Environmental News

There are wiki passages that link to media reports, and others that link to sturdier stuff. It's what's behind wiki that matters.

 

Speaking of wiki, a full copy is looping towards moon on Isreal's lander. It's already out of date. Shrug.

 

When (I do not say if) MAXes fly again, passengers will be very interested in knowing whether or not they are on one. They may pay more attention to pre-flight safety briefing, and perhaps even keep seat belts loosely fastened while they are seated. Minor things, but with some real positive value.

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MCAS software update has been vaguely described to diminish pitch-down trim amount and recurrence. It may be fully inhibited if AoA sensors disagree (latter point uncertain). This sounds good, except in a rare situation where thrust pushes nose too high and pilots are slow to respond. That possibility motivated MCAS in the first place.

If any MAX flight with MCAS lite has an unrecoverable stall, ever, I suppose that will doom the design.

 

Boeing fully embraced idea that a slightly aero-unstable design could be reined in by auto trim. I honestly don't know if this is unique for commercial jets. If Airbus (that relies much more on automation) also has examples.

You have already established personal rule: "No MAX for me". That is fine, and it still allows you ~10,000 choices of planes to fly on. If travelers mostly make the same rule, MAX will be cut off at roots and no more craters will be made.

What I wonder about is if the ~4500 contracted orders can be revised to 'tamer' 737s. Or even Airbuses.

Aviation-market 'crash' (being dramatic) is an alternative to 80 or 90 tons going the wrong way.

 

For Airbus I know of no exception to rule that flight-critical sensors are in triplicate (or more). Boeing asserted AoA was not flight-critical. Even a (perfect) software revision will leave that matter flapping in the breeze. So to speak.

 

That might work. I've no insight into how different Boeing would have to make the MAX be, to have no need for MCAS. I guess that's where you're headed.

Surely* this would not be Boeings' preferred outcome. Redesign, retooling, and (fer real this time) certification would take time. Would seem to obviate current contract orders, which I've now blathered about repeatedly.

Airbus could paint smiley faces on all its new A320s

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Meanwhile GE LEAP (the frisky engines involved here) are doing well in other applications including A320. (They did have some early problems but let's not go there). Hang those big blowers in the right places and you're good to go.

*No, I won't stop calling you Surely.

 

"they've been planning a modified trailing link design for the MAX-10" this and other text @698 suggest deep understanding of aero engineering. Must pay attention who I'm talkin' to

"...but it's clearly to our peril"

To someones'. At least in hindsight. Risking to sound like a Boeing PR rep, MAX may have accumulated ~million flight hours mostly without incident (I was on one ). NASA ASRS seems to be only source of info about pilots who won MCAS battles, and those were few

No one can ignore these two disasters. Although when dust settles, we may decide that first one should have merited a fuller response.

Point being, these craters are rare. Until it is known how they happened, in great detail, and corrected, they may not become less rare. There lies the broad peril.

There are hints and scents about faulty A/D conversion of AoA data. MCAS software patches might not overcome those.

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Lead J may also introduce a Boeing path out. Make 737 MAX only MAX10. I'd add, Boeing offers 10s for 8/9 prices. It would cost them billion$!. Yet current impasse is costing a billion per month. If flyers in general think like Bisco, more billions of loss could otherwise await.

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I meditate on how all this began. An earlier 737 crashed after an un-replicated sensor gave false (ground-proximity) data and auto-throttled to zero. Pilots fought back but finally lost. As did 17 fatalities. That sIngle-point disaster (in worst possible retelling) was painted over.

To make 'auto-land' 'work' on earlier 737s, Boeing gave more authority to computers. This seems to have been (at least narrowly) a complete success. Arguably it allowed Boeing to have more confidence that reworking computers plus tail feathers is purely good. No failures there -> nothing needed to be painted over.

Boeing came to MAX with a full tank of confidence.