Boeing 737 Max8 Aircraft Crashes and Investigations [Part 3] 36

[Sparweb]

This is the continuation from:

thread815-445840
thread815-450258

This topic is broken into multiple threads due to the long length to be scrolled, and many images to load, creating long load times for some users and devices. If you are NEW to this discussion, please read the above threads prior to posting, to avoid rehashing old discussions.


Some key references:

Ethiopian CAA preliminary report

Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee preliminary report

The Boeing 737 Technical Site

No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
STF

 

[waross]

Interesting; From The Red Deer Advocate
"Transport Minister Marc Garneau recently said he’d like Canadian pilots to undergo flight simulator training related to the 737 Max software revision, a step beyond an FAA-appointed board’s proposal for computer-based training.
Air Canada says it is the only North American airline with Max simulators, which could lead to swifter resumption of Max service when the grounding ends."
Link

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[verymadmac]

It doesn't matter how they fiddle the numbers on the stats the max has got it's place in history on the same page as the comet.

That's overstating it really, Comet was a lack of engineering knowledge (plus a touch of company culture), the 737 is company culture issue & a touch of peter principle. One would expect it to be more like the DC10/MD11, the 737max's will make a very successful narrow body freighter.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Seems that convincing the pilots that its safe is the easy part.....

The cabin crew unions are not happy flying in it.... and technical arguments won't work with them. Hell we can't stop them putting coffee down the toilet or galley sinks and it turning to concrete so trying to get them to trust the aircraft now after two have crashed will be and extreme struggle.

"he 737max's will make a very successful narrow body freighter. "

I suspect that will be correct. But the market for them is incredibly small. I think there is under 100 737-800BCF on order after it was released in 2016.

Funny you should mention the MD11 quiet a few old timers say that the route cause of this issue was the merger of Boeing and MD back in 1997. Boeing was run and controlled by Engineers, MD wasn't. After the merger MD mangment style prevailed.

Boeing have only recently gone back to have an Engineer in charge Dennis Muilenburg from 10 years with James McNerney in charge. The last Engineer in charge was Philip M. Condit in 2003 but he was replaced by a MD person Harry Stonecipher.


I agree about the Comet, I have actually flown in a comet airframe..... Nimrod years of hard service without the huge windows.

 

[IRstuff]

"It doesn't matter how they fiddle the numbers on the stats the max has got it's place in history on the same page as the comet"

Not really, the entire 737 line has logged 239 million flights (MF) with 0.23 FCpMF, while the MAX is 0.65 MF with 3.08 FCpMF, which means that if it gets 10 MF without any further incidents, it will be in the same range as the entire model line. Conversely, the entire line had 55 total fatal crashes, so it's likewise a small percentage of the entire product's crash history, assuming it gets past this.

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

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[Alistair_Heaton]

It won't be judged on pure accident stats.

And to be honest now I can't see the rest of the world touching them apart from the US market.

Although the line did manage to survive the rudder hard over issue.

We shall see.

 

[itsmoked]

Nope Alistair. You need to re-think that.

Remember Airbus had a highly publicized slow motion plow into a forest terminating in a huge fireball caught on video. That was due to idiotic software and control decisions made by Airbus designers. There were none in service at the time so no huge vested interest by airlines. It went on to be the popular A320.

A320 Auger-in

There isn't a trace of doubt (for me) that this plane won't be flying everywhere in a year. There is too much history of the 737 line, too much money sitting on the ground in brand new aircraft, owned by too many different airlines, to all turn their financial backs on a perfectly good plane that had a single poorly thought out software issue. Would you turn your back on a billion dollars worth of hardware sitting on your books even if it cost you 20 million in simulator time? I can't see bean counters doing that.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

The airbus didn't kill any pax. And it was a one off.

We shall see what happens.

They are going to have to heavily discount them.

 

[3DDave]

Alistair,
How is this remotely true - the Airbus design philosophy has killed hundreds of people by isolating the pilots from what the controls are doing. Every suggestion for "fixing" MCAS would have been applicable to AF447. You can't tell me that a plane in a deep stall should automatically shut off the stall warning because the AoA is out of range for normal flight. That software killed the entire complement of people for no reason. Where was the FMECA on that? Where was the control input disagree warning for the pilots to tell that one was pushing forward and the other was yanking back? That seems like a very critical flight safety system that Airbus saved some money not including.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I must admit I am not impressed with the airbus flight logic either especially the push a button to get control logic.

Or for that matter the cm1 cm2 everyone is equal nonsense on the flight deck which the OEM procedures force on you.

As I have said previously I see this issue being mainly a regulator developed issue. They just haven't done their jobs properly. And its global not just the FAA.

Although the airbus does have 3 AoA vanes.

The regulator has given the OEM's enough rope to hang themselves with. And boeing was the first to slip off the plank.

 

[LionelHutz]

Any argument that the MAX series is finished has no merit whatsoever. The last numbers I saw had over 4500 MAX's still waiting delivery. I only know of the one cancellation for 49 planes from an Indonesia airline.

Airlines BADLY want more of this class of plane and there simply is no other readily available substitute. The only other realistic option for airlines would be to get in line behind the customers who are already waiting for Airbus to deliver the 5500+ NEO orders still pending delivery. Giving Airbus an optimistic delivery of 400 planes a year, they already have over 13 years of order backlog. Do you really think an airline that is scheduled to take delivery of their MAX planes in the next year or 2 will instead wait over 13 years for a NEO?

 

[VEBill]

"Airbus does have 3 AoA vanes."

Redundant sensors are arguably necessary, but are insufficient to avoid incidents. System and software design errors can still overcome redundant sensors.

E.g. Flight QF72 (2008), an Airbus A330-303 with three AoA sensors.

Wiki summary "...[two] sudden uncommanded pitch-down manoeuvres that severely injured many of the passengers and crew." The flight landed safely after the two upsets.

---

Big picture: The overall design and certification process clearly has holes in it, and I suspect that those sorts of gaps are inherent (endemic to humans).

If so, then totally new design concepts are required. But that'll take significant time. So, regrettably, this forum is going to be quite busy for the foreseeable future.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Here is the orders and delivers list.

Max

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_and_deliveries.

Neo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Airbus_A320neo_family_orders_and_deliveries

Most airliines pay 20% of the price upfront on order to get in the Q. And then there is a funny leasing system to dodge paying tax and the owners don't loose the aircraft capital if the airline goes bust.

I am niether a Boeing or airbus person. Its no skin off my nose which way things go.

Its 54 per month for single isle neo 's by this summer which is what the supply chain is set up for. So its 650 per year and they are increasing the size of the Mobile operation due to the likely trade war doubling the output to 120 a year for the american market.

The A220 is a substitute for the max 7 but its production rate is quite low.

In fact the thing thats going to limit both party's deliveries is getting thier hands on the leap engines. With one big player not delivering and most engines being power by the hour leased onto the airframe for the delivery it should be relatively easy for production rates to take advantage of this. I know some guys at Hawarden and the autoclave is never off and they are rolling in over time.



yep the A330 QF incident. One out of 3 ADIRU's went out and started putting out spikes. Seems the regulators haven't learned from that incident to enforce mission critical flight control software testing standards for anything that has direct input to the flight control surfaces without limits.

I must admit I am none to keen on the airbus philosophy, but mates say its not to bad once you get used to it. Just like most other pilots away from A and B I just want a well maintained aircraft that will do the job with a minimum amount of fuss and gotchas to bite you when your on your 4 the sector of the day of a 12 hour shift and its blowing max xwind for your runway and 20 gusting 50 knots.


It seems to me that the regulators are reactionary instead of grabbing the whole issue by the tail and enforcing proper design standards and testing.


They may even have regulations on the subject now.... but as most new models are based on grandfathered rights from aircraft designed in the 60's and put out in the early 70's we are all stuffed and have to live with the fact that people are going to have to die to find out what the faults are.

 

[VEBill]

"...enforcing proper design standards and testing."

Of course, that approach can help and is therefore essential. Not to mention legally required. So there's no argument against it.

But after several decades of these sorts of incidents (incident category: automation being unhelpful), I suspect that the usual approach (even 'turned up to 11') isn't going to be sufficient.

New concepts will be required. It's going to take twenty+ years.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

It wouldn't take 20 plus years if they said no more grandfather rights from tomorrow. And you are allowed 2 stretches, so 3 variations on a type.

 

[IRstuff]

It's a hard road for the regulatory agencies to go for that, the FAA, e.g., has a dual mission to regulate AND promote US aviation industries. Likewise for most countries' equivalent aviation agencies.

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

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[Alistair_Heaton]

BTW I am advocating the same standards for everyone. This is a global problem not just A and B, you have the Jungle Jets the Canucks at the moment. Personally I think the Q400 was taking the pee on the grandfather rights as well and I am qualified to comment on that type.

The Asia market is huge and still developing and they will start producing there own aircraft types.

The Russian market is huge as well but political transfer of tech will limit things. There local produce is suspect and years behind the rest.

As one of the sausage munchers at work said at least airbus has access to VW coders those lady's know how to code properly so nobody knows something is screwing with the control system....

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

"Likewise for most countries' equivalent aviation agencies"

Pretty much unique to be honest.

And they have royally screwed it up now.

There are only really 5 countries/EU producing civi air transport cat A aircraft. They used to be working towards mutial recongnition. And the rest of the ICAO states were following for training and hardware certifcation. Thats out the window now.

As i have said previously i expect the max to be able to be flown again by sept/oct this year in US airspace. Outside that no chance until Jan/feb, more likely a year from now. 50% tech reasons 50% political

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

http://www.b737.org.uk/runawaystab.htm

here is the history of the QRH for trim runaway for the 737.

Its gone from 3 lines to 3 pages in the QRH since the 1960's and BTW the 3 line version worked like a treat on the 737-100.

 

[LionelHutz]

Greatly eliminating the grandfathering ability would likely push air travel back to something only the top few percentage of wealthy people could afford and also put most of the airlines and plane manufacturers out of business.

On the bright side, the regulators could do far more oversight on whatever is left with their current budgets.

Frankly, the whole argument on what should be allowed or not when upgrading an existing plane is completely pointless. I have only picked out one person here who has enough knowledge to intelligently comment on this, and it's not the outspoken pilot.

 

[Lou Scannon]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with grandfathering. In fact, grandfathering embodies the inherently conservative approach in commercial aviation, which is a good thing. But grandfathering should not be perverted to disguise an adversely mutated DNA, whatever the reason for the mutation. Just like Mother Nature, Aviation will allow/cause non-viable mutations to die off.

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz