Alaska Airlines flight forced to make an emergency landing (Part II)... 26

[Brian Malone]

Jack Welch of GE, (BsE, PhD, Chemical Eng.) has a checkered legacy for how he mixed business decisions with engineering goals. His portfolio simplification strategy was great for GE's bottom line but it left countless changes in the prestige and position of engineers at various divisions that were reorganized or sold off.

Sorry, putting Jack Welch in this thread is off-topic: Jack Welch made business decisions affecting engineers but I don't think he ever made financial decisions that affected safety when at odds to prescribed/recommended engineering practices.

 

[dik]

Yes, but do they have 20 years of engineering experience to go with them?

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[davidbeach]

Comment was made relative to the profound changes in culture at Boeing between when it was an engineering organization prior to MD and became something very different post MD.

When one this sentence into the German to translate wanted, would one the fact exploit, that the word order and the punctuation already with the German conventions agree.

-- Douglas Hofstadter, Jan 1982

 

[IRstuff]

Yes, but do they have 20 years of engineering experience to go with them?

That's moot; neither an engineering degree, nor experience, immunizes anyone from making bad, or self-serving decisions.

I've had, obviously anecdotal, experiences with engineering managers that were utterly sleazy; one engineering manager who became the general manager clearly had one objective in mind in all his decision making, "how do I keep my position or get promoted within six months?" since that was the longevity of GMs at our division at the time. That one cut all R&D projects and killed a bunch of steady income earners by forcing last-time buys. He got promoted almost exactly 6 months tenure into a much higher profile position. He was extremely engineering smart, but utterly ruthless.

Jack Welch made business decisions affecting engineers but I don't think he ever made financial decisions that affected safety when at odds to prescribed/recommended engineering practices.

Welch's legacy, nevertheless, is a company that's a shadow of its former engineering powerhouse.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[IRstuff]

Comment was made relative to the profound changes in culture at Boeing between when it was an engineering organization prior to MD and became something very different post MD.

But, there's an implication that MD was the cause of the Boeing's downfall; I would contend that Boeing was well on its way downhill when it decided to grow by acquisition, rather than by organic growth. Moreover, there's an implication that MD was not engineering oriented, but MD was much more of a defense company, and they had a crazy strong systems engineering organization and disciplines in St. Louis prior to their acquisition by Boeing.

Boeing's supposed engineering prowess in the late 90s and 00s was largely a sham; they won a bunch of contracts based on their supposed systems engineering expertise, but while they talked the talk, they really couldn't walk the walk, because systems engineering is more than just a process, it requires SMEs and know-how to do the requirements and architectures to meet the mission requirements. They crashed and burned on FCS because their systems engineers had little experience in ground tactical systems and so they did a poor job of flowing requirements from the ORD to the FCS system requirements. Even into CDR phase there would be major requirements changes, which caused further overruns. They would flow, for example, self-protection requirements down and then find out that implementation of such requirements would nullify the operational requirements.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[Oops409]

Having worked with both McDonald Douglas and Boeing in the 1990's, with their DoD folks, I will add this. In the 1990's, McDonald-Douglas was primarily a defense contractor and Boeing was an aircraft manufacture.

I was not impressed with either company compared to other major defense contractors I had worked with.

My time with MacDac was before the 1996/7 merger, and my time with Boeing was after the merger, when Boeing won the Lead System Integrator Contract for Ballistic Missile Defense.

Defense Contractors frequently under perform in cost, schedule and performance categories. Where as in the Elon Musk World, under performing is not an option.

After the merger, odds are a lot of the late 1990's defense folks at Boeing were just old MacDac employees or managers?

Writing an excellent proposal to win a government contract, frequently has a lot more to do with proposal writing skills, and not the ability to perform, after contract is awarded. Technical is only one small part of all the factors that goes into evaluation of proposals for defense systems, and then there is the Washington DC wildcard that can over ride whatever the proposal evaluation team determines.

Edit: Let me add my experience with MacDac in early to mid 1990's was solely based upon working with MacDac on one DoD system. Same goes for Boeing in late 1990's. The only difference is the MacDac system was small in the scheme of things, compared to the massive LSI Contract for Integration of Missile Defense Systems!

 

[JohnRBaker]

Since I collect a monthly pension from Boeing, despite never having worked for Boeing (worked for McDonnell Douglas from 1980 to 1991), I just hope that they've fully funded their pension program ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Oops409]

John, I also hope my pension keeps coming too, but in today's changing world, nothing is a sure thing anymore...........

 

[SWComposites]

But, there's an implication that MD was the cause of the Boeing's downfall; I would contend that Boeing was well on its way downhill when it decided to grow by acquisition At least for Boeing Commercial, this statement is COMPLETELY WRONG. I was at Boeing Commercial until 1999. The MD management tong basically destroyed the commercial aircraft engineering culture after the merger. Every program has been late and way over budget since then; and the quality culture issues are not coming to light.

The military side of both companies is a different matter, and both had issues, and they have only gotten much worse.

I just hope that they've fully funded their pension program LOL, there probably isn't a single large corporation in the US with a fully funded pension fund.

 

[IRstuff]

I just hope that they've fully funded their pension program

It's likely that the pension has already been raided and replaced with some sort of annuitized instrument; which, in some respects, is a good thing, since insurance companies are not in the business of losing money, and the fact that they don't have to account for inflation and pay for the longer longevity of current employees makes it that much easier.

The insurance companies are way better at understanding actuarial tables and playing with stock options than the typical company. When I look at the lump-sum equivalent of my pension as offered by my company, it's actually pretty tiny, since most of the growth needed to fund a long retirement is from the other recipients dropping dead along the way.

Only way to stick it to the "man" is to outlive the table predictions.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[IRstuff]

At least for Boeing Commercial, this statement is COMPLETELY WRONG.

Possibly you were lucky; note that even in the 80s and 90s, much of Boeing production was already outsourced to people like Northrop, thereby removing a large amount of oversight necessary for maintaining high quality production. Northrop at the time was already run by people chasing the bottom line.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[JohnRBaker]

Actually, my Boeing/MDC pension is being paid by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Now this was a traditional defined benefit pension which I was required to start drawing when I turned 65, which was in 2012.

And my HP/EDS pension is coming from Prudential. Now I know that this pension is a lifetime annuity purchased using funds from a cash account that had been established by EDS and into which they had been making contributions, and paying a monthly interest, while I was still employed by EDS, but only the interest after they sold our division to a consortium of venture capital companies in 2004. Since this was not a traditional defined benefit pension, and since it was still earning a minimum 5% annual interest, to maximize my eventual monthly payout, I could defer collecting the pension until whenever I wanted to start, which wasn't until I retired from Siemens in 2016.

Note that since I had worked long enough at both MDC and EDS, both of these pensions have a 100% survivors benefit, which if I predecease my wife, she'll continue to be paid the full amount until her death. And Siemens had no pension program for their American employees, rather they offered a 401k plan, to which they matched a certain portion of what was put into the account by the employee.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[SWComposites]

In the 80s and 90s all wing main box production was in house, as was all final assembly, including fuselage assembly into barrels and joined.

 

[Murph 9000]

Defense Contractors frequently under perform in cost, schedule and performance categories. Where as in the Elon Musk World, under performing is not an option.

The performance from SpaceX on the NASA's Artemis Missions suggests that he's not really doing better than Boeing, when it comes to aerospace contracts.

https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IG-22-003.pdf

shines light on both Boeing and SpaceX in their work for NASA's SLS & HLS contracts. In particular, Starship HLS is years behind schedule, and I believe significantly over-budget:

(Not all of the delay may be down to SpaceX.)

 

[3DDave]

Self-drive and the Boring Company have both been incredible failures as was the Hyperloop evacuated train. Now Neuralink is failing badly. The purchase of Twitter looks like it will endanger Tesla. Quite a string of success.

 

[hokie66]

Nothing to do with technical or safety issues, but my recent experiences with Boeing and Airbus rides has leaned in favor of Boeing each time. Same airline, but may be related to fitout choices by that airline for the two planes, in this case B787 and A350.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

787 is meant to be an extremely nice machine.

Its pressurized to a much lower altitude than other aircraft. And the air your breath is external air not taken from the bleeds from the engine.

Never been on one but the guys that fly them say its better that the A330 and 777.

The A350 is just a rehash of the A330 with 1980's airbus systems.

 

[Oops409]

The performance from SpaceX on the NASA's Artemis Missions suggests that he's not really doing better than Boeing, when it comes to aerospace contracts.

Schedule posted was dated Dec 2020, and there is no details on NASA milestones that are comparable to SpaceX milestones. That one snapshot of apples to oranges does not provide any information other than both have scheduled a launch in Q1 of FY2025, which would be a date that the government would have established for both systems.

Not that I agree with the quote, but it more than likely should be re-worded to say "not really doing any worse"........

Edit: Note that the chart is provided from NASA OIG or Office of Inspector General. There is also a note saying SpaceX schedule does not reflect impacts from bid protest, which shows some of the outside factors driving schedules. Further this indicates NASA/Boeing had been at work longer than Musk......

What is required is an over all schedule from the day NASA started till present, and same for when Musk came on board to present with comparable milestones.

 

[TugboatEng]

One thing that I have noticed is there is always a single engineer behind a strong company. See Charles Kettering at General Motors, Kelly Johnson at Lockheed, or John Browning at Winchester. These are special people that elevate these companies and they are not replaceable. Without them, the companies wallow until their next genius comes along.

 

[SWComposites]

787 is very nice to fly on, as is the A350.

Re: The A350 is just a rehash of the A330 with 1980's airbus systems. nope, the A350 is an all new design, with lots of CFRP primary structure. It is larger than the A330.