Ryanair 737 Max order
I think much is going to depend on the FAA's requirements to return the MAXs to full service. For instance, should the FAA require current 737 pilots or MAX pilots to undergo 4 hours of full motion simulator training, as Boeing had once said, the return will be problematic given the number of pilots to be trained and simulator availability worldwide. For example, I have read where American and Southwest Airlines have ~13,000 pilots to train with one available simulator.
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The ryanair max's need a locking mechanism for the extra door. At the moment that was not foreseen so any luny could open it. So a bit more work on integration in the PSEU... And certification.
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The NG panels look like the B747-400 and B777, the Max looks like a B787.
I know a lot of people are led to believe that the cockpit layouts are the same, but they aren’t.
You will need a hardware upgrade as well to let it look like a Max.
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It's not the cert basis of the MAX that is a problem, it was the execution of the cert.
BTW, I'd bet good money that if you went through any other aircraft cert (Boeing, Airbus, etc.) with the same fine tooth comb that is being applied to the MAX, you'd find plenty of issues. Cert is done by humans, humans make mistakes and bad assumptions. Certifying a new (or major derivative) aircraft is a big, big job. To do that job perfectly, with no mistakes, bad assumptions or oversights, is basically a statistical impossibility. Most of the time those cert errors don't have a significant effect on safety. Occasionally they do - and that happened big time on the MAX.
My biggest criticism of the FAA over the years has been a horrible tendency to focus on minutia at the expense of the big picture (e.g. "missing the forest for the trees") - and EASA is just as bad. On the MAX, I watched them do this with "Uncontrollable High Thrust" - UHT. Both the FAA and EASA didn't just look at UHT, they dissected it to the Nth degree - far more than they did even on the 787 - even though UHT has never resulted in a fatal accident. Boeing probably spent more time/resources addressing UHT on the MAX they they did on any other Propulsion related issue. Had the FAA spent 10% of the time looking at MCAS that they did UHT, it would never have been certified in that configuration but instead they spent all their time staring at the tree...
The 'grandfathered' portion of the cert basis had nothing to do with the MAX problems. Everything that has been identified as a shortcoming in the MAX has been associated with new (e.g. MCAS) or significantly modified/affected systems (e.g. cable separation for rotor burst) needed to be certified to the latest regulations per the Changed Product Rule.
It's not the cert basis of the MAX that is a problem, it was the execution of the cert.
BTW, I'd bet good money that if you went through any other aircraft cert (Boeing, Airbus, etc.) with the same fine tooth comb that is being applied to the MAX, you'd find plenty of issues. Cert is done by humans, humans make mistakes and bad assumptions. Certifying a new (or major derivative) aircraft is a big, big job. To do that job perfectly, with no mistakes, bad assumptions or oversights, is basically a statistical impossibility. Most of the time those cert errors don't have a significant effect on safety. Occasionally they do - and that happened big time on the MAX.
My biggest criticism of the FAA over the years has been a horrible tendency to focus on minutia at the expense of the big picture (e.g. "missing the forest for the trees") - and EASA is just as bad. On the MAX, I watched them do this with "Uncontrollable High Thrust" - UHT. Both the FAA and EASA didn't just look at UHT, they dissected it to the Nth degree - far more than they did even on the 787 - even though UHT has never resulted in a fatal accident. Boeing probably spent more time/resources addressing UHT on the MAX they they did on any other Propulsion related issue. Had the FAA spent 10% of the time looking at MCAS that they did UHT, it would never have been certified in that configuration but instead they spent all their time staring at the tree...
It's not the cert basis of the MAX that is a problem, it was the execution of the cert.
BTW, I'd bet good money that if you went through any other aircraft cert (Boeing, Airbus, etc.) with the same fine tooth comb that is being applied to the MAX, you'd find plenty of issues. Cert is done by humans, humans make mistakes and bad assumptions. Certifying a new (or major derivative) aircraft is a big, big job. To do that job perfectly, with no mistakes, bad assumptions or oversights, is basically a statistical impossibility. Most of the time those cert errors don't have a significant effect on safety. Occasionally they do - and that happened big time on the MAX.
My biggest criticism of the FAA over the years has been a horrible tendency to focus on minutia at the expense of the big picture (e.g. "missing the forest for the trees") - and EASA is just as bad. On the MAX, I watched them do this with "Uncontrollable High Thrust" - UHT. Both the FAA and EASA didn't just look at UHT, they dissected it to the Nth degree - far more than they did even on the 787 - even though UHT has never resulted in a fatal accident. Boeing probably spent more time/resources addressing UHT on the MAX they they did on any other Propulsion related issue. Had the FAA spent 10% of the time looking at MCAS that they did UHT, it would never have been certified in that configuration but instead they spent all their time staring at the tree...
It probably could be shown to meet without significant changes, but it would require repeating a number of structural test (e.g. wing to failure, fuselage pressurization, fatigue, that sort of thing). So it would be expensive.
On the 747-8, a big part of the grandfathered cert basis was that the wing structural design wasn't changing (although beefed up for the higher weights) - just the aerodynamic profiling of the wing - since a truly new wing would have meant repeating all the structural testing at considerable time and expense. I know something similar was done on the 737NG - wing changed aerodynamically but not structurally. I don't know how much of that carried over to the MAX but without the original structural basis all that would need to be re-done.
On the 747-8, a big part of the grandfathered cert basis was that the wing structural design wasn't changing (although beefed up for the higher weights) - just the aerodynamic profiling of the wing - since a truly new wing would have meant repeating all the structural testing at considerable time and expense. I know something similar was done on the 737NG - wing changed aerodynamically but not structurally. I don't know how much of that carried over to the MAX but without the original structural basis all that would need to be re-done.
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BTW, I'd bet good money that if you went through any other aircraft cert (Boeing, Airbus, etc.) with the same fine tooth comb that is being applied to the MAX, you'd find plenty of issues.
Look at the manual trim wheel issue, redundancy in systems such as AoA and ADIRU,, and the FCC' protection as examples...
Would the MAX be able to be certified against the latest requirements if it was treated as a stand alone, brand new aircraft type with no reference to previous generations of the B737 ?
If you were going to build a brand new aircraft, you wouldn't have built something like the MAX.
If you were going to build a brand new aircraft, you wouldn't have built something like the MAX.
The 'grandfathered' portion of the cert basis had nothing to do with the MAX problems. Everything that has been identified as a shortcoming in the MAX has been associated with new (e.g. MCAS) or significantly modified/affected systems (e.g. cable separation for rotor burst) needed to be certified to the latest regulations per the Changed Product Rule.
It's not the cert basis of the MAX that is a problem, it was the execution of the cert.
It's not the cert basis of the MAX that is a problem, it was the execution of the cert.
The other issue is the lack of power cable separation for the electric trim control system which was also an issue on the NG and did not meet the relevant FAR when the NG was certified, but was missed by the FAA.
Would the MAX be able to be certified against the latest requirements if it was treated as a stand alone, brand new aircraft type with no reference to previous generations of the B737 ?
If you were going to build a brand new aircraft, you wouldn't have built something like the MAX.
If you were going to build a brand new aircraft, you wouldn't have built something like the MAX.
Of course a brand new, from the ground up design wouldn't have a lot in common with the 737 - there has been a considerable amount of technological change and advancement in the last 50 years. Heck, there isn't a lot common between the 767 and the 787, and that was only ~25 years.
I repeat, the issues with the MAX have nothing to do with the cert basis, they have everything to do with the cert execution. As hec7or notes, even items like rotor burst and wire separation should have been addressed per the Changed Product Rule. But they weren't.
BTW, with all the bitching and moaning about 'grandfathered' 737 cert basis, remember that the 'modern' A320 cert basis is over 35 years old, and there were not that many changes to the regulations between when the 737 was launched and when the A320 was launched...
Certification only a matter of time.