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Being 737 max8....an explanation and asking should it ever been flying?

rollin said:
I always felt the FAA was a seriously fine tuned trustworthy machine being the best in the world and it disappoints me to know while still may be the best, it had become a bit less than it was via budget cuts as well as favoritism. But what about the ICAO (international civil aviation organization)? Or for that matter, the EASA (European aviation agency)? Or whatever other agencies there are world wide?
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As someone whose work has been involved with all those organizations (ICAO are an advisory body rather than regulatory), I’m afraid the FAA are far from being a fine tuned machine and are far from being the best in the world. They are a typical inefficient government machine.


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Apparently the max is in the final stages of recertification.
We’ve been told they’ve limited the ability of the MCAS system and made several changes to the system.
I’ll list the changes when we get them but I do look forward to getting back in the flight deck of the max.
 
And yet all reports say February 2020. I’m ready for this story to be over.
 
I hope this would be over before the Holiday season.

A classic case of spreading it too thin. As most of the operations these days. There is no margin for errors, because bottom line and being competitive are more important than everything else.
Lesson learned ? We'll see.
 
Girardcorp said:
I want to say something really inappropriate about the Chinese jet but I won’t. Time will tell...
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I'm not terribly interested in flying on one, I can tell you that.
 
Release said:
There is no margin for errors, because bottom line and being competitive are more important than everything else.
Lesson learned ? We'll see.
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While I don't completely disagree with you, there has to be a middle ground.

My job requires me to look at the weather and calculate how many thousands of pounds of fuel I'm going to put on each flight. On every domestic flight, you're required to carry an additional 45 mins of fuel as a reserve for those emergency situations that you never see coming. My computer takes into account winds aloft and how that can affect fuel burn. I have the passenger counts, so I know pretty close to how many people will be on the flight. So, most of the time, if the weather is good, I'll launch the flight without any other issues.

If there's adverse weather, then that's when it really adds up. I may have to carry fuel for an alternate airport, plus some extra for airborne holding. So, my fuel load could easily balloon up 3000-5000lbs, without batting an eye. At an airport with fuel that has a good price, that's pretty easily $2000, on top of my normal load.

So, in both of these scenarios, I've made acceptable game plans. Most of the time, the flight departs and arrives under these plans without issue. Less than 1% of the time, I have something come up that we hadn't seen coming and we have to divert somewhere to get gas, short of our destination.

If I were to carry an additional 1-2 hrs worth of fuel on all flights, that could eliminate that 1%, but the additional weight of carrying that extra fuel, forces us to burn more on each flight, just carrying it around.

So, where's the middle ground? Are the airlines at fault for not wanting to spend billions in additional fuel costs, just to eliminate that 1%?

I realize you're primarily talking about Boeing and design flaws, and while I think they made some questionable decisions, this comes back to a similar concept. You could build an airplane with quadruple redundancy in every system, but that thing would be a lead weight, it would cost way too much, and no customer would ever buy it. So, they enhance the technology on board, create (hopefully) better monitoring systems, and try to do so at a price point that will still make their aircraft enticing to customers. That's why we don't see teens driving around in armored trucks. That's where they would be the most protected, but cost and practicality says that it isn't a realistic option.

Like I said, this isn't really meant to be a shot at you, but more of a "where is that middle ground"?
 
tomcat said:
While I don't completely disagree with you, there has to be a middle ground.

My job requires me to look at the weather and calculate how many thousands of pounds of fuel I'm going to put on each flight. On every domestic flight, you're required to carry an additional 45 mins of fuel as a reserve for those emergency situations that you never see coming. My computer takes into account winds aloft and how that can affect fuel burn. I have the passenger counts, so I know pretty close to how many people will be on the flight. So, most of the time, if the weather is good, I'll launch the flight without any other issues.

If there's adverse weather, then that's when it really adds up. I may have to carry fuel for an alternate airport, plus some extra for airborne holding. So, my fuel load could easily balloon up 3000-5000lbs, without batting an eye. At an airport with fuel that has a good price, that's pretty easily $2000, on top of my normal load.

So, in both of these scenarios, I've made acceptable game plans. Most of the time, the flight departs and arrives under these plans without issue. Less than 1% of the time, I have something come up that we hadn't seen coming and we have to divert somewhere to get gas, short of our destination.

If I were to carry an additional 1-2 hrs worth of fuel on all flights, that could eliminate that 1%, but the additional weight of carrying that extra fuel, forces us to burn more on each flight, just carrying it around.

So, where's the middle ground? Are the airlines at fault for not wanting to spend billions in additional fuel costs, just to eliminate that 1%?

I realize you're primarily talking about Boeing and design flaws, and while I think they made some questionable decisions, this comes back to a similar concept. You could build an airplane with quadruple redundancy in every system, but that thing would be a lead weight, it would cost way too much, and no customer would ever buy it. So, they enhance the technology on board, create (hopefully) better monitoring systems, and try to do so at a price point that will still make their aircraft enticing to customers. That's why we don't see teens driving around in armored trucks. That's where they would be the most protected, but cost and practicality says that it isn't a realistic option.

Like I said, this isn't really meant to be a shot at you, but more of a "where is that middle ground"?
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Middle ground ?
Of course there would be a middle ground for everything under the Sun.

However, when the "calculation" gets too close to borderline disaster and lost of human lives...... you make the decision, and please disclose the practice to the users of the service. There is a reason why sometimes things look dandy on the spreadsheet and numbers ran on the calculation but it'd still fail at some instances.
It is that "small percentage of incidents " which counts. A familiar story of how to deal with this matter is the "Ford Pinto" case. The designer and the corporate knew about the possibility of a fuel tank rupture during a rear-end collision from certain angle of impact, but, they also "calculated" and "decided" by "possible" injury and fatality out of the total production of the model, came up with simulated total sum from court settlement.... using that number to compare with the cost of recall and repair of the issue... The corporate decision was to let it happen first instead of doing the right thing.
When we take design and calculating the "cost" differential with minimum margin of error, while dealing with human lives..... you tell me whether another 1% of cost would bankrupt the business vs. safety measurement ?
Why, does it take a lawsuit to amend the wrong when all along we could have prevented it from happening in the first place ? The court will probably look at this and any other cases as whether the issue could be avoided and if it as intentional to let the matter slide known the possible failure.
This is not like coming out with a new software for the ATM machine and if something needs to be "patched" we could do that easily. It is not just a cost of inconvenience, it will be the cost of human lives and the reputation even the downfall of a giant in the Aerospace Industry.
I question the decision of outsourcing the design of the software and the system ( sensors, connectors and the software ) with a new model which will be the main product for the company of the next 20 years. Worth it to ? I don't know.
Wait for the outcome of all the legal settlements, which won't be in the dust for decades.
The MAX is heavily depending of the new system to "calculate" and to "handle" most if not all the logistic of operating the vessel.
If the heavily depended on system failed or failed in execution of applying it.... it'll not be just a fender bender.
This case reminded me of the GPS navigation which went from military use only to as popular as anyone whom owns a dedicated unit to a smart phone. When interference ( weather, high-rise building, high way overpass, tunnels ....) stop the navigation, you'll see the traffic pattern change with more last minute land-change and crossing over the do-not -change-lane moves.
My point was, when we relying on a system to calculate, to operate, to fly the airplane, it has better be built in with margin of error and don't spare on it. Sure, every pilot from every airline ( country ) is supposed to meet the standard of passing the grade of operating the vessel, but you know as well as us that not everyone has the same ability.
To assume everyone has the same ability ( as computer moderation/ calculation was based on the premises of assuming so ), and Boeing given the option to the monitoring system was another mistake to "cut down " the cost.
Can Boeing tell the Judge and jury that it was the airline's decision not to have additional safety option because they had opt out to save cost ?
 
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