Posted on 03/16/2019 11:59:19 AM PDT by Allen In Texas Hill Country
I don’t know, I didn’t read the account. I was commenting on two things: the excellent aspect of FR where I have encountered people who are experts on everything from the energy sector to sailing, and secondly, the concept that I have heard foreign-trained pilots have far less consistency in expertise and training...and it shows. I have heard it from both air traffic controllers and from pilots, so I think there is something to it.
"...the cutout switches operate the other way to all the other switches on the aircraft. Boeing switches are up for off, while the stab cutout switches are down for off. In all that confusion, with the stick shaker going of and the trim running away, who is to say that a low-hours pilot would not get confused....?"Is that true that the stab cutout switches on the pedestal really operate the opposite of all other switches on the aircraft?
I don’t fly the 737, I’m on the 777 so I can’t say for sure. The stab cutout switches on the 777 are guarded switches, you have to open the plastic guards covering the switches and push them down to cutout the power to the stabilizer.
Boeing switches on the overhead panel are forward for on and back (or up) for off, mostly dealing with the lights. Most other switches are push in/out types. Other than that I’m not aware of any convention for switches and I’ve been flying Boeings for years. This certainly sounds like trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, if a switch needs to be in the other position then I move it to the other position, I’m certainly not going to try and memorize which direction a switch moves for one that I’ve never moved during an actual flight in my life. They’re labeled so you can look down and see which way they move. The average pilot is never going to touch those switches during his entire career so expecting anyone to have memorized which direction they move is silly.
The 737 Max should have been given a separate type-rating from the 737.
That is the bottom line here.
Boeing installed the MCAS and other systems to convince the FAA that the Max could share the type rating with other 737s.
The first warning sign was when pilots were given a few hours of training on an iPad.
The second warning was when pilots discovered the MCAS system and the lack of documentation on it.
The third warning was the pilot reports of fighting the MCAS.
The final warning was the fact that there are no simulators for the 737 Max. Now, they are rushing to build them.
The 737 Max does not fly like a 737 when totally on manual. But the crew is trained on the 737, not on the Max and may not be ready for some of the differences....especially on climb out at low altitude.
Now you cite anecdotal evidence to cover for your broad bushing.
I am sure you did not like passengers who called you a bad pilot because you may have had a harder than normal landing....but you are doing the same thing.
The best approach is to pull out a shotgun and shoot the flight computer when it tries to kill you. But, they won't let the pilots carry shotguns.
Boeing designed a new aircraft that has stability issues due to placement of the engines (plane can accidentally go nose up and stall).
Rather than correcting the design, Boeing instead invents something called MCAS... sensors and a computer, which should correct the accidental nose-up situations caused by the badly balanced plane.
Being version 1 of the MCAS (software and sensors), it sometimes screws up and makes the plane go nose down and crash.
Boeing's response is: "Hey, RTFM. We told you it might go nuts and you can do this to shut it off...". But, if pilots turn off the MCAS, then they have no assistance to combat the problems MCAS was created to deal with. Right?
In a highly stressful, intense, noisy crisis, physically pulling hard on the column, I can see a pilot or FO not being able to look at the switch to verify which direction is off and having to rely on memory.
The company I worked at for over 20 years did a lot of “human factors” analysis of the control room at Three Mile Island after the accident there. Things that often appear unimportant prior to a crisis often are often found to be important in retrospect. In a nuclear power plants crisis situation, the operator is bombarded with many visual messages, gauges not showing consistent readings, noise from the plant and annunciators screaming at you, new alarms sounding, old alarms turning off. I imagine the cockpit of an aircraft that is suddenly and unexpectedly accelerating rapidly up and down is a very stressful situation not unlike the TMI control room. Asking operators to remember that one critical switch operates contrary to all the others seems silly to me (if it is true). It’s the little things like this that compound emergencies into full-blown crises.
I’m not a pilot and cannot speak as authoritatively as you to aircraft, but I’ve experienced control room crises (not at TMI).
I can say ENIAC and IBM 360, but I am not familiar with the term SOAP II. Apparently, it’s an IBM application called Simple Object Access Protocol
See my entry #8. There is no search reference on the internet as to SOAP being an assembler.
*******************************************
Boeing is finalizing its development of a previously-announced software update and pilot training revision
*************************************************
So, Boeing is “finalizing” a for its software (presumably because they found an issue in the code’s logic?), but have no idea - or are unwilling to say - what the cause of the deadly crashes are?
**********************************************
I assume nobody is reading this thread anymore but I thought I’d post this item. Looks like I might not be too far off. So the code written by somebody really may have contributed/caused to the failures.
Very interesting narration on the AOA sensor in a youtube video
Narrarator used some “adult language” in this production so viewer discretion is advised. That being said, I take issue with the fact that many commentators are quick to blame the manufacturer of the product rather than the OPERATOR. My thought process is this. If a pilot needs a blinking light on your dashboard to tell you that your plane is in a nose dive and your STAB TRIM is continuing to ADD nose down trim. Rather than try to figure out WHY isn’t it prudent to simply turn OFF the STAB trim and manually crank the wheel back to level flight or climb pitch?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.