout this rolling sequence the airplane will be changing heading- first to the left, and after rolling inverted back eventually to the original heading. This isn't really a 1G maneuver as you cannot get the airplane nose up, or recover from the nose down finish at 1G, but it is very benign and properly performed need not be more than 1.5-2G.

A bunt is a nose down pitching maneuver that ends up as 1/2 or a full loop. Historically a bunt is begun from level flight, by retarding power and when your target airspeed is hit and you have confirmed enough altitude for safety you begin to smoothly feed in nose down stick, increasing the amount of stick as you approach inverted due to the increased airspeed and need to maintain a constant radius. To do this your angular velocity must increase, hence the need to push harder. This is one of the most abstractly terrifying maneuvers anyone can do and it is distinctly uncomfortable as at maxim rate of change/g loading you will be pushing between 5 and 6.5G at a minimum.

Hopefully from that you will see that what is being discussed here is a possible combination of two figures- the barrel roll and the bunt.

I have to go get kids, so let's call that Part I and I'll try to finish tonight.

Cheers!!
dce
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Old 3rd Dec 2019, 22:50
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@wonkazoo: seriously off thread and should be moved somewhere else. But these definitions are very different from what I have been taught. In fact if I used the terms like this my acro instructor (significant figure in local IAC etc etc) would disown me. Here is what I have been taught (and I believe is the terminology used by IAC):

-- aileron roll: what you have described as a barrel roll. Coordinated, positive G and neutral elevator throughout. Can keep a glass of water on the glareshield if you're Bob Hoover. Must be done fairly quickly (generally at the aircraft's maximum roll rate unless it's an Extra) to keep the nose drop under control.
-- slow roll: what you have described as an aileron roll. Totally uncoordinated, nose kept on a point by carefully synchronised use of all three controls. Highly vomit-provoking. Can be done as slowly as you want, the extreme case being a rolling turn.
-- barrel roll: combined loop and roll, performed similarly to an aileron roll but with up elevator throughout. Not afaik used in competition, but fun to do around appropriately sized puffy cumulus.
-- bunt: very much a British-English term for exactly what you describe. A pushover in US English.

I often see the term "barrel roll" used to describe what I would call an "aileron roll". If I inadvertently hold back stick while performing a roll, I get told "you barrelled that". Maybe the UK terminology is different, I've never flown acro (or indeed aeros) in the UK. (Just like I learned to ski in French, it was years before I could talk about skiing in English).
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Old 3rd Dec 2019, 22:54
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Originally Posted by gums
Salute!


My conviction is that there is more of an aero problem with the MAX than we are being told.

Gums sends...
The rest of us non-pilot idiots here really wonder what the native behavior of the MAX without MCAS is like.
In other words, documentation of the aero problem which MCAS is supposedly minimizing when it's not going full HAL.

Surely there should be some reports by the Boeing test pilots. Where are these reports? And by the way where are those test pilots today?
The press has made much of the technical pilot's email, but he was writing manuals, not flying the plane before MCAS was shoehorned in.

At that level of competence, any community is small. There are people who know and won't talk. I assume come the lawsuits, they will.


Edmund
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Old 4th Dec 2019, 00:30
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Originally Posted by n5296s
-- slow roll: what you have described as an aileron roll. Totally uncoordinated, nose kept on a point by carefully synchronised use of all three controls.
n5296s , would agree with your message. Only a matter of vocabulary, though.
Just to say that to maintain altitude in a slow roll, the nose isn't exactly kept on a point, but travels between 'erect' flight attitude, and inverted flight attitude (= a bit higher), describing what Eric Müller called a 'sacred circle' around a point.
This is what I've been practicing from my beginnings in aerobatics, and what I taught my students with very good results in competition.

Back to the original point : any sturdy and sufficiently fast rolling aircraft can perform an aileron/barrel roll or something in between with a trained pilot at the controls. A boeing 707 was rolled more than once.
As Wonkazoo mentioned, the key is having the nose sufficiently high.
BTW I seriously doubt that Bud Holland, of Czar52 fame, would have succeeded in rolling a B52 like he dreamed to do one day. Too flimsy wings, and spoilers only in my opinion.
FWIW
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Old 4th Dec 2019, 00:50
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Originally Posted by edmundronald
The rest of us non-pilot idiots here really wonder what the native behavior of the MAX without MCAS is like.
In other words, documentation of the aero problem which MCAS is supposedly minimizing when it's not going full HAL.

Surely there should be some reports by the Boeing test pilots. Where are these reports? And by the way where are those test pilots today?
The press has made much of the technical pilot's email, but he was writing manuals, not flying the plane before MCAS was shoehorned in.

At that level of competence, any community is small. There are people who know and won't talk. I assume come the lawsuits, they will.


Edmund
Just to correct your comment about "writing manuals".
The technical pilots do not write the manuals or books, as another department does this. All technical pilots do is to ensure that new changes in equipment are compared (with the previous variant, in this case the NG.) and added to the appropriate chapters already in current print.
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Old 4th Dec 2019, 01:44
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RE fly,,,
As Wonkazoo mentioned, the key is having the nose sufficiently high.
BTW I seriously doubt that Bud Holland, of Czar52 fame, would have succeeded in rolling a B52 like he dreamed to do one day. Too flimsy wings, and spoilers only in my opinion.
FWIW
This SLF recalls an airshow at Paine field in everett Wa ( 1960's) where one Bob hoover in a F-100 on takeoff - pulled up did a quick roll set down on runway for a moment and finished the takeoff with a high climb rate. Also ( and in this case may be faulty memory ) a comment ( in a bio about tex Johnson ? ) Tex had made a statement to the effect that every plane he had been seriously involved in he had ' rolled ' at least once. He was very involved in the B-52 program . . FWIW

Last edited by Grebe; 4th Dec 2019 at 01:45. Reason: fat fingers
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Old 4th Dec 2019, 02:50
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Salute!

Hoover did things when he was asleep that none of us could hope to do wide awake, sober and having tried it a hundred times.

At a show in Ogden back early 80's his Pony broke, so he borrowed a P-38 and put on a helluva show. He then did his Shrike show where he shuts down the motors, loops the thing, rolls the thing and deadsticks in and stops in front of the crowd. Oh yeah, raises his glass of tea(?) that had been parked on the glareshield.

Gums sends...
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Old 4th Dec 2019, 03:01
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Originally Posted by n5296s
@wonkazoo: seriously off thread and should be moved somewhere else. But these definitions are very different from what I have been taught. In fact if I used the terms like this my acro instructor (significant figure in local IAC etc etc) would disown me. Here is what I have been taught (and I believe is the terminology used by IAC):

-- aileron roll: what you have described as a barrel roll. Coordinated, positive G and neutral elevator throughout. Can keep a glass of water on the glareshield if you're Bob Hoover. Must be done fairly quickly (generally at the aircraft's maximum roll rate unless it's an Extra) to keep the nose drop under control.
-- slow roll: what you have described as an aileron roll. Totally uncoordinated, nose kept on a point by carefully synchronised use of all three controls. Highly vomit-provoking. Can be done as slowly as you want, the extreme case being a rolling turn.
-- barrel roll: combined loop and roll, performed similarly to an aileron roll but with up elevator throughout. Not afaik used in competition, but fun to do around appropriately sized puffy cumulus.
-- bunt: very much a British-English term for exactly what you describe. A pushover in US English.

I often see the term "barrel roll" used to describe what I would call an "aileron roll". If I inadvertently hold back stick while performing a roll, I get told "you barrelled that". Maybe the UK terminology is different, I've never flown acro (or indeed aeros) in the UK. (Just like I learned to ski in French, it was years before I could talk about skiing in English).
I'm sorry, but your definitions and use are somewhat innacurate or outright wrong. Perhaps as you say a cultural gap, but I own Neil WIlliams' book so I am aware of the terminology in the UK. To your suggestion that I am not familiar with the IAC. If you like I can take a photo of the large box of IAC trophies and plaques I have won in the unlimited category, or maybe I'll just take an image of the CA Points Series Second Place I won in 97 or so.

You are correct- Barrel Rolls are not a recognized figure in either the FAI or IAC. If you want to parse this to the nth degree it isn't a recognized aerobatic figure in any competition series I am aware of. (Nor did I suggest it was.) As to a loop and a roll or something like that it's just not true. There is a figure that I have seen historically called a barrel roll that ends up with the airplane on a heading 90 degrees from the original heading, but this is not a modern day description, at least here in the US. Your suggestion that readers should look up Bob Hoover Barrel Roll while pouring water is a good one.

Aileron rolls are notslow rolls by any definition, in fact in a modern day aerobatic monoplane or biplane the roll rate is in the neighborhood of 400 degrees+ per second. (An aileron roll is a recognized figure in the FAI catalog.) Suggesting that they are slow is bonkers. Yes, two point or four point rolls slow it down a bit in overall time, but the roll rate remains the same. Rolls can be added to a turning circle or a 45 upline or a vertical up or downline or the top or bottom of a loop. The roll rate and control inputs are different in each example.

The reason I defined clearly those two rolls is that they represent the entire field of options as described in the query. Equally the reason for defining a bunt is to understand what the actual goal of the sequence is: To create a positive rate of climb, even if inverted that would allow the pilot to recover the airplane. Initially I discounted the possibility entirely, and I still think a realistic outcome involving a deliberate roll to inverted before the plane pushes itself using negative G to a ballistic trajectory is unlikely in the extreme, but I can come up with a few scenarios, and at least one that would work in theory, and I'll try to post them later when I have time to jot them down.

Finally, as to this topic being off-topic for the thread: Well we can just wait for Boeing to force feed us their solution and accept it no matter what, or we can as a community ask questions and where merited discuss the thoughts that those questions provoke. I find the question challenging as given my own experience it is an interesting idea to explore- certainly in the two accident aircraft the outcome could not have been any worse.

Warm regards,
dce

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Old 4th Dec 2019, 04:36
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wonkazoo Most of my reply is in a PM. But just to say here that I totally agree with your last paragraph. My remark about being off-thread applied to my own reply, not to your postings.
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Old 4th Dec 2019, 21:21
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Boeing chief engineer-Hamilton-Retires

Gosh oh gee - imagine that - pulled the cord on golden chute

Boeing chief engineer at center of 737 MAX crisis retires
Dec. 4, 2019 at 1:47 pm Updated Dec. 4, 2019 at 2:02 pm

By Dominic Gates
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief engineer John Hamilton, who was appointed in March to lead its response to the deadly 737 MAX crashes and testified before Congress alongside CEO Dennis Muilenburg, is retiring, the company informed employees Wednesday.

The news was conveyed in an internal memo from the new head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Stan Deal, and Boeing’s chief engineer, Greg Hyslop.

“John had planned to retire last year, but we asked him to stay on to help us with the 737 MAX investigations and return to service efforts,” they wrote. “We are immensely grateful to John for lending his expertise and leadership during a very challenging time.”

Hamilton took center stage alongside Muilenburg at two contentious Congressional hearings last month. In the second of those, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., presented internal Boeing documents indicating that, long before the MAX was certified, some Boeing engineers expressed worry internally about the flight control system that went wrong on the two crash flights.

Hamilton said he wasn’t aware of some of the documents and said the revelations should be interpreted as evidence of an open culture at Boeing in which engineers could raise questions.

Though that five-hour grilling of Hamilton and Muilenburg raised new questions and brought calls for the CEO’s resignation, Boeing since then has stuck to its contention that its software fix for the MAX is almost ready and that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) might give it clearance for a return to service by year-end.

Many industry observers now think January is more likely for initial FAA approval, and that it will be several months after that before passengers fly on the plane in the U.S.

Hamilton’s Boeing career covered multiple airplane programs and roles, including serving as chief project engineer for the 757, the 737 NG (the model prior to the 737 MAX), and the Navy’s 737 variant for hunting submarines, the P-8A.

From April 2016 through March, Hamilton was vice president of engineering for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, responsible for all the company’s engineering design and airplane-certification work, including the final certification of the 737 MAX.

Hamilton also led Boeing’s Aviation Safety organization. At an air safety conference in Seattle in November 2018, less than two weeks after the first crash, Hamilton shared his own experience of personal dread at news of an airline accident. His wife is an Alaska Airlines flight attendant who on Jan. 31, 2000, was flying out of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. When Hamilton heard that Flight 261 out of that city and bound for Seattle had crashed, he feared she was among the 88 killed. He found out later she was on a different flight.

Hamilton will be replaced by Lynne Hopper, who in March took over his role as vice president of Engineering for Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Boeing said that in addition to leading the Commercial Airplanes engineering team, she will support the efforts to return the MAX to service and work closely with the company’s centralized Safety organization that was created in September, led by Beth Pasztor.

Previously, Hopper was the vice president of Boeing Test & Evaluation, where she was responsible for laboratory and flight-test operations in support of certifying Boeing commercial and military jets.

From 2004 to 2007, Hopper led the development of delegated authorized representatives, the Boeing employees who work on behalf of the FAA to certify airplanes. The role of these authorized representatives and the entire regulatory system of delegating oversight to Boeing has come under intense scrutiny following the MAX crashes.

Hamilton’s departure follows the retirement in July of Eric Lindblad, the Boeing vice president who ran the Renton assembly plant and managed the 737 MAX program. Boeing likewise insisted then that Lindblad, highly regarded as a factory operations expert, had expressed his desire to retire the previous year, before the crashes.

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Old 4th Dec 2019, 22:30
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Originally Posted by Grebe
Gosh oh gee - imagine that - pulled the cord on golden chute
Grebe,

Appreciate you posting that information.
Interesting times ahead and one wonders what led to his retirement now, and not last year, as he had planned.
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Old 4th Dec 2019, 22:59
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Originally Posted by 568
Grebe,

Appreciate you posting that information.
Interesting times ahead and one wonders what led to his retirement now, and not last year, as he had planned.
IMHO
Designated sacrifice or fallee. Avoids firing and retribution claims- parachute has no tattered panels- but unclear if who will pay for any legal - criminal complaints defense.

Its the legal ' sorry about that ' defense- and his retirement is " just part of our long planned re-organization and the standard ' thank your for your service ' award.

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Old 4th Dec 2019, 23:41
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but unclear if who will pay for any legal - criminal complaints defense.
Boeing is on record as providing legal defense and financial protections to their "Authorized Representatives" (ARs) if they are sued for their actions as an AR (provided they acted in good faith).
I doubt there are many engineers who would be willing to act as DERs/ARs if they could be held personally liable - I certainly wouldn't have. The nightmare scenario of your system causing a fatal crash is bad enough. Knowing that such a nightmare could also result in financial ruin for you and your family - why would anyone be willing to do that? It's not like ARs get any extra pay in return for their responsibilities...
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Old 4th Dec 2019, 23:49
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Originally Posted by tdracer
Boeing is on record as providing legal defense and financial protections to their "Authorized Representatives" (ARs) if they are sued for their actions as an AR (provided they acted in good faith).
I doubt there are many engineers who would be willing to act as DERs/ARs if they could be held personally liable - I certainly wouldn't have. The nightmare scenario of your system causing a fatal crash is bad enough. Knowing that such a nightmare could also result in financial ruin for you and your family - why would anyone be willing to do that? It's not like ARs get any extra pay in return for their responsibilities...
Yes, absolutely. Also, Boeing is undoubtedly going to want people in Hamilton's position to participate in joint defense/common legal interest agreements, in order to broaden the protection of the lawyer-client privilege and to be able to have insight into their defense strategies. Paying those legal bills will be a bargain for B.
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Old 5th Dec 2019, 00:55
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It might have something to do with United's "totally unrelated to the MAX" decision to go with Airbus for 50 planes. The fact that United even felt it necessary to explain shows how well Boeing's mitigation efforts have been working, and this fellow was one of the more visible but apparently expendable soldiers leading that effort.

A major criminal indictment is unlikely, for purely national political reasons. Neither party is going to want to have "wiping out America's passenger jet industry" on their resume. It is more likely that the government will buy any planes that 'Boeing can't sell, if that happens. Just look at how many bankers were jailed for fraud after the banking bailout for a roadmap to the future.

United chooses Airbus
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Old 5th Dec 2019, 02:00
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Originally Posted by Water pilot
It might have something to do with United's "totally unrelated to the MAX" decision to go with Airbus for 50 planes. The fact that United even felt it necessary to explain shows how well Boeing's mitigation efforts have been working, and this fellow was one of the more visible but apparently expendable soldiers leading that effort.

A major criminal indictment is unlikely, for purely national political reasons. Neither party is going to want to have "wiping out America's passenger jet industry" on their resume. It is more likely that the government will buy any planes that 'Boeing can't sell, if that happens. Just look at how many bankers were jailed for fraud after the banking bailout for a roadmap to the future.

United chooses Airbus
How many P-8 Poseidon MAXes can the Navy use? How many BBJ MAXes could the State and Defense Departments absorb? "As many as necessary?"
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Old 5th Dec 2019, 02:13
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Originally Posted by tdracer
Boeing is on record as providing legal defense and financial protections to their "Authorized Representatives" (ARs) if they are sued for their actions as an AR (provided they acted in good faith).
I doubt there are many engineers who would be willing to act as DERs/ARs if they could be held personally liable - I certainly wouldn't have. The nightmare scenario of your system causing a fatal crash is bad enough. Knowing that such a nightmare could also result in financial ruin for you and your family - why would anyone be willing to do that? It's not like ARs get any extra pay in return for their responsibilities...
Yep no problem re supporting AR-DER-ODA types- but management may well be different depending on just how much influence they had. IF management obviously screws up - or can be shown re fraud or criminal- Boeing will not help. Since there seems to be some sort of criminal investigation on - it then becomes a guessing game as to whom takes the fall. Years ago- a manager who got crosswise with senior management for **possibly ** questionable actions got thrown to the wolves, spent some time in pokey- even the inmates knew he got hosed and made some interesting arrangements re his cellmate who was big enough to protect him.
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Old 5th Dec 2019, 02:38
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Originally Posted by Water pilot
It might have something to do with United's "totally unrelated to the MAX" decision to go with Airbus for 50 planes. The fact that United even felt it necessary to explain shows how well Boeing's mitigation efforts have been working, and this fellow was one of the more visible but apparently expendable soldiers leading that effort.

A major criminal indictment is unlikely, for purely national political reasons. Neither party is going to want to have "wiping out America's passenger jet industry" on their resume. It is more likely that the government will buy any planes that 'Boeing can't sell, if that happens. Just look at how many bankers were jailed for fraud after the banking bailout for a roadmap to the future.

United chooses Airbus
Boeing wiped out the North American passenger jet industry all by itself. In fact, the politicians have enabled it all the way into oblivion with epic bailouts and allowing the total financialization of every large corporation that gets itself into trouble through sheer greed. Not wanting to wear the stain of failure on their watch IS the problem.

Between the MAX grounding and the pickle forks, I am hearing rumours that my airline has suddenly woken up to the Boeing "Black Swan" and will go with Airbus for its NG fleet replacement of around 80 narrow bodies just to mitigate the existential risk to its business.
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Old 5th Dec 2019, 02:42
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Originally Posted by OldnGrounded
How many P-8 Poseidon MAXes can the Navy use? How many BBJ MAXes could the State and Defense Departments absorb? "As many as necessary?"
I joked that they could turn them in VLAT's for firefighting thats going to be more prevelent I think in the coming years
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Old 5th Dec 2019, 04:00
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Curtain twitch said
Boeing wiped out the North American passenger jet industry all by itself
Not even close

1) Douglas did not know what the real cost of its DC-9 was- could not meet payroll
2) John McDonnel learned how to suck Govt tit - and bought out Douglas
3) Then mcdonnel proceeded to stiff employees and Donald Douglass jr
4) lockheed dropped out of Commercial due to issues with l-1011
5) Things got tough with various fubar on dc-10/11 hired GE whiz bang Stonecipher
6) Problems with DC10-11 sunk that program
7) Boeing got over its skis a bit under Philbert and bought out mdc to get part of govt money inherited stonecipher
8) The rest is history
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