You know some planes don’t even have engines on the wings (aircraft designers know exactly how to control CG), cables and pulleys have been safely used in aviation for a century, and most successful airframes get updated variants multiple times with many variations for each variant. The Max variant was even requested by the airlines already flying the 737 as the max didn’t require new costly training for the 737 crews already flying. There is nothing “wrong” in the design of the airframe.
Where Boeing ended up making mistakes was in faulty mechanical safety devices, training, and procedures. From my understanding the automated systems would react to faulty data and override pilot input… hence why it is a software problem. Both the FAA and Boeing are sharing the responsibility of the tragedies because this problem should have never passed the certification process.
Yeah, and the crowded gates, luggage claim, taxi rides, and the myriad of other ways that you contact more people while traveling besides the actual time on the airplane.
Before the pandemic, I started booking flights only on the condition that they were not on Boeing planes. Reading about the MAX debacle it’s clear that company has utter contempt for me and my life. That may be true of other manufacturers as well, but I’ve not gotten irrefutable proof of that.
You obviously know what you’re talking about, whereas I was just paraphrasing stuff from newspaper articles months ago. But it does seem odd that they chose to have software continuously correct the out-of-balance condition instead of just designing an inherently stable aircraft.
It’s not the performance itself that’s the expensive part, it’s certifying an entirely new design that takes forever and costs so much. The kludgey software gave them a fig leaf of deniability, letting them pretend it was the same aircraft that they’d been cranking out for decades, requiring just some ticky-boxes on the old certifications and not a whole new bird.
Its the same basic motivations behind medical implant devices that haven’t been evaluated in decades. Manufacterers make a few tweaks here and there, and update their existing certifications on their pacemaker or heart valve… and pretend its the same device they made way back when, with the existing certs.
Those too. But the security theater stands out in particlar, as an avoidable waste of time that is arguably costing far more lives in covid exposure, than it’s saving from terrorist casualties.
This is really the easiest way to tell – the pushed forward engine with the serrated edges at the rear. No other passenger plane that I’m aware of has a design like this. (And this design is coincidentally why the 737 MAX needs special software management as it’s such a radical change to the plane’s geometry and flight characteristics when compared to other 737s.)
Ding ding ding. Combine that with limited re-training on the new aircraft (after all, “it’s still a 737”) and you have a recipe for disaster.
A whole bunch of design fails lead to the disaster. The manual trim wheel was resigned to match a new console. The wheel was only shrunk by a small amount but the reduced mechanical advantage meant that it was almost impossible to manually correct out of trim conditions. The trim cutout function was simplified so that if you cut out automatic trim you lost all powered control of trim, leaving you with the trim wheel, which hardly works. The iterative behavior of MCAS meant that it would continue to fight the pilot, putting in down trim, even when the pilot was offsetting that with up trim.
Many of the design fails seem to come down to a lack of system level knowledge and analysis, with only module level design.
The Max is just as stable as the non max. But it does have different performance characteristics that have to be understood and trained for (same with any airplane or variant).
Airplane accidents are almost always a series of individual variables that by themselves don’t cause accidents. These two planes had faulty sensors, incorrectly trained pilots, pilot procedures that were followed but may or may not been correct for the equipment, safety equipment (triggered by the faulty sensors) that is overriding pilot input, and pilots attempting to disable the override which didn’t work or resulted in the override re-engaging. If any one of these variables had a different input then these scenarios would have been avoided.
These safety overrides are standard for all airliners, (they are not designed to make an unstable aircraft flyable) and the decision making between pilot and computer is well detailed, planned, tested, and trained. Faults in flight are identied and procedures enacted to remain safe-- everytuing from a burned out bulb to an engine that stops. Unfortunately these two flights accumulated faults in just the right way that exposed an unplanned or misunderstood event.
Boeing does indeed share blame though, they don’t have the luxury to let their customers be the beta testers like other industries can.
I don’t think that would be ironic at all. It would to me be the whole point of regulatory oversight and the reason the Max wasn’t safe was because it didn’t have that oversight. Whether it really does now or not… Do you trust regulatory oversight in Trump’s regime?
True, but they also lacked the previously normal redundancy in those sensors which meant the MAX had no way of recovering when a sensor went faulty.
If you gave me two 737s parked side by side and asked “which of these two is the MAX?” then sure - that’s a great way to tell them apart. The serrated rear edge in particular is a good and unique reference. But when all I have is the view out the terminal widow directly at the front of one aircraft with nothing to compare to, then not so much.
A lot of people can’t reliably tell the difference between an A320 and a 737 unless they closely read the seat-back safety card, including me depending on how jetlagged I am or whether I bother to look out the terminal window before stepping on to the airbridge.
Even where the plane type is shown on your ticket - airlines might not even use the MAX designation. The MAX goes by a range of names including the 737-8, 737-9 and 737-8200 (for Ryanair)
Flew one of these last year transatlantic from LHR to YHZ. I definitely had that moment of “It’s a MAX” even when booking. Compared to the 777 and 787, I’d much rather fly across the pond in a wide-body aircraft. Overall, though, the experience itself wasn’t any different from a 737-900.
I think airlines need to do a publicity campaign to talk about the training their pilots have had with the MAX if they expect public confidence to return. I’ll feel much better about flying the MAX in the future if the airline has sent pilots for dedicated training on it and not treated it like “another 737” as others have mentioned here.
You can always look at the aircraft certificate just inside – and on top of – the doorway. It will show the type, S/N etc. Of course if there are people behind you, they’re going to wonder why the hell you stopped in the doorway, turned around and took a photo of the top of the doorway. The flight attendant will give you a puzzling look as well.
(Also, substitute “I / me” for “you.”)
I flew on a Max in 2017 or 2018… Southwest had just gotten it; I think it was 6 or 8 weeks old…
Its not fly by wire. The entire 737 range uses cables for manual control of the horizontal stabilizer trim. The cables attach to a pair of wheels in the flight deck so that when the electronics adjust trim the wheels turn, telling the crew there is a trim adjustment.
If the electronics (and servos) are turned off then the wheels can be used to adjust trim but to do that you have to move this big control surface with a wheel the size of a dinner plate. Furthermore, if the stabilizer is out of trim, the wheel is much harder to move.
Boeing has a procedure for moving the wheel if the mechanical advantage is too low, and its a bit like reeling in a heavy fish. One pilot pushes the yoke for down elevator. The other pilot uses the resulting slack to pull up on the trim wheel. Too bad if you are already too low, too fast and fighting full down trim.
