Environmental News

Written pledge of free patch support for as long as anyone cares to operate the type

With free maintenance on those parts. Boeing can't afford to see another AoA-sensor related crash even if it's the result of bad airline maintenance.

BA shareholders. See above.

I'm sticking with my prediction of late 2019 if they get their preferred schedule. I'd be okay with them handing out scholarships at aeronautical schools in the hopes of eventually increasing the number of competent engineers and analysts involved in the certification process.

Airbus doesn't have production capacity to capitalize on this. But COMAC does. That's a deep maybe. The DC-10 took a few bad wrecks early on. They fixed them and made them safe. But enough orders vanished that the type was not profitable for MD.

A fine that forces them to sell off at least one significant business unit just to cover it. A fine bigger than the GDP of some smaller nations.

Illinois lawyers speculatively (presciently?) threw parties when Boeing announced their HQ relocation to Chicago. I can't remember the exact detail, but there's something about Illinois tort law different from Washington that was predicted to work out quite poorly for Boeing if they were faulted in fatal crashes. Here we are.

That's the real problem here- with the sheer quantity of 737s in the world and on the order book, there will be another crash. Statistics demand it, even in this golden age of air safety. It could be a museum-rated thunder guppy in Uzbekistan, but the next time somebody demonstrates the lithobraking system in one, they'll be back down to this moment in at least some of the public's eye, deserved or not.

 

I guess that wasn't Air France 447, which lost its airspeed indicators to icing, an already known problem. The only pilot on board who knew how to handle it, was off-shift and sharing a napping berth with his mistress. He didn't get back to the cockpit with enough time to spare, and the craft was lost.

I'd suspect that the original training contract called for adequate training to operate the craft. Now that the original goalpost has been shown to not have been placed far enough downfield, I suspect the original trainer will have to buck up and cover that additional distance under the original contract.

 

i'm amazed at how well boeing stock has held up, so far

 

They just won a many-million dollar military contract, with more likely to occur soon. They're such a big outfit that even with the superstar of one of their big divisions in trouble like this, they can handle some turbulence.

Which says to me, we don't need to worry about being gentle with regulatory certification overhaul, criminal prosecution at the executive level or punitive fines. They really are that big. We should fix the system and let the improved system "encourage" them to fix themselves.

 

737 MAX "should never fly again" -Nader (Chicago Tribune link)

 

Considering the sunk cost of the existing airframes, I'd expect Boeing and regulators would even go this route before submitting to Nader's "never fly again" demand.

 

you called it

but i never liked his killing the corvair, that was nice car. maybe he's wrong here too, and now there's an emotional connection

 

Gotta admit he was effective- no corvair has flown since.

 

no question. i'm not sure anyones listening, 50 years after that debacle though

 

Jokes aside, Nader is fairly credited with inspiring a lot of automotive safety engineering. And once people saw some results it became a competitive differentiator. Volvo and Subaru practically built their brand identities on safety tech.

His name even wound up on a common part. Google "Nader pin." They're on just about every car door on the planet now.

 

New comprehensive report telling of increased glacial melt around the Earth. All this despite the sun being in reduced Total Solar Irradiation for the past 12+ years:
Global warming is shrinking glaciers faster than thought
The mentioned 369 billion tons of yearly Earth glacial ice loss is equivalent to ~ 88 cubic miles or a melting ice cube, 4.45 miles, by 4.45 miles, by 23,500 feet high.

 

i demand a retraction !



.... & then there's these flyin corvairs ....



100hp - 225lbs. i've seen gyrocopter use, too
don't count out their flyin' just yet

 

Flying winged Corvairs would have their flight distances shortened, because all the engine oil leaked out. Environmental disaster!

 

if you fail to properly maintain. a bad seal where one stains a case with ½ a quart is far from an environmental disaster. Getting a little hysterical? The Corvair engine is modified & derated for aeronautic purposes. FAA reg's require regular maintenance & inspection or it's a no-go. Unlike driving, where any tool can jump behind the wheel - aviation is a different animal.
You'd do best to worry about roughly 100,000 main bearing seals out on the road that are currently leaking .... than a handful of modified Corvair engines. Pick yer battles

.