Boeing at X-Roads?
That's pretty accurate pattern... With the introduction of the 737-900 (Next Generation), it could do nearly everything a 757 could do (except for range), and cost much less to buy. When Boeing made the decision to pull the plug on the 757, orders had dried up and the rate was down to one/month (while production officially ended in 2004, the decision was made in the aftermath of 9/11 - long lead parts mean it takes a couple years to wind down a production line). Since the 757 required a dedicated assembly line, that meant a huge amount of overhead to build one aircraft per month, while the 737 rate was approaching one aircraft per day - spreading that factory overhead cost over a much larger number of aircraft.
The other problem for the 757 was that it had a huge wing - fine for the 180-220 passenger market, but trying to shrink it down for the 150-180 passenger market would have meant carrying far more wing than you needed - more weight, more drag, more costs (that's why 'shrinks' seldom work, while stretches usually do).
In the 2010 time-frame, Boeing was working on a new, clean sheet of paper replacement for the 737 (I had friends that were working it). But Airbus pretty much caught Boeing off-guard when they launched the A320 NEO. A new clean sheet design would have taken years longer to reach the market - then years more to bring the production rate up to the 40-50/month rate that the 737 and A320 series were at. It would have meant conceding nearly the entire single aisle market to Airbus for the better part of 10 year, while the 737 MAX could reach the market shortly after the NEO and the 737 rate was already in the 40-50/month range. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight and the MAX fiasco, going with an all-new aircraft looks a lot better, but at the time the MAX was launched, it seemed like the best option.
The other problem for the 757 was that it had a huge wing - fine for the 180-220 passenger market, but trying to shrink it down for the 150-180 passenger market would have meant carrying far more wing than you needed - more weight, more drag, more costs (that's why 'shrinks' seldom work, while stretches usually do).
In the 2010 time-frame, Boeing was working on a new, clean sheet of paper replacement for the 737 (I had friends that were working it). But Airbus pretty much caught Boeing off-guard when they launched the A320 NEO. A new clean sheet design would have taken years longer to reach the market - then years more to bring the production rate up to the 40-50/month rate that the 737 and A320 series were at. It would have meant conceding nearly the entire single aisle market to Airbus for the better part of 10 year, while the 737 MAX could reach the market shortly after the NEO and the 737 rate was already in the 40-50/month range. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight and the MAX fiasco, going with an all-new aircraft looks a lot better, but at the time the MAX was launched, it seemed like the best option.
The MAX will resolve it's issues, and we can hope that someday TBC will substantively change their board, the C level management and everyone else that has allowed the decay of the company since the mid 90's. The minor inconvenient truth in that is, the shareholders are the ones that drive the companies event horizon, and no one ever holds the shareholders to account for bitching on one hand over the mis-steps of the company and then bitching about their dividend and share price, which drive the event horizon to being suitable for "10-second Tom's" wonderment. The companies lawyers who were involved with the debacle over the QA Inspector firings in the early 2000's on their reporting component fabrication that can only considered to be fraudulent by a supplier to Boeing, with the company and US Govts response being to attack the QAI's, and then never rectify the findings of those inspection reports, those involved from the company side, they own the MAX, KC46, B787 and the rest of the sordid mess that has grown from obsequience towards the beancounters.
Gender Faculty Specialist
It doesn't help the company if they lose money despite.
It doesn't help the company that almost all their models 737,787, 777-X have major issues.
Paxing All Over The World
This from Reuters By Valerie Insinna, Tim Hepher and David Shepardson
January 7, 20244:21 PM GMTUpdated 15 days ago
Spirit Aero made blowout part but Boeing has key role
January 7, 20244:21 PM GMTUpdated 15 days ago
Spirit Aero made blowout part but Boeing has key role
As part of the production process, Spirit builds fuselages for 737s and sends them by train with the special door assembly “semi-rigged,” one of the people said.
“They are fitted but not completed," the person said.
At its Renton, Washington, plant, Boeing typically removes the pop-out, or non-functioning, door and uses the gap to load interiors. Then, the part is put back and the installation in completed. Finally, the hull is pressurized to 150% to make sure everything is working correctly, the person said.
The process means that finding out where any flaw was introduced during assembly may not be clear-cut, said the sources, who asked not to be named as details of the probe are confidential.
“They are fitted but not completed," the person said.
At its Renton, Washington, plant, Boeing typically removes the pop-out, or non-functioning, door and uses the gap to load interiors. Then, the part is put back and the installation in completed. Finally, the hull is pressurized to 150% to make sure everything is working correctly, the person said.
The process means that finding out where any flaw was introduced during assembly may not be clear-cut, said the sources, who asked not to be named as details of the probe are confidential.
Boeing WAS at a crossroads, years ago, they have gone a long way down the wrong road and there's neither room nor will for a U-turn.
Paxing All Over The World
'AirGuide' reports: By Brian Davidson| January 11th, 2024
After any major catastrophe, it usually turns out that enginners, or regular staff, had warned of the problem. Think about the Challenger disaster in the USA (1986) and the King's Cross fire in the UK (1987) as but two examples.
Boeing 737 Max Supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, Ignored Warnings Leading to Safety Concerns and Legal Woes
Workers at a key Boeing supplier raised alarms about defects in aircraft components, but their concerns were reportedly overlooked, leading to a series of safety issues and a federal lawsuit. Just weeks prior to an alarming incident where a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight, workers at Spirit AeroSystems, the part’s manufacturer, had warned of safety risks.
Documents filed in federal court allege that former employees at Spirit AeroSystems, which manufactured the faulty door plug, had repeatedly alerted company officials about safety issues and were instructed to falsify records. These warnings came less than a month before over 150 Boeing aircraft were grounded due to a catastrophic failure.
The lawsuit accuses Spirit of systematic quality-control problems, under-reporting defects, and retaliating against whistleblowers. This situation underscores broader concerns about outsourced aerospace manufacturing and the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) regulatory effectiveness.
Documents filed in federal court allege that former employees at Spirit AeroSystems, which manufactured the faulty door plug, had repeatedly alerted company officials about safety issues and were instructed to falsify records. These warnings came less than a month before over 150 Boeing aircraft were grounded due to a catastrophic failure.
The lawsuit accuses Spirit of systematic quality-control problems, under-reporting defects, and retaliating against whistleblowers. This situation underscores broader concerns about outsourced aerospace manufacturing and the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) regulatory effectiveness.
Paxing All Over The World
Yes it is successful. But the entire MAX / MCAS control issue could (largely) have been prevented - if Boeing had agreed to own up to the crew training required for it. They chose not to cause this problem for their clients - for well documented reasons. They also appear not to have tested the software sufficiently in the real world. That would have shown up how little time there was to react to an unknown problem.
I sit to be corrected.
I sit to be corrected.
- Incident: Egypt B789 over Atlantic on Jan 20th 2024, cracked windshield
- Incident: Biman B789 near Dhaka on Jan 20th 2024, cracked windshield
I wonder how long before the NTSB or the FAA begins to investigate what seems to me to be an unaccountably high frequency of B787 windscreen failures
And two more in the last two days, according to the AvHerald:
I wonder how long before the NTSB or the FAA begins to investigate what seems to me to be an unaccountably high frequency of B787 windscreen failures
- Incident: Egypt B789 over Atlantic on Jan 20th 2024, cracked windshield
- Incident: Biman B789 near Dhaka on Jan 20th 2024, cracked windshield
I wonder how long before the NTSB or the FAA begins to investigate what seems to me to be an unaccountably high frequency of B787 windscreen failures
As others have noted, windshield cracks are not particularly uncommon - you need to look at events over a much longer time period than one week to determine if there is a generic issue or a statistical fluke.
I found that 14 aircraft windshields cracked on one day's departures from Denver, attributed to winds driving small grit into windows and particularly low temps. Feb 2007 for the curious. The first was an Airbus A319-100.
That's pretty accurate pattern... With the introduction of the 737-900 (Next Generation), it could do nearly everything a 757 could do (except for range), and cost much less to buy. When Boeing made the decision to pull the plug on the 757, orders had dried up and the rate was down to one/month (while production officially ended in 2004, the decision was made in the aftermath of 9/11 - long lead parts mean it takes a couple years to wind down a production line). Since the 757 required a dedicated assembly line, that meant a huge amount of overhead to build one aircraft per month, while the 737 rate was approaching one aircraft per day - spreading that factory overhead cost over a much larger number of aircraft.
The other problem for the 757 was that it had a huge wing - fine for the 180-220 passenger market, but trying to shrink it down for the 150-180 passenger market would have meant carrying far more wing than you needed - more weight, more drag, more costs (that's why 'shrinks' seldom work, while stretches usually do).
In the 2010 time-frame, Boeing was working on a new, clean sheet of paper replacement for the 737 (I had friends that were working it). But Airbus pretty much caught Boeing off-guard when they launched the A320 NEO. A new clean sheet design would have taken years longer to reach the market - then years more to bring the production rate up to the 40-50/month rate that the 737 and A320 series were at. It would have meant conceding nearly the entire single aisle market to Airbus for the better part of 10 year, while the 737 MAX could reach the market shortly after the NEO and the 737 rate was already in the 40-50/month range. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight and the MAX fiasco, going with an all-new aircraft looks a lot better, but at the time the MAX was launched, it seemed like the best option.
The other problem for the 757 was that it had a huge wing - fine for the 180-220 passenger market, but trying to shrink it down for the 150-180 passenger market would have meant carrying far more wing than you needed - more weight, more drag, more costs (that's why 'shrinks' seldom work, while stretches usually do).
In the 2010 time-frame, Boeing was working on a new, clean sheet of paper replacement for the 737 (I had friends that were working it). But Airbus pretty much caught Boeing off-guard when they launched the A320 NEO. A new clean sheet design would have taken years longer to reach the market - then years more to bring the production rate up to the 40-50/month rate that the 737 and A320 series were at. It would have meant conceding nearly the entire single aisle market to Airbus for the better part of 10 year, while the 737 MAX could reach the market shortly after the NEO and the 737 rate was already in the 40-50/month range. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight and the MAX fiasco, going with an all-new aircraft looks a lot better, but at the time the MAX was launched, it seemed like the best option.
I see parallels with AMD versus Intel, different industry but similarities given hugely complex engineering product with very long lead times.
The issue doesn’t seem to be that they chose an incremental design to allow them survive as far as the clean sheet design, the issue seems to be that they made such a hash of the incremental design.
I don’t want to try to re-litigate what the failure of a couple of pitot tubes did to that strategy, or over-subservience to the Southwest effect, but come on.
You can choose a cheaper design, but what you can’t then do on top of that is also cheap out on the cheaper design.
Last edited by Bbtengineer; 23rd Jan 2024 at 02:24.
"Crack happens".
Boeings , Airbus, etc, no substantial difference.
That is an impressive cluster. I would think that thermal shock was more a problem, not clear how grit that isn't high velocity boulder (Colorado) size... what failure mode would that be. PPG would be pleased though.
I recall that day. Received an ACARS message to divert as no one at the time could figure out what was causing the issues.
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Missed an important piece of info
"Your statement may be true for the original MCAS but it is manifestly untrue for the production software that literally gave seconds for the crew to recognize and respond to the failure before the BS designed for the 707 in 1957 manual trim system became immovable. "
Red the view may be, but the trim switch under the left thumb of the guy in the left seat always functioned. I suppose the switch in the right seat is also under the left thumb. The first crew and second captain managed with zero difficulty; some roller-coaster, but not deadly.
On top of that every flight had far more than seconds (1-5) to deal with the trim loads. I saw red when "The pilots followed the emergency AD exactly" was not in the FDR, at all.
No airline wanted a competitor to the 737 from Boeing. Here's what happens when a company tries that.
The customers say "Is this going to be all new?"
"Yes"
"Then cancel my current orders and I'll wait for the new plane to come out, or maybe I'll just go to Airbus and see what they have if I have to start over."
or they say
"Since I have one common platform for my airline, I will have to toss all of them in the garbage or have incompatible planes and incompatible pilots? Can't you just make the 737 better?"
Red the view may be, but the trim switch under the left thumb of the guy in the left seat always functioned. I suppose the switch in the right seat is also under the left thumb. The first crew and second captain managed with zero difficulty; some roller-coaster, but not deadly.
On top of that every flight had far more than seconds (1-5) to deal with the trim loads. I saw red when "The pilots followed the emergency AD exactly" was not in the FDR, at all.
No airline wanted a competitor to the 737 from Boeing. Here's what happens when a company tries that.
The customers say "Is this going to be all new?"
"Yes"
"Then cancel my current orders and I'll wait for the new plane to come out, or maybe I'll just go to Airbus and see what they have if I have to start over."
or they say
"Since I have one common platform for my airline, I will have to toss all of them in the garbage or have incompatible planes and incompatible pilots? Can't you just make the 737 better?"
I don't know a certain path for Boeing. Obviously in this case they need to deal with their internal reporting on the factory floor and be even less trusting of Spirit, but that leads to other problems.
Had the ET-302 reporting accurately represented how the situation developed following the preliminary report on Lion Air, they would not now be buried under an avalanche of blame.
Clearly this manufacturing issue is all on Boeing and they deserve a beating for it; blaming them for the actions of an airline that knew of a design defect but took no measures to cope?
The CEO needs to put his desk on the factory floor of Renton for the next 6 months. As unpleasant as it might be, probably a weekly factory walkaround invite to Dominic and buy 30 minute info-mercials in the Seattle market talking with the floor workers and inspectors about how work is going. These need to be unscripted without a single marketing person within a mile of the building, not even a slick intro. If they think the plant isn't a good backdrop? I'd say that is a sign it needs to be dealt with.
Had the ET-302 reporting accurately represented how the situation developed following the preliminary report on Lion Air, they would not now be buried under an avalanche of blame.
Clearly this manufacturing issue is all on Boeing and they deserve a beating for it; blaming them for the actions of an airline that knew of a design defect but took no measures to cope?
The CEO needs to put his desk on the factory floor of Renton for the next 6 months. As unpleasant as it might be, probably a weekly factory walkaround invite to Dominic and buy 30 minute info-mercials in the Seattle market talking with the floor workers and inspectors about how work is going. These need to be unscripted without a single marketing person within a mile of the building, not even a slick intro. If they think the plant isn't a good backdrop? I'd say that is a sign it needs to be dealt with.
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United pulls plans for Boeing’s biggest 737 Max jet, after Max 9 groundings prove to be ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’
United Airlines Holdings Inc. on Tuesday said it was rethinking its longer-term plans for Boeing’s biggest 737 Max jet, the Max 10, after the government’s grounding of dozens of Max 9s this month raised questions over whether the aircraft maker could still deliver planes on time.
United Chief Executive Scott Kirby said during the airline’s earnings call on Tuesday that it wasn’t canceling its orders for the Max 10. But he said the airline was taking the jet “out of our internal plans.”
“We’ll be working on what that means exactly with Boeing,” he said. “But Boeing is not going to be able to meet their contractual deliveries on at least many of those airplanes.”
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United Airlines Holdings Inc. on Tuesday said it was rethinking its longer-term plans for Boeing’s biggest 737 Max jet, the Max 10, after the government’s grounding of dozens of Max 9s this month raised questions over whether the aircraft maker could still deliver planes on time.
United Chief Executive Scott Kirby said during the airline’s earnings call on Tuesday that it wasn’t canceling its orders for the Max 10. But he said the airline was taking the jet “out of our internal plans.”
“We’ll be working on what that means exactly with Boeing,” he said. “But Boeing is not going to be able to meet their contractual deliveries on at least many of those airplanes.”
More