Yep, see my note:
It's not a matter of "some extra sensors" and "some extra wires", all this extra stuff does interact with the current systems, which all need to be (re-)certified. A lot of paperwork, and probably requiring a lot of extra "testing". And before you can dive into the paperwork creation, you'll need to work out all the tech (and GUI things), IE preparation of the certification. Because this whole needs to be (re-)certified, you can just tag-on some goodies, etc. I think, we agree on this.

The "making" itself is roughly linear with the amount of items, of course, only for this MAX-10, so little synergy with other aircraft.


The moment you start messing with this stuff, you have to re-certify the individual components and the whole. $$$$$$

Yep, when you start moving around things, things change, with the chance of late discovered items, etc. So, yeah, I really feel (technically) sorry for Boeing, they are in this position, but, hey, this is what they shareholders and major US airlines aimed for.

Yeah, there was already a huge order for the MAX (AA IIRC), even before a NG successor was announced (let alone Boeing had decided to design such a successor), go figure, so the US airlines do really bear part of the MAX disaster blame.

But where else were the US majors going to go ? Airbus ? Sold out for years ahead, and surely no discounts. Plus a training load that would dwarf what might be done on a properly-configured Max. The complete antithesis of "faster, better, cheaper". Boeing were in an envious duopoly position. Do you think Southwest were going to go for Airbus in these conditions, let alone at all ? If this was the operators' constant approach we'd all still be flying round in newly-built DC-6Bs.

Maybe, the US airlines should have encouraged Boeing to NOT buy back shares, but invest the money in newly designed aircraft ? But, US airlines were predominantly focused on short-term low costs (no crew retraining, etc), so gave the wrong message themselves, too.

Not to say, US airlines should have opposed to the past-merger doctrine at Boeing, that a prosperous future would be without new technology developments, and plain old technology could be reapplied again and again. Ohhhh, we only buy US, to support our own industry ? Yep, bye bye to the leading position, the Boeing's long past history shows.

Nearly 30 years ago, I was leading a development group for medical equipment at a renown supplier of medical equipment, when the company message was brought to us: "We need to save on costs". "Ok, at what timescale ?". "Short-term !". "OK, then dissolve this whole development department (500 people or so), since our fruits will only become sold in 2-3 years from now". It all went silent and, etc.

I'm trying hard to figure how AA could place an order for a type/variant neither announced nor on the drawing board.

Yep, strange, though it happened, see:

I've posted this several times previously, but the story goes something like this:
Boeing was working hard on an all new 737 replacement aircraft - with a planned introduction around 2020 (I knew people working on it). Then Airbus launched the A320 NEO and started collecting huge numbers of orders. This caught Boeing completely by surprise - had Boeing stayed the course, with the NEO entering service around 2015, it would have meant conceding nearly the entire narrow body market to Airbus for ~5 years. With the resources necessary to support the 787 and 747-8 introductions (remember, both the 787-8 and 747-8 were certified and entered service in late 2011), there simply were not the resources to bring the timeline for a new narrowbody forward. Worse, even after the new Boeing narrow body entered service, it would take several years to increase the production rate up to the ~50/month that the A320 and 737 were being produced. In short, no matter how good the new Boeing narrow body might be, it would mean conceding a roughly 5,000 unit advantage to the A320 NEO.
That was simply too bitter a pill for Boeing to swallow - they scrambled to find something they could get to market (relatively) quickly and minimize the damage from the NEO - and came up with the MAX.
Now, with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, staying the course with an all new aircraft may well have been a far superior solution, that was far from obvious 11 years ago.

Concerning Airbus Boeings move did not work it seems. Airbus owns the A321neo market now and for years with production running at record rates. Concerning Boeing they have nothing new in the pipeline and the MAX family is still not complete and not the cash cow it used to be. And the Triple Seven, the other traditional cash cow, looks like sharing this fate.
I miss a commitment by Boeing to launch a new family and some commercial airplanes roadmap. Boeing has income from the defence business. How about investing a bit in future commercial airplanes instead of this half hearted milking of legacy programs full of costly errors?

Good luck with that. Boeing's overarching problem is that it has got into the hands of Wall Street, who can only see share value and returns to the end of their spreadsheet short term. In two years time most hope to have moved on to a different employer, so it's only what happens short term which they can take credit for that matters. It's a real business problem for high-investment long term businesses, like pharmaceutical research - or aircraft manufacture. Notably throughout the Max grounding Boeing's top execs still could be seen to be principally bowing down to Wall Street analysts.

How much?

Losses on the KC-46 program are currently running at $5.4B and Boeing is writing off loses of $1.5B on the two new presidential VC-25Bs. Meanwhile the new T-7A has now attracted its first $367 million write-off charge, the DoD is planning to halve its F-15EX buy and the F-18 order book is reaching the end of the line.

CH-47 and AH-64 might be selling well, but they're not cash cows., nor is the V-22 and heavy investment is needed on FVL.

Bottom line, the civil side can't depend on the military to keep it afloat.

How on earth can two 747s incur a loss of USD 1.5bn ? That's surely more than they were sold for.

The bigger surprise is that Boeing accepted some fixed price contract.

These aircraft are stuffed with electronics and everything is custom made, but still has to be tested and qualified. Integrating the electronics is a software intensive task.
So the price of the hulls and engines are almost irrelevant, except that the engines are also modified to allow longer refueled flights.
Agree entirely that signing up to do this on a fixed price basis was foolish, but iirc, they were really determined to keep Boeing as the builder of Air Force 1.

Do they finally install AA-refueling in the new ones?

Yep, high-end one-offs are extremely expensive, especially, when the whole needs to be certified. 100 Years ago, one did buy a Rolls-Royce based on that one-off concept, fortunately no certifications in those days :ok:

Wasn't the one (ehhh, the president) pushing for this "low price", the president who wanted to make America great again ? Bad start, ruined the US and, he even might end up (for other reasons) in (deserved) prison .......

Yep, that was the "insider" story. You see, people carefully read (and remember) your contributions.

My general comment is, this whole derailed earlier. When you sell airplanes (or cars, or whatever), you know, the stuff you sell, does have a life-cycle. And a proper company (should) anticipate on these life-cycles and be ready to initiate a new design very early on. 45+ Years ago, I was working at a large copier firm and, they did their marketing for future generation machine-concepts with a time horizon of 5-10 years (The real marketing, not the "promotion side", but think/anticipate what the future will bring, etc).

Yep, I really think, there is a significant chance, the Boeing commercial side will be just siphoned off on sales of the current models (maybe a 777Z) and "that's it for new airplane models". And by the time, that becomes clear, the whole is sold off to an investment company, who may try to resurrect the mess.

Boeing lost a boatload of money on the current AF1 aircraft - fixed price contract for less than $400 million (two aircraft), actual costs over a $Billion (in 1980's money).
Before I retired, I started getting phone calls asking me questions regarding the new AF1 747s - questions I couldn't answer because I didn't know what was going into the new aircraft. So a requested and received a confidential briefing on the new aircraft so I could accurately respond to the incoming queries.
The amount of gold plating going into those two aircraft was stunning - far above what went into the current AF1. I obviously can't go into details, but I honestly wondered if the USAF had a plan for a militarized 747 and was using the AF1 program to finance the development costs.
The militarized 747-8 obviously didn't happen, but I don't know if that's because my theory was wrong, or if it just didn't work out as planned...

OK, so unannounced notwithstanding being trailed in that Boeing press release, and not-yet-designed despite the reference to "pending final configuration".

Leaving aside such tricky concepts, what would be the effect of cancelling the Max 10 on its synthetic AoA that the regulators have accepted as an certifiable retrofit solution to the existing Max variants' deficiencies?

I wonder if #45 had anything to do with that…

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.