Who told you that? You don't know that.
Posted on 05/03/2019 8:50:09 AM PDT by billorites
Boeing limited the role of its own pilots in the final stages of developing the 737 MAX flight-control system implicated in two fatal crashes, departing from a longstanding practice of seeking their detailed input, people familiar with the matter said.
As a result, Boeing test pilots and senior pilots involved in the MAX’s development didn’t receive detailed briefings about how fast or steeply the automated system known as MCAS could push down a plane’s nose, these people said. Nor were they informed that the system relied on a single sensor—rather than two—to verify the accuracy of incoming data about the angle of a plane’s nose, they added.
Investigators have linked faulty sensor data to the flight-control system’s misfire, which led to crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that took 346 lives. Share Your Thoughts
How involved should pilots be in airplane-engineering decisions? Join the conversation below.
The extent of pilots’ lack of involvement hasn’t been previously reported and could bring fresh scrutiny from investigators and regulators already looking into Boeing’s design and engineering practices. It isn’t clear whether greater pilot participation would have altered the ultimate design of the flight-control system. But the scaling back of pilots’ involvement and their lack of detailed knowledge about the plane’s system add to the list of questions about engineering and design practices facing the Chicago-based aerospace giant.
A Boeing spokesman said test pilots and senior pilots didn’t have less of a role in the design, briefing and testing of the final version of MCAS when compared with counterparts who worked on previous models featuring important new systems.
“Listening to pilots is an important aspect of our work,” the spokesman said. “Their experienced input is front and center in our mind when we develop airplanes. We share a common priority—safety—and we listen to them carefully.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
what do you think? Is Boeing going to be sued into oblivion?
Boeing is currently saying that their design is sound as they try to ram a SW only fix to the problem. Boeing has not been honest in this. The second crash is criminal. The first crash demonstrates a breakdown of Their technical cultural. I hope that the max does not fly until Boeing comes clean.
or so it appeared.
They clearly did not take the time to understand what happened in the first crash as they pushed a half Assad set of instructions to prevent this from happening again. I do not think they should get to push another rushed solution until the crash report is done....yeah they screwed the pooch that bad.
That's what bothers me. That they were less than forthcoming internally is particularly egregious.
The authors botched that. My understanding (which could be faulty) is that only one AoA sensor provided input to MCAS. They did not use two or three combined with "auction" control logic to determine which instrument data was valid. So, with only one sensor input, there is no way to "verify accuracy" of incoming data. The only data you get are from the one sensor. That sensor on the Ethiopian airliner jumped to a 75 degree AoA within one second. That suggests a bird strike. With the control system being told the plane was at such an out-of-envelope AoA, it commanded nose down, all the way to the ground.
I'm surprised the control logic doesn't take account of the myriad other data such as increasing air speed, engine thrust, decreasing altitude, ground proximity, etc to determine pitch-down is not a good flight strategy.
They are trying to manage this as if paying out a couple hundred million in lawsuits and a quick SW update will make all this go away. They broke faith with the FAA and with the flying public. This was not an unpredictable random thing this was ....pick your word...criminal...
https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer
I am just a long time pilot of hang gliders, ultralight aircraft and general aviation airplanes and have lived on an airport for the last 25 years. I live between two FAA guys and the whole family three doors down are airline pilots both retired and active, along with many others here. Also my brother has been a captain for Southwest for the last 20 years or so.
When this 2nd accident happened all of the people I know who are more qualified than me to make informed judgments on this jumped all over the two third world pilots and blamed them completely. Now they are starting to realize that there have been some screw ups by Boeing that are probably going to cost them. I don’t know that the way that you are characterizing the situation is completely accurate. But the plot has been thickening, that is for sure.
“The redesign of the 737-800 Max resulted in an aircraft that was unstable in pitch around the lateral axis when flown at high angles of attack and under conditions of high thrust. Rather than address the underlying aeronautical design flaws, and risk certification as a 737 variant, a decision was made to fix the problem with a “software kludge” the MCAS system.”
I told you so.
I’m surprised the control logic doesn’t take account of the myriad other data such as increasing air speed, engine thrust, decreasing altitude, ground proximity, etc to determine pitch-down is not a good flight strategy.
...
That’s the job of the pilots.
Details like this end to make my eyebrow rise . If I were a whole lot more cynical I might think that the Boeing execs wanted to try an experiment to see if the company could survive a series of designed in crashes. You don’t tell your test pilots about a crucial characteristic? You omit redundancy? Is somebody at Boeing making big money on a bet how soon one would crash? Some kind of insurance scam? It keeps getting crazier over there.
Will Boeing still exist after the lawsuits? The failures are pretty flagrant.
I am stunned the CEO is still the face of Boeing. He should have been pushed out when the second crash showed the MCAS had pointed the plane straight down.
And to think that Airbus gets government help.
“I told you so.”
If true then the Max won’t fly for years or maybe never.
We will see shortly. If the Max gets back into the air with just a software fix you all be eating crow for a long time.
Dirk, I’ve always wanted to visit your cars and the cast-iron bathtub with an outboard motor affixed to one end.
Boeing effed up hard.
Dr John Demming had QC right.
Want to know more?
Geez it’s like watching Starship Troopers without the boobs!
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