[HN Gopher] Emirates' Tim Clark says Boeing 'not getting it' on ...
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Emirates' Tim Clark says Boeing 'not getting it' on 737 Max, 787
Author : firebaze
Score : 67 points
Date : 2021-03-10 21:07 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theaircurrent.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theaircurrent.com)
| jdmg94 wrote:
| I had to fly to get some official paperwork done, they tried to
| put me on a 737Max, fortunately they changed my flight at no cost
| afturkrull wrote:
| "The wake up call of the Max was something that told them that
| all was not right."
|
| What exactly was the nature of this ""The wake up call"?
| paulsutter wrote:
| Fortunately there is tremendous innovation in aerospace, just
| outside of Boeing
|
| Starship will be better for international flights (30 minutes to
| anywhere), and Boom Supersonic for shorter flights
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0
|
| EDIT: Willing to make a bet with naysayers, email in profile
| (just fixed it, thanks)
| porb121 wrote:
| i would take literally unlimited action on the other side of
| that bet
| [deleted]
| Someone1234 wrote:
| This issue isn't about lack of innovation, if anything the
| inverse: Lack of safety during innovation.
| hinkley wrote:
| I had a thought the other day that if Musk got in a time
| machine with a pile of money, how far back in time could he
| go and still build SpaceX?
|
| SpaceX can only do what they do because there is no human
| pilot on those test flights. I know that the Navy pilots
| argued and argued that you need a human on board but is that
| really true, or did that end up destroying the space program
| by making the cost of failure so impossibly high?
| di4na wrote:
| They had no pilot on board for most of the equivalent.
| Ariane had no pilot on board either for the whole program.
|
| So no. That is not the reason. Try again.
| kube-system wrote:
| The space race of the 60s had plenty of unmanned tests
| before they started manning them. Humans were not the first
| Earth creatures in space. If Musk wanted to go back further
| than maybe the 70s or 80s, his issues would have been:
|
| 1. the science hadn't been fully developed ahead of time
|
| 2. he would have had a harder time getting other people on
| board with his idea -- he would have been labelled a
| complete crackpot
|
| 3. governments may have not have been so willing to allow
| him to do it
| ipnon wrote:
| I already have anxiety when my airliner takes off. I think if I
| started hearing "T minus 10, 9 ..." every time I traveled
| internationally I would need to have a pacemaker installed.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Would the starship do the belly flop maneuver for passenger
| flights? That part would scare me the most.. playing chicken
| with the ground and hoping the engines fire up well and you
| don't just pancake and explode.
| Cerium wrote:
| I don't think the design has any other choice. I have heard
| that since it is large and it is a 90 degree turn it could
| be worked out so you go from falling back first to sitting
| upon landing. I think that an escape system would be fitted
| to the passenger capsule as in Falcon 9 [1]
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhrkdHshb3E
| gspr wrote:
| Lol. Let's not bring Musk's fantasies into this! The Starship
| as a competitor to long haul flights is about as ludicrous as
| the Hyperloop as a competitor to short haul flights. It's all
| Musk bullshitting.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| For some people, time is worth a _lot_ of money, even enough
| money to make a trip across space worthwile. Not to mention
| selling the "experience" of no/low gravity, or the
| opportunity for extremely time critical transports (organs,
| spare parts for factories).
| lm28469 wrote:
| At some point humanity will have to come to the conclusion
| that "money" and "experiences" are worth nothing if the
| planet is destroyed. I don't give a damn if Bezos wants to
| save 3 hours of his life or if some random dude has a hard
| on for Musk
| topkeks wrote:
| Ok boomer, how much did you lose on your Tesla shorts?
| orwin wrote:
| Tangent, but i just had this discussion. The hyperloop,
| despite all the flaws, is overall a good idea. And unlike
| fusion and supraconductivity at 250+K, the flaws are actually
| solvables! I thought i couldn't be done before 2070 or
| something, but someone just recently showed me the flwas
| left, the tech we have at teh moment, and he convinced me
| that a commercial Hyperloop could be available on SOME short
| haul flight before 2040.
|
| -
| twostorytower wrote:
| Even if the risk of death is 1/1000 it wouldn't be worth it to
| save 12-20 hours.
| [deleted]
| iruoy wrote:
| That's way too high of a risk for anything commercial.
| starpilot wrote:
| Your email is not in your profile. I will bet.
| some0x80070005 wrote:
| I can't tell if this is satirical, but rockets have not proven
| their reliability much better than 94% for an unmanned rocket
| and 99% for manned. Airplanes have reliabilities on a per
| journey basis around 99.9999%. Even if SpaceX is full of 10x
| engineers who can produce rockets 10x safer than before, that
| gets them to 99.9% reliability.
|
| The airline industry, for all of its faults, is multiple orders
| of magnitude safer than rockets. Perhaps rocket based vehicles
| are the future, but rocket failures must first become
| drastically more rare or at least less prone to everyone dying
| onboard in the case of a failure to be used in lieu of
| traditional airplanes.
|
| Rockets - https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/8566/what-
| is-the-s...
|
| 2020 Airline safety - https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-
| airlines-safety/aviation-...
| paulsutter wrote:
| SpaceX scheduled to make a new Starship every 2.5 days by
| 2025
|
| You might want to look at the early days of airplane safety,
| not the 2020 numbers. Look up reliablity learning curve,
| safety comes from doing a huge volume of flights. All
| existing rockets have a small number of flights.
| chrononaut wrote:
| As an aside, I do get amused when Person A makes an
| argument that may not have explicit references, Person B
| rebuttals with explicit references, and Person A responds
| by instructing Person B to go look up their own references
| for Person A's own argument.
|
| Reminds me of the "All Birds are Cats" sketch by Clarke and
| Dave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIl1VuGTk3g (Relevant
| bit starts at 51s)
| [deleted]
| staticman2 wrote:
| Whenever something related to Elon Musk comes up it becomes
| hard to sort out what is a reasonable claim versus an
| unreasonable one fueled by a parasocial relationship with
| Elon Musk.
| dralley wrote:
| For as much environmental good as Tesla has done with pushing
| forwards electric cars, moronic schemes like this would totally
| wipe away the gains in 6 months.
|
| The tiny amount of work being accomplished for the ludicrous
| amount of fuel being used is just silly.
| kube-system wrote:
| Depends on your definition of "better", if you mean quicker,
| then sure. The Concorde was also quicker, but it was
| nonetheless not successful. People typically make decisions on
| a cost/benefit basis whenever they can, and the cost of going
| fast is very high ... both monetarily and otherwise.
| bolangi wrote:
| Here are gruesome, firsthand details about production and
| management problems with the 737NG in a documentary from Al
| Jazeera.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaWdEtANi-0
|
| The following summary is my own:
|
| The whole story is shown in the first seconds: three aircraft
| encountering more force than a usual landing (such as a runway
| overrun). All three fuselages breaking into three parts in
| exactly the same two places! All three aircraft exactly eight
| years old.
|
| Aluminum members called chords run the length of the fuselage and
| around the circumference to make up the fuselage structure. The
| chords are joined to each other and to reinforcing surrounds for
| large openings like doors.
|
| Poorly fitting chords and bear plates around openings were
| redrilled when mounting holes were misplaced, reshaped and
| pounded with hammers in order to mate them. This weakened of the
| structure to below design margins. In addition excessive metal
| fatigue due to hand processing led to accelerated corrosion,
| likely causing structural failure in three eight-year-old NG
| aircraft that broke up on landing. The aircraft were engineered
| to survive an emergency landing intact and were designed for
| 30-year airframe life.
|
| More to the story as the government colluded with Boeing to cover
| these deficiencies and frustrate the actions (eventually
| lawsuits) by a team of whistleblowers.
|
| Basically, the subcontractor agreed to use computer controlled
| manufacturing processes, then did 90% of the work by hand. The
| resulting substandard parts were beaten into shape on Boeing's
| production line.
|
| Watching this, I can better understand a recent story on local TV
| about developments in the US airline industry. They forecast that
| many companies will using the the opportunity of the pandemic to
| retire older aircraft.
| mohaine wrote:
| Small Nit. Airplane expected life is normally rated in
| pressurization cycles, not years. It is how many times it takes
| off to normal flight and lands that really matter most for
| airframe lifetime so if the plane was flown more cycles than
| average, an 8 year life could be easily be the expected max.
| bolangi wrote:
| The source in this video, a former FAA inspector, gave
| figures in years rather than pressurization cycles.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| What is the maximum number of cycles, then?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The bit about retiring older aircraft is not really due to
| safety.
|
| It is because each generation of aircraft keeps getting vastly
| more fuel efficient, and fuel makes up most of the cost of
| flying.
| coredog64 wrote:
| 737NG is not MAX. 737NG was launched in '97. This was before
| the MD merger was completed.
| bolangi wrote:
| The internal problems may be shared. Also the whistleblower
| efforts to get problems recognized continued for a decade.
| [deleted]
| hinkley wrote:
| I keep wondering how much longer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is
| gonna keep making airplane parts for other people before they
| decide to stop going white label on anything bigger than a
| regional jet.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| Boeing has "culture" problems like a mangy stray dog has a flea
| problem. The dog and Boeing also have in common that both are
| blissfully unaware of their problems. However unlike Boeing, the
| dog does not blame imaginary ghosts of the past for its fleas.
|
| There is a notion that Boeing is/was a company with an insanely
| great engineering culture and their engineers lived in an idyllic
| culture of building great and safe products. This great culture
| was all lost as a result of the merger with McDonnell Douglas
| [1], [2], [3]. This argument is frequently put forth by ex-Boeing
| engineers. This is an apologia for Boeing's behavior which killed
| 346 people and endangered the lives of 1000s more and destroyed
| jobs/wealth around the world.
|
| So strong is the apologists conviction in the purity of Boeing's
| engineering culture that they ignore the fact that thousands of
| engineers worked on the 737 Max. Not a single engineer raised
| issues with the engineering of the aircraft. Not a single
| engineer wrote a blistering memo calling out its failing or quit
| in protest. They were all held in thrall, paralyzed and forced to
| go against their ethics, professionalism, decency by the power of
| this unholy culture forced upon them by McDonnell Douglas!
|
| Eventually, all stellar organizations, public or private, become
| complacent (e.g. Israeli Intelligence Failure, 1973). Boeing made
| an unstable plane with a dangerous MCAS to get it to market fast.
| They then topped it off by making it rely on a single sensor.
| They then made the dual-sensor an upgrade. An undergraduate
| engineering student with a basic course on probability can see
| that this is tailor-made for disaster. Boeing made an essential
| safety feature an upgrade!! But wait there is more. They then
| proceeded to hide this monstrosity from every regulator and
| airline on the planet and insisted that the plane was no
| different in every aspect of its flight behavior than its
| predecessor which was over 30 years old and did not require
| additional safety training.
|
| Boeing had become so criminally blatant that the head of airline
| training at Lion Air inquired about extra training for the 737
| Max and Boeing's test engineers rebuffed him. After the Lion Air
| crash, Boeing proceeded to cast aspersion on the safety practices
| of Lion Air. Lion Air had a spotty safety record in the past. In
| this case it was Boeing that rebuffed their requests for
| additional training because it would set a precedent for other
| airlines in SE Asia. When that lack of training became a factor
| in the crash during the investigation, Boeing proceeded to blame
| Lion Air. Chutzpah!
|
| Transcripts of messages released during the investigation show
| how Boeing employees worked in unison to ensure no extra
| simulator training was required. Folks, this is not a great
| engineering culture obsessed with safety but rather an
| organization trying to get away with as much as it can and then
| indulging in a coverup.
|
| We need to start accepting that whatever stellar engineering
| culture existed at Boeing is dead. We as a society need to stop
| scapegoating imaginary forces in the past and giving Boeing
| engineers a pass.
|
| Strong regulation is necessary to ensure the safety of Boeing
| Products.
|
| [1] https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-
| merg...
|
| [2] https://fortune.com/longform/boeing-737-max-crisis-
| sharehold...
|
| [3] https://www.perell.com/blog/boeing-737-max
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| They did not hide it from the FAA
| medium_burrito wrote:
| Just wait until the 787 "issues" with the composite fuselages
| start happening en masse.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| This is a natural consequence of too-big-to-fail. Boeing needs to
| be broken up.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This is a natural consequence of too-big-to-fail. Boeing
| needs to be broken up.
|
| Isn't Boeing the result of having many "small enough to fail"
| aerospace companies _actually fail_?
| dageshi wrote:
| Genuine question, would anyone want to buy planes like this
| from a company that's small enough to fail?
|
| I'm guessing not.
| ivanstojic wrote:
| I think the reverse of the question is also important: why
| would anyone want to fly on a plane made by such a colossal
| company that any blame for flaws (design/technical or
| decision process) is diluted to the point that hundreds of
| deaths result in no measurable punishment?
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| You generally don't have a choice - true you can see the
| type of plane when you book, but airlines swap them out all
| the time.
| bdamm wrote:
| Besides, it's the regulatory environment and the
| reputation of the airline that provides most of the
| actual safety. Aircraft failures are in fact very rare.
| Even the 737 MAX is a profoundly safe aircraft compared
| to almost any car brand in terms of passenger miles, and
| usually by passenger minutes too.
| dageshi wrote:
| I don't disagree. My point I guess is, if you're buying a
| plane that will potentially be in service for many decades
| you need some kind of reassurance the manufacturer will
| still be around to support it?
| carlmr wrote:
| Make a law that all designs of failed airline companies
| are open-sourced to their competitors, so that parts can
| still be produced.
| ColFrancis wrote:
| The idea is that if it's small enough to fail, then the
| incentives are much stronger to avoid failure. If it's too
| big to fail, why would they put effort into avoiding failure?
| So yes, buying from a small enough to fail company could be
| seen as safer.
|
| Note that too big to fail, and small enough to fail has less
| to do with the size of the company and more to do with market
| position and government perception.
| break_the_bank wrote:
| Playing devils advocate. I'm guessing long term maintenance
| would be a concern when ones buying something as expensive
| as a plane. How do you trust a new small company with this?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bdamm wrote:
| There are dozens of small airplane manufacturers. Cessna
| nearly failed in the '90s, but they're doing fine today.
| They're still small enough to fail. Also there are bizjet
| manufacturers that could fail. Aircraft producers usually
| sell the right to own parts and service at a discount through
| chapter 11 work, so it's not like the parts and service
| aircraft need to keep flying vanish if the parent company
| fails. Usually.
|
| Companies like Pipistrel that are producing innovative
| aircraft are usually small enough to fail.
| dageshi wrote:
| Yeah I guess I wasn't really sure that would work with
| commercial airliners, given their probable
| lifespan/complexity. If the manufacturer goes out of
| business, who has the expertise to maintain the planes for
| the rest of their working life?
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| -needs to be broken up
|
| not the best choice of wording. i'm sorry, that's all i can
| see.
| musha68k wrote:
| I'm not sure what you are implying with "too-big-to-fail"
| specifically? What if, even at a smaller size they manage to
| "distribute" responsibility enough so there is no one with
| actual "skin in the game" yet again?
|
| Just thinking about that, maybe it's both? A combination of
| little "skin in the game" and short sighted incentives ("budget
| efficiencies") that lead to a "lack of imagination"?
|
| How did NASA solve this problem after Columbia?
| nix0n wrote:
| As the last manufacturer of large passenger airplanes in the
| USA, Boeing's role in the US psyche and US economy is too big
| for the US government to let it fail.
|
| NASA, despite being part of the US government, faced a much
| larger risk of being shut down after Columbia (more so than
| Challenger, since the Cold War was over).
| the-dude wrote:
| https://archive.is/0HiYw
| dundarious wrote:
| If the intent was to circumvent the paywall at "Continue
| reading" (which is fair enough for The Air Current to do) then
| this archive.is link does not do that.
| bongoman37 wrote:
| 737 Max fiasco was the first thing that actually made me look at
| which plane I might be flying on when booking tickets outside of
| the flights on the Airbus A380.
| jMyles wrote:
| > outside of the flights on the Airbus A380
|
| What do you mean by this part?
| jmercouris wrote:
| The A380 has not had a single incident.
| gspr wrote:
| I'd say I'm in general biased in favor of Airbus, but what
| you say just isn't true.
| jhayward wrote:
| Oh, it's had incidents. Just not any fatal ones.
|
| The early Quantas Flight 32 engine failure [1] was quite
| severe and the plane was lucky to continue to fly, for
| instance.
|
| " _a turbine disc in the aircraft 's number-two engine (on
| the port side nearest the fuselage) was found to have
| disintegrated, causing extensive damage to the nacelle,
| wing, fuel system, landing gear, flight controls, and
| engine controls, and a fire in a fuel tank _"
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_32
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > the plane was lucky to continue to fly, for instance.
|
| It seems that the better a plane is designed, the
| "luckier" it gets! Strange how that works.
| bdamm wrote:
| IIRC they were unable to shut down the outboard engine
| after landing, and had to get the fire department to
| shoot water into the engine. They did not have control
| over the engine the entire flight, nor did they have full
| control over the ailerons. Few people can really
| appreciate how hard it is to land an airplane with
| partial controls.
| jhayward wrote:
| Yes, it could have gone bad very rapidly. It helps that
| they had a 35-year captain in command, and 5 pilots in
| the cockpit - including 2 check pilots. All accounts are
| that the decision making of the crew was top-notch.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| And their instruments were telling them the truth.
|
| Nobody had "omitted" documenting flight-altering
| automation in the training required to dodge
| certification requirements...
| loktarogar wrote:
| I always finding myself adding in a U in Qantas, but it's
| an acroynm: "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial
| Services"
| mshook wrote:
| He probably wanted to fly on that aircraft so he specifically
| looked for a flight with that plane?
| [deleted]
| gspr wrote:
| Guessing: he wanted to fly on the A380, because it's an
| awesome experience if you're above average interested in
| planes. Opposite sign of the attention given to the 737max,
| in other words.
| addicted wrote:
| I would imagine so as well.
|
| I'm in the same position. Before the 737 Max fiasco, the
| only plane I would really look out for, and woudl change
| tickets for, was the A380. For long distance flights it's
| way more comfortable especially in economy. The seats tend
| to be more comfortable, and it's significantly quieter,
| than competing planes on long distance routes.
| gspr wrote:
| Ditto. That, and the A350. It doesn't look as spectacular
| as the A380, but it definitely is the most comfortable
| cattle class plane experience I've ever had (next to the
| A380).
| dageshi wrote:
| When I fly I usually fly with emirates so I'm quite often
| on the A380, they really are wonderful planes.
| dageshi wrote:
| I'm guessing he means he'd prefer to fly on the A380.
| koyote wrote:
| As a casual plane nerd I always checked which plane type I am
| on and have even made ticket decisions based on it (and have
| been disappointed when the airline changes the plane type last-
| minute!).
|
| That being said, in my experience, airlines very rarely
| advertise which 'sub-type' of narrow-body you'll be flying on
| (at least until you've bought the ticket). Finding a flight
| which is definitely on an A320-neo (as opposed to ceo) for
| example is very difficult. I would assume that especially now
| airlines will do their best to hide the fact that they are
| flying a 737 Max.
| jefftk wrote:
| On the other hand, if this is important to you, it is
| generally quite practical to choose airlines that do not fly
| 737s. For example, JetBlue and not SouthWest.
| misterbwong wrote:
| A380 is a great plane, very fun to fly on. Too bad they're
| being grounded on most airlines for the foreseeable future due
| to their economics.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Crossed the Pacific on 777, 747, and A380. A380 is the only
| one that wound up dumping grey water from the upper deck on
| our seats for the entire flight and forcing my wife to stand
| in the aisle for the entire flight.
| sjwright wrote:
| There are always some number of reserved seats on a large,
| long haul flight. If your wife wasn't found an alternative
| seat, that's on the airline or it's staff.
|
| Also it's unlikely to have been upper deck gray water. More
| likely it was condensate.
| ipnon wrote:
| So much quieter than the comparable Boeing aircraft. Flying
| trans-Pacific on the 757 is like mowing the lawn for a day
| and a half.
| nickff wrote:
| You're comparing a 1982 narrow-body to a 2006 super wide-
| body aircraft; a better comparison would be between the
| A380 and 747-8i (which are both supposed to be very
| comfortable).
| giantrobot wrote:
| It sounds like they're comparing planes they've actually
| flown on. I've never flown on a 747, so if I fly on a 787
| I'm not going to make comments about how much better the
| 787 is than the 747.
| nickff wrote:
| I think you're right that they're comparing planes
| they've flown on, but they're trying to compare very
| different designs from very different eras.
| jhayward wrote:
| Why would you say the comparable aircraft is a 757, and not
| the 777 or 787? The 757 is a 40-year-old narrowbody design,
| not a modern widebody.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| I seriously enjoyed flying on the Boeing 787 myself (two
| roundtrips to Japan, one round trip to Germany). So much
| quieter compared to the 777s and 737s I'm used to flying on.
| Never been on an A380.
| [deleted]
| misterbwong wrote:
| 787's are super cool. I happened to fly back from Japan on
| one before their (first?) grounding and it was quite
| enjoyable. The additional cabin pressure for a "lower
| altitude feeling" and lower noise do really help reduce
| fatigue.
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