re: #232 lawhawk

So, this is a completely ignorant take courtesy of the NY Post op ed. I feel dumber just thinking about this, but it needs to be fisked anyways Eco madness is behind the 737 MAX debacle, but no one is talking about it.

There’s a reason no one is talking about it.

It’s sheer dumbfuckery.

Boeing has sought to keep the same airframe in play since there’s huge costs in building new plane from scratch. They thought they could get FAA and authorities to sign off on stretched version of the 737, which has new more efficient engines that cost less to operate than the prior generation of 737.

It’s about operational cost savings, not the environment. Boeing can claim that the plane reduces emissions, because that’s absolutely true. The engines burn less, pollute less, and deliver more power and can haul more people than the prior engine/plane combination.

But the crash happened because Boeing hid that key mechanisms changed and that the computers would take over and fight the pilot over key decisions under certain circumstances, and drive the plane into the ground.

There is nothing about the environment involved here except the toxic culture at Boeing that skirted the rules, and the lax oversight at the FAA as a result of Reagan (and forward) handing over significant oversight to the very manufacturers who build the planes.

My understanding from reading around is that it’s actually worse than that. The new engines on the 737 Max are more powerful and more efficient, but they’re also larger and require pylons that have been shortened and pushed further forward of the wing than on a stock 737. This had the result of pushing the aircraft’s aerodynamic center forward, which leaves it much more likely to stall in event too much power is applied. Boeing’s solution? Put in a “middle man” computer that senses the aircraft is in a stall and bypasses pilot input to force the nose down.

With the new design finished, they then exploited loopholes in FAA regs that allow manufacturers to self-certify to say that their engineers had signed off on the mods so that they could push the plane into production as an “upgrade” to an existing model rather than a whole new aircraft that needed proper testing and certification. And then sold them to airlines as “upgrades” that pilots experienced with existing 737 models could type-certify on with a few hours in a simulator. Pilots are alleging that Boeing gave them no instruction on the new anti-stall system and buried all mention of it in the manuals, while Boeing (in full CYA mode) is claiming the pilots were trained in how to deactivate the system in an emergency. Note the keywords “in an emergency,” which generally in industry speak means “at normal flight altitudes, in normal conditions, with no other problems going on at the time.” No instruction was given on what to do when you’re climbing after take-off and the system decides (due to faulty data) that you’re actually in a stall and bypasses all controls so it can augur the nose into the ground.

Surprise, surprise, relying upon companies to police themselves doesn’t work.