Posted on 01/31/2024 8:22:01 PM PST by SeekAndFind
You cannot compare the two, it’s apples and oranges.
The problems are with fabrication QC at Spirit and Boeing and particularly with the hand off of the assemblies.
Spirit is a Boeing production facility that was spun off and now has become a sub contractor to Boeing. They have been building Boeing aircraft there since WWII and have been part of 737 manufacturing for a very long time.
Many of these current problems stem from the system stress of the Covid scamdemic.
Supply chain dislocations and industry wide QC issuses have really disrupted production systems and impeded orderly production process flow while also creating a lot of employee turnover, especially of older, highly skilled fabricators.
Add in woke hiring and management practices and you add a whole new set of problems into the mix.
When you do this in aircraft production, problems arise
I do not want to ride in a Boeing 737 MAX
Nor on anything bearing the logo of United Airlines
(The 737 Max series suffers from ill-chosen money-saving compromises in its design.)
🔝🔝
Any MAX
Double check before boarding!!!!
A/c substitutions take place all the time!!!!!
Every boss I've worked under wanted me to pick up the pace, too!
Am I going to have to summon Greta to scold you?
The very idea of using FACTS instead of FEAR astounds me!
This is true in every industry.
EVERY hospital has an Angel of Death nurse that has had more folks die on their shift than any other nurse in the hospital.
What product doesn't?
Boeing has generally been the more durable commercial aircraft - physically tough in contrast to AirBus.
But that physical strength has not been enough to make up for all the failures of management.
What I remember, is that Boeing was a bit surprised by how well AirBus advanced in computer control, in contrast to Boeing’s development(s).
Boeing management oversight - has been poor. I believe that is because there are too many people in the systems, who are not *aircraft people.*
Instead, of seeing the aircraft, they see:
- work
- the work week
- the start of the day
- the end of the day
- the politics of what to do instead of the focus that leads you toward what needs to be done
- the cleverness and ill will of labor organizers who are certainly not in The Line of Work: Aircraft, but are instead, apt to seek out reasons for expressing violence and asserting their, there-ness (ie shop steward types, whether or not there is a labor union)
Fewer people seem to be there, because they like to build aircraft.
And there are too many of those few, whom management fail to give an OK to, and lead.
A friend reported: Been there. Lived it. Tried to fix it. But management was in a daze, non-responsive, and noticeably distant from the men and women who we needed to do good work. There was a divide between the two workforces, that had not been crossed for years.
- - -
The better point is you are much more likely to survive a fender bender than a plane crash.
Without having seen it with my own eyes, I believe that is the underlying problem, in the same way the military has been degraded, since military service for a large number of people has become a "jobs program".
“These changes made new aircraft’s landing and take off and flight characteristics different from that of the 737.”
You say ‘different’, not ‘worse’. Is the plane, in the hands of a properly trained pilot, less safe than other airliners?
It wasn't longer struts that required the new flight control system, it was that the new engines and nacelles were moved forward because they couldn't fit under the wings. This shifted the center of lift in relation to the center of gravity to the point the aircraft was unstable without the computer. Civilian planes are not normally granted an Airworthiness Certificate if they fly on the back side of the power curve like the F-16 or the F-117.
It's similar to skateboarding "goofy footed" - pushing off with your foot on the back of the skateboard instead of planting your foot on the more stable front.
"In flight test, the 737 MAX variants are found to have flight characteristics that differ significantly from previous 737s. This is particularly true at a high angle of attack where body lift from the large engine nacelles mounted ahead of the wings creates a strong nose-up force. The center of lift shifts forward. The thrust from the low-mounted engines acting below the center of gravity also provides a nose-up force. This latter effect is especially pronounced at high power levels."
https://dennisholeman.com/the-boeing-737-max-a-case-study-of-systems-decisions-and-their-consequences/
Yes. Even outside of any emergency, the plane is unstable due to the positioning of the new bypass turbofan engines, which the plane was not designed for, far enough forward from the wings to clear the ground. Boeing installed a flight control system they called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) to compensate for the aircraft center of lift being too far outside the forward and aft center of gravity range at certain power settings and aircraft attitudes.
Specialized aircraft such as the F-16 and F-117 were knowingly designed to be unstable without the computer controlling the aircraft (in order to gain maneuverability, compensate for the stealth design in the F-117 case, and to allow for variances of center of gravity depending on what weapons were loaded on the rails in the case of the F-16), but civilian aircraft are normally required to be stable in all normal flight profiles. One example of such stability is where an Air Canada crew ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet in a Boeing 767 and still landed the plane on a runway. The plane was nicknamed 'The Gimli Glider' because the crew landed it at Gimli Air Force base.
https://simpleflying.com/gimli-glider/
One thing I would add is, like with all new systems, the operators have a learning curve regarding the differences in operations. Remember the Airbus crash in the Atlantic years ago was caused by bad piloting coupled with bad hardware/software interfacing.
It was pointed out with the MAX accident that higher quality of pilot training could likely have made those incidents survivable.
Yes. In a pinch, the 737-Max can be a tricky aircraft to fly due to nasty surprises in its flight control system. The two 737-Max crashes in Africa involved highly capable, well-regarded pilots who were not at fault.
The broad rule is that manufacturing companies do best when management is devoted to and knows the product, as when “car guys” run auto companies, “airplane guys,” run airplane makers, and so on. Things go wrong eventually when salesmen, accountants, lawyers, and MBA consultant types dominate management ranks.
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