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Boeing could cancel the 737 MAX 10

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Boeing could cancel the 737 MAX 10

Old 26th Jul 2022, 03:27
  #101 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by WideScreen
Neither #44 nor #46 would be into gold-plated from their nature, though I think tdracer does refer to something else with "gold-plated": The amount of newly developed superior tech involved with the "new" AF1. Though, maybe, he can elaborate.
The sort of 'gold plating' stuff I'm talking about on the new AF1 747s isn't the sort of thing The Donald (or any president I'm familiar with) would care or probably even know about. What I'm referring to is more associated with - shall we say - mission capability (and the sort of missions it added capability for have little to do with hauling the POTUS around). As for range, the 747-8 is already an 8,000 mile capable aircraft, and that's before they add the aerial refueling capability (which the current AF1 already has). That's why I wondered if the real desire was some new military platform based on the 747-8, but since the 747-8 will be out of production by the end of the year, either I was wrong or the 'plan' never made it to fruition.

BTW, the existing AF1 is very fancy and plush, but in a very businesslike way. Lots of nice leather and fine wood furniture. It's in no way lavish with the things like gold toilet fixtures that showed up on some of the VIP 747's bound for the Middle East. One of my special memories of working on the current AF1 was after an incredibly long two weeks (16-17 hour days for 12 days straight - the engines were a mess when I got there, and I had to cover both the day and evening shifts). Finally, we did engine runs on a Sunday (minimum disruption to the other activities) and the engines performed perfectly - I was done, but they had other engine running stuff to do (hydraulics/pneumatics/electrical generation) and they didn't want to shutdown to let me off. So I went down to the president's office and watched an NFL football game on the big screen TV with a couple of mechanics.
My briefing on the new AF1 didn't go into the interior furnishing, but I'd be surprised if they are much different than the current aircraft (oh, and I'm glad Trumps AF1 paint scheme is DOA)
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Old 26th Jul 2022, 07:20
  #102 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Less Hair
It would kill the common cockpits with the rest of the family. And starting now would take years for the software development and more years for certification.
Would it though? When I flew the 737, admittedly some time ago, I was rated on the -100 to the -500 and regularly swapped between the -200 (steam) and -400 (hybrid glass + FMC) on the same day. No regulator problems with that.

As far as software approval, they got it for the MAX with this program running off a single sensor:

10 IF AOA > LIMIT THEN TRIM = TRIM + 1
15 WAIT 5; *** ADDED THIS ***
20 GOTO 10
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Old 26th Jul 2022, 07:53
  #103 (permalink)  
 
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Boeing is said to have a contract with Southwest about the MAX. Claiming it would need to pay 1 million dollars per aircraft ordered if MAX pilots need more than CBT. Stuff like this. Not much might be known outside. EICAS would change procedures. The fact that they did not install it yet seems to indicate how tricky it is.

And the more Boeing changes the closer they come to the legal tipping point where authorities don't accept grandfathering anymore whenever "more than 50 percent" is considered to be new.
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Old 26th Jul 2022, 18:08
  #104 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by FullWings
Would it though? When I flew the 737, admittedly some time ago, I was rated on the -100 to the -500 and regularly swapped between the -200 (steam) and -400 (hybrid glass + FMC) on the same day. No regulator problems with that.

As far as software approval, they got it for the MAX with this program running off a single sensor:

10 IF AOA > LIMIT THEN TRIM = TRIM + 1
15 WAIT 5; *** ADDED THIS ***
20 GOTO 10
So you're honestly suggesting that Boeing should repeat the fiasco of MCAS on a 737 EICAS?
At the risk of repeating myself (again), MCAS was certified "Essential" - that's DAL (Design Assurance Level) C. Essential systems are allowed single failures since it's assumed that crew can adequately detect and react to a malfunction (the entire MCAS fiasco goes back to that seriously flawed assumption). EICAS is "Critical" - DAL A. Going from a DAL C to a DAL A system increases the costs exponentially (both hardware and software) (which is probably why they wanted to make MCAS DAL C). Further, while all other Boeing commercial aircraft have EICAS, it's far from a 'cut and paste system'. It basically needs to be customized for each application, and the 737 is a very different animal than even the 767 and is a world away from the FBW 777 and 787.
Adding EICAS to the 737 would be a multi-year, multi-billion dollar exercise.
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Old 26th Jul 2022, 18:46
  #105 (permalink)  
 
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So you're honestly suggesting that Boeing should repeat the fiasco of MCAS on a 737 EICAS?
No, of course not - that was part ironic, part humorous (maybe?) What it has exposed is that for Boeing, DAL C might as well be DAL K, for Kwality. What is even more ironic is that if EICAS (DAL A) failed completely, the aeroplane would carry on flying and most critical fault diagnosis and remedy would still be available; with an MCAS (DAL C) fault, the aeroplane can crash out-of-control almost immediately, as proven on two separate occasions. Just sayin’...
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Old 26th Jul 2022, 19:17
  #106 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by FullWings
No, of course not - that was part ironic, part humorous (maybe?) What it has exposed is that for Boeing, DAL C might as well be DAL K, for Kwality. What is even more ironic is that if EICAS (DAL A) failed completely, the aeroplane would carry on flying and most critical fault diagnosis and remedy would still be available; with an MCAS (DAL C) fault, the aeroplane can crash out-of-control almost immediately, as proven on two separate occasions. Just sayin’...
But you're missing the point. Another 'quick and dirty' MCAS style implementation of EICAS could easily turn into another disaster. Sure, the aircraft will continue to fly, but will a crew - given dangerously misleading engine indications, false or misleading warnings or lack or real warnings - be able to fly and land it? Remember one crew was able to diagnose and account for improper MCAS and land the aircraft at its intended destination - problem is not the good crews, it's the 'below average' pilots (especially those on the 2 or 3 sigma below average).
The current flight deck on the 737NG and MAX may not be perfect, but it's perfectly adequate (as demonstrated by the virtually identical hull loss rates between the NG and the A320 series).
You're basically arguing that a 737 EICAS doesn't have to be perfect, while at the same time arguing that the current flight deck - with hundreds of millions of hours of safe operation - is somehow unsafe.
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Old 26th Jul 2022, 20:31
  #107 (permalink)  
 
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The crew that saved it had a pre-briefed mechanic in the jumpseat. He was actively looking for the changed AoA-sensor's performance and supported the pilots early on.
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Old 26th Jul 2022, 20:39
  #108 (permalink)  
 
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Would it be impolite to say “Whoosh”?

Given the very public and very costly MCAS debacle, which may still propel Boeing Commercial into even direr straits, what are the options? They cannot afford to be anything other than diligent if they went down the EICAS route, or, as this thread title suggests, bite the bullet and set off for pastures new. The spotlight is on, the FAA are once bitten, twice shy and foreign regulators are not going to go along for the ride.

Having a similar level of hull losses is one thing, but knowing that at least two of them arose because of known issues and were the product of toxic corporate culture is quite another. What else is hiding in there, and has the culture actually changed? We all know the 737 would be uncertifiable under modern regulations, so “unsafe” as far as the rules are concerned; cars without seat belts had millions of hours of safe operation as well.

My original comment was about having EICAS making the aircraft so different that current 737 pilots couldn’t fly it, which I thought through historical precedent and personal experience wasn’t necessarily a foregone conclusion?
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Old 26th Jul 2022, 21:07
  #109 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by WHBM
How on earth can two 747s incur a loss of USD 1.5bn ? That's surely more than they were sold for.
This is how the “money saving” is presidentially (former President that is) accomplished.
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Old 27th Jul 2022, 02:30
  #110 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by tdracer
But you're missing the point. Another 'quick and dirty' MCAS style implementation of EICAS could easily turn into another disaster. Sure, the aircraft will continue to fly, but will a crew - given dangerously misleading engine indications, false or misleading warnings or lack or real warnings - be able to fly and land it?
I think, that highly depends on their nerves. When a crew does realize, the indications are wrong and just keep flying the airplane, all will be well. IF the crew starts to panic and act on invalid indications, "everything" can happen.

Originally Posted by tdracer
Remember one crew was able to diagnose and account for improper MCAS
The issue with the MCAS was, that it actively screwed up the aircraft flyability.

Originally Posted by tdracer
and land the aircraft at its intended destination - problem is not the good crews, it's the 'below average' pilots (especially those on the 2 or 3 sigma below average).
Even when using 2 or 3 sigma, you still have -by definition- the situation that half of the crews are below average. Increase the crew capabilities and the average goes up, and still half will be below average.
Originally Posted by tdracer
The current flight deck on the 737NG and MAX may not be perfect, but it's perfectly adequate (as demonstrated by the virtually identical hull loss rates between the NG and the A320 series).
Personally, I think, the A320 series suffers much more from a "lower than average" crew performance, the aircraft is sold as "crew-proof", IE resilient against mistreatment and as such, more suitable for environments, where crews are acquired from a more primitive living environment. Which does seem to match the distribution of A320 series over the world, compared with basic wealth and overall quality of life / freedom in those areas.
Originally Posted by tdracer
You're basically arguing that a 737 EICAS doesn't have to be perfect, while at the same time arguing that the current flight deck - with hundreds of millions of hours of safe operation - is somehow unsafe.
I don't think, the B737 flight deck is that bad, provided you have sufficiently trained and on the dot crews, implying, the B737 is less suitable for those "below the average". Add to that, that improving the flight deck environment (also the noise levels) can improve the "quality of life" for those spending a lot of time there, at the same time decreasing the body wear&tear, IE, lowering the fatigue levels.
The issue with the B737 is more the ancient -no longer certifiable- mechanical and electrical constructions. Perfect according to historical standards, though it is no longer acceptable, that (for example) the fuselage does break up along its joints, or the cockpit overhead panels land on the crews heads, when more than a hard-landing is surprising the crew. Or the outright confusingly designed RA sensor - control units matching, which was the fundamental issue with the Turkish B737 before reaching AMS.
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Old 27th Jul 2022, 02:33
  #111 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by GlobalNav
This is how the “money saving” is presidentially (former President that is) accomplished.
Yep, another indication, Boeing was effectively already far behind the presumed "leading" position in the market. When you are the considered "the best in the market", pricing becomes a less relevant item, the moment your customers want "the best" and customers are prepared to pay for that "the best".
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Old 27th Jul 2022, 02:33
  #112 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by FullWings
Would it be impolite to say “Whoosh”?
Apologies - I was referring to the posts suggesting implementing EICAS on the 737 would be cheap and easy - which is very much not the case. I'd (apparently erroneously) lumped you in with that crowd.

Originally Posted by FullWings
My original comment was about having EICAS making the aircraft so different that current 737 pilots couldn’t fly it, which I thought through historical precedent and personal experience wasn’t necessarily a foregone conclusion?
Common type rating - even with 'differences' training - is a very sensitive subject. Worse, it's largely subjective - there are few hard and fast rules - so it's very difficult to predict what the regulators will do. The 757 and 767 have shared a common type rating for 40 years (and actually share a common flight deck), but we spent a lot of time on pins and needles because no one wanted to be the one that implemented a change on one or the other that caused the regulators to decide they'd become too different and could no longer have a common type rating. We were working on implementing autostart on the 767 (mainly for the CF6-80C2 FADEC) in the early 1990's. Upper management killed it due mainly to the potential impact on the 757/767 common type rating, afraid it might be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back (much to my relief as there were some nasty technical issues we'd need to deal with to implement it on the 767)
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Old 27th Jul 2022, 02:37
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Originally Posted by FullWings
Would it be impolite to say “Whoosh”?

Given the very public and very costly MCAS debacle, which may still propel Boeing Commercial into even direr straits, what are the options? They cannot afford to be anything other than diligent if they went down the EICAS route, or, as this thread title suggests, bite the bullet and set off for pastures new. The spotlight is on, the FAA are once bitten, twice shy and foreign regulators are not going to go along for the ride.

Having a similar level of hull losses is one thing, but knowing that at least two of them arose because of known issues and were the product of toxic corporate culture is quite another. What else is hiding in there, and has the culture actually changed? We all know the 737 would be uncertifiable under modern regulations, so “unsafe” as far as the rules are concerned; cars without seat belts had millions of hours of safe operation as well.

My original comment was about having EICAS making the aircraft so different that current 737 pilots couldn’t fly it, which I thought through historical precedent and personal experience wasn’t necessarily a foregone conclusion?
Crews could still "fly" the airplane, though no longer properly and timely handle exceptions. I am not sure, if "just ignoring the EICAS" and revert to the old paper manuals would be OK, to overcome that issue, maybe not.
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Old 27th Jul 2022, 18:36
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In the meantime !

​​​​​​Delta buys 100 Boeing Max planes, its first major order with the manufacturer in more than a decade. The deal is for 100 737 Max 10 planes, with options for 30 more. Deliveries are slated to begin in 2025. It's Delta first fresh order for new Boeing planes in more than a decade.Jul 18, 2022
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Old 28th Jul 2022, 01:44
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Originally Posted by hunbet
In the meantime !

​​​​​​Delta buys 100 Boeing Max planes, its first major order with the manufacturer in more than a decade. The deal is for 100 737 Max 10 planes, with options for 30 more. Deliveries are slated to begin in 2025. It's Delta first fresh order for new Boeing planes in more than a decade.Jul 18, 2022
To me, this sounds a bit like an opportunistic order (The MAX-10 is bigger as the airplanes it is going to replace, at such a qty scale). So, when the MAX-10 finds its grave before certification-birth, Delta has some negotiation cookies to get a good deal on a MAX-9 "downgrade". And, in the (unlikely ???) situation, the MAX-10 gets its certification, Delta could sell to Ryanair, who will be desperate for new, somewhat bigger airplanes, by then .....
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Old 28th Jul 2022, 02:32
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Originally Posted by WideScreen
To me, this sounds a bit like an opportunistic order (The MAX-10 is bigger as the airplanes it is going to replace, at such a qty scale). So, when the MAX-10 finds its grave before certification-birth, Delta has some negotiation cookies to get a good deal on a MAX-9 "downgrade". And, in the (unlikely ???) situation, the MAX-10 gets its certification, Delta could sell to Ryanair, who will be desperate for new, somewhat bigger airplanes, by then .....
Delta has already been lobbying for Congress to extend the deadline for the MAX-10 cert (without EICAS).
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Old 28th Jul 2022, 04:03
  #117 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by tdracer
So you're honestly suggesting that Boeing should repeat the fiasco of MCAS on a 737 EICAS?
A patch job for adding an "EICAS" to the B737 would seem to be asking for embarrassment, and frankly, there is negligible display benefit to the crew that arises from the "EICAS". What off's in recent times would an EICAS have provided the vital input to stop the crew having a bad day? My 20,000 hours with various Boeing EICAS and Airbus's later ECAMs have never provided any information that actually altered the correct actioning of a QRH. The NNECL on the B777/787 is delightful but other than closed loop items, the iPad can do the same with a little less overhead in costing. The Synoptic is a nice touch to have, from a training point of view, as in stopping new drivers from balancing fuel tanks due to a bad sender, but otherwise, I am not sure that it ever changed the outcome of an issue. I would give parts of other peoples anatomies for real imaging of a cabin, as every smoke event I have had the misfortune to experience has been most entertaining, getting the information as to what is actually happening is interesting in a multi-lingual environment. The original lack of a cabin altitude alert separate to the T/O warning was probably not one of the better cost-saving exercises Boeing undertook, but even then, at X thousands of feet after takeoff, a "T/O warning horn" blaring in your ear may tend to make one look at the other logics that make it chatty.

Originally Posted by tdracer
Essential systems are allowed single failures since it's assumed that crew can adequately detect and react to a malfunction (the entire MCAS fiasco goes back to that seriously flawed assumption). EICAS is "Critical" - DAL A. Going from a DAL C to a DAL A system increases the costs exponentially (both hardware and software) (which is probably why they wanted to make MCAS DAL C)
An EICAS would not have made a difference in the MCAS shambles, the crew had the controls in front of them, hands on those, and had two lots of trim position indicators showing the action of the trim, and wheels spinning around to give a hint. Not sure that anything else was going to be a bigger hint, except, for a very modest sum, an audio output giving the problem would be possible to add to any of these "plains", maybe make them as good as a Lancair...

The Airbus ECAM has some insidious characteristics to it, where there is a compounded/cascading defect, there can be a continuous rolling series of alerts and actions that make it difficult for the drivers to stay on top of the problem. Boeing's EICAS and the ECL-NNML do handle that condition with much more grace and less frustration.

All in all, the most frustrating problem is not having a checklist on a screen, or on plastic or in a book, (or on a boat, or with a goat, or with green eggs and ham, Sam..) it is actually getting a crew to start actioning what they train to do in the simulator routinely, and then in the real world, the crews ad-lib for various reasons. The justifications are depressing to listen to when there is the subsequent washup, yet that is where we seem to have ended up as a group of operators.
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Old 28th Jul 2022, 09:08
  #118 (permalink)  
 
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FDR, all true, including the expectation that a common horn sounding at 10,000’ wouldn’t get me to check the parking brake, but a licenced crew did in fact not recognise the horn was sounding “cabin altitude high” and a bunch of people died. Don’t forget just how far left the old bell curve stretches. By definition there are >50,000 flights a day operated by at least one below average crew member. That’s a lot of dice rolling.

Ultimately, a 737 Max will be flying on the 100th anniversary of the first flight. The perverse reality in that is there will be somewhere 100 years of systems development completely ignored in the service of expediency. Anyway, in competent hands the aeroplane is a money maker and currently enjoys an industry typical safety record. Its just a shame Boeing didn’t have the time, available talent or money to leapfrog the 320 and set the stage for the next 50 years.
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Old 28th Jul 2022, 16:08
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Originally Posted by tdracer
Delta has already been lobbying for Congress to extend the deadline for the MAX-10 cert (without EICAS).
Yep, on the other side, Delta gets the critics: "What are you going to do with these airplanes, too many, too big for you" (I personally don't judge on this).

The trick with running (large) businesses is, to "play chess", always take care to have alternative options, when things don't go as planned. For this case: IF Delta indeed does not want the MAX-10 in these qty, and it gets certified, sell off to other parties. IF it doesn't get certified, go back to Boeing and demand the MAX-9, with discount, etc.
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Old 28th Jul 2022, 20:44
  #120 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by Australopithecus
Its just a shame Boeing didn’t have the time, available talent or money to leapfrog the 320 and set the stage for the next 50 years.
In a former life I was invited to take delivery of a brand new 757 in Renton in the 1990s ,bought by a friendly airline that no longer exists. It was with the standard VIP treat and included a lenghthy visit of the facilty , and the 737 and KC135s..were also built there alongside. It was very noisy , lots of debris on the floor, lots of mechanics in blue overall pushing rivets into holes made with eletrric drills. A year later I was shown the A320 assembly line in Toulouse Blagnac , workshop complety clean on white painted floor, robots working in silence , laser beams to align the parts together and a few mechanics in white blouses walking around with iPads.. OK that was 30 years ago, probably the 737 assembly line looks different today , but to "leapfrog Airbus for the next 50 years" would have needed quite a cultural and technological change at the time.
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