the new Boeing 787s -- don't let them pass you by (in 2008)!

http://www.smarttravelasia.com/AirbusVsBoeing.htm

The Dreamliner looks gorgeous. I'm looking forward to it. Although I have to say that name is pretty lame. I prefer the simplicity of 787.

Thermo, on BA in Business class, every other seat faces backwards. I don't know of any other airline with backwards seats, though. Supposedly facing backwards is safer if you crash on the runway...

xpost: the 757 >>>>>>>> any other boeing aircraft in commercial use.

This plane is smaller than the 747.

The best Boeing is the 777, me thinks.

probably not.

Will the future of commercial air travel be point-to-point on medium-sized, highly efficient airplanes (let's hope so), or hub-to-hub on massive, economy-of-scale utilizing planes (let's hope not)?

The A380 is pretty efficient, as planes go, as well, however that efficiency does depend on them being fully loaded, that goes for all planes.

The 787 is Boeing's all new replacement for the 757/767 series of smaller long distance planes. In response to the efficiency games, Airbus has put out a spoiler plane in the form of the A350 derivative (90% new design though) of the A330. Basically it comes from two different views of where air travel is going.

The dreamliner is a point to point airliner, ideal for smaller loading from smaller airports, it could easily be the spring board for inter-continental budget airlines, if it is as efficient as claimed.

The A350 is less radical than the dreamliner, but still a very advanced aircraft with heavy use of composites and should have comparable fuel economies with the 787 mainly through cramming in a few extra seats.

The A380 is about maximising capacity on congested routes from congested airports, Europe-East Coast, Tokyo-Osaka, although it's also been taken by Airlines such as Emirates and Singapore who are locked into hubs in tiny nation states and need to maximise number of seats on planes. You better beleive that someone is going to cram 800 seats on one of these things for the Tokyo Osaka run.

If the A380 is a success then Boeing can always revive it's 747-800 stretched version of the 747.

They'll be space for both in the market as they are going after different niches.

here's hoping. the market is definitely there for that. north america -> asia will do outstandingly well.

Someone needs to be working on powering these planes on vegetable oil/ethanol blends.

lol

why not just stay on yr continent, then you can use the best ever form of transport: train.

Clearly the best advancement in international transport would be to build superfast elevators through the center of the Earth. Something like a pneumatic tube.

http://zapatopi.net/pneumatic/beachsub2.jpg

http://zapatopi.net/pneumatic/beachsub.jpg

http://www.uboatarchive.net/JtOpsCtr11.jpg
Craig keeps a close eye
http://www.uboatarchive.net/JtOpsCtr6.jpg
Jenny updates the big chart

its often said that safety occupies this top spot, but it seems to actually occupy maybe....10th place, priority-wise?

Pretty poorly

Have you ever seen a graphite hockey stick break?

Not really the same stuff. The design the composite to have the mechanical properties for the job.

JBR OTM re: smaller planes, especially in mid-size/small markets. 80% of my flights are on 50-seat regional jets or props, and another 15% are on DC-9s, which aren't really modern aircraft in any sense of the word. Only place I'll ever see these super-planes is across the tarmac while connecting at O'Hare.

Apparently the regional carriers have much less restrictive labor contracts than the majors, so their overhead is lower. The regionals are probably closer to what the future industry will look like.

I do a lot of inter-continental flying, because I live in a foreign country. So I get to fly on 777s all the time (for 13 hours).

What a half-billion dollar A380 gets you: http://gizmodo.com/5279529/inside-the-485+million-airbus-a380-flying-palace

My dad works on the 787 line and says it's the most fubar-ed project he's worked on in 30 years at Boeing. Apparently, instead of building parts in house as they usually do, they sourced out all the individual components and their getting back all these parts from seperate companies that don't fit together. The guys on the line like him have the unenviable task of trying to assemble all these non-matching parts. He blames the fact that the current upper management are all business people without aerospace experience who don't know anything about the realities of building airplanes.

the "jenny updates the big chart" photo upthread is ridiculously cool.

What a A380 hard landing looks like: http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/exclusivevids/EAAAirVenture2009_AirbusA380_HardLanding_200850-1.html

Wow, do all airliners have that much flex in the wings when they touch down?

Meanwhile, the 787 (now delayed for the fifth time) is possibly just a mediocre aircraft

And ANOTHER delay on the 787

Boeing has discovered microscopic wrinkles in the skin of the 787's fuselage and has ordered Italian supplier Alenia Aeronautica to halt production of fuselage sections at a factory in Italy. 'In two areas on the fuselage, the structure doesn't have the long-term strength that we want,' says Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter. To repair the wrinkles, additional layers of carbon composite material are being added to a 787 at the South Carolina factory and twenty-two other planes must also be patched. Production of the 787 has been fraught with problems with ill-fitting parts, casting doubt on Boeing's strategy of relying on overseas suppliers to build big sections of the aircraft before assembling them at its facilities near Seattle. The 787, built for fuel efficiency from lightweight carbon composite parts, is a priority for Boeing as it struggles with dwindling orders amid the global recession. Customers had been expecting the first of the new jets in the first quarter of 2010 — nearly two years earlier than they will be delivered. The delays have cost Boeing credibility and billions of dollars in anticipated expenses and penalties. Orders for 72 planes have been canceled already this year, although Boeing still has confirmed orders for over 800 aircraft."

And perhaps inevitably, Hitler gets news that his order of 787's is going to be delayed again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF_P77VEPKA

lol

And FINALLY.

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner has taken off on its first test flight - almost two and a half years late.
It had been grounded by a series of hitches, including design problems, strikes and even a shortage of bolts.
Boeing has pegged its hopes for the future on the plane, which promises to be one of the most fuel-efficient in the world.
It has attracted some 840 orders from all over the globe, although some have been cancelled because of the delays.
Its popularity is partly thanks to its lightweight design. Made of carbon and titanium, it should reduce fuel consumption as well as save on maintenance costs.
The first test flight is due to last around four hours, as the two pilots examine how the Dreamliner operates.
"They will essentially make sure that the airplane under normal circumstances flies the way it is supposed to," said Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx.

those wings look so delicate

I love the way they swoop up but its going to be weird sitting in the middle of that thing because the window view will be all wing.

I'm going to be pretty paranoid if I ever fly in one of these things

Angus Batey on the 787

Anatomy of the Airbus A380 QF32 near disaster

key paragraph:

One thing needs to be kept firmly in mind. Rolls-Royce the maker of the Trent 900 engine which disintegrated knew about the faults that the current airworthiness directive concerning these engines says are likely to have caused an intense oil fire in a structural cavity in the intermediate pressure turbine area of the engine.

Rolls-Royce had designed and was introducing a fix for the oil leak issues for this into the engines at its own speed. Qantas was left in the dark. It is fair to suggest that Qantas needs to review relationships with engine manufacturers in which it pays for power by-the-hour and leaves much of the maintenance and oversight of those engines to the designer and manufacturer.

Stuff like this reminds me why I'm increasingly antsy about flying...

not being taken for sexytime in the TSA VIP suite then?

Drama in the cockpit: Qantas crew faced 54 alarms

Nobody trains for chaos like this. Out the pilots' left window, far above the ocean, an engine as big as a bus had disintegrated, blasting shrapnel holes in the superjumbo's wing. And now an overwhelming flood of computer alarms was warning the pilots that critical systems might be failing.

Two weeks after the pilots somehow landed their Qantas jetliner and its 450 passengers, their two-hour cockpit drama was described Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press by the vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association.

"The amount of failures is unprecedented," said Richard Woodward, a fellow Qantas A380 pilot who has spoken to all five pilots. "There is probably a one in 100 million chance to have all that go wrong."

But it did.

Engine pieces sliced electric cables and hydraulic lines in the wing. Would the pilots still be able to fly the seven-story-tall plane?

The wing's forward spar — one of the beams that attaches it to the plane — was damaged as well. And the wing's two fuel tanks were punctured. As fuel leaked out, a growing imbalance was created between the left and right sides of the plane, Woodward said.

The electrical power problems prevented the pilots from pumping fuel forward from tanks in the tail. The plane became tail heavy.

That may have posed the greatest risk, safety experts said. If the plane got too far out of balance, the Singapore-to-Sydney jetliner would lose lift, stall and crash.
And then there was that incredible stream of computer messages, 54 in all, alerting the pilots to system failures or warning of impending failures.

One warned that a ram air turbine — a backup power supply — was about to deploy, although that never did happen, Woodward said. The message was especially worrisome because the system deploys only when main power systems are lost. The smaller backup supply is able only to power vital aircraft systems.

That's "the last thing you need in that kind of situation," he said.

The pilots watched as computer screens filled, only to be replaced by new screenfuls of warnings, he said.

"I don't think any crew in the world would have been trained to deal with the amount of different issues this crew faced," Woodward said.

As luck would have it, there were five experienced pilots — including three captains — aboard the plane. The flight's captain, Richard de Crespigny, was being given his annual check ride — a test of his piloting skills — by another captain. That man was himself being evaluated by a third captain. There were also first and second officers, part of the normal three-pilot team. In all, the crew had over 100 years of flying experience.

De Crespigny concentrated on flying the plane, while the others dealt with the computer alarms and made announcements to the giant planeload of passengers, some of whom said they were frantically pointing to flames streaming from the engine. Working flat out, it took 50 minutes for the pilots work through all of the messages.

When pilots receive safety warnings, they are supposed to check the airline's operating manual and implement specific procedures. But with so many warnings, the Qantas pilots had to sort through and prioritize the most serious problems first.

It's likely that for some of the problems there were no procedures because no airline anticipates so many things going wrong at once, John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member said.

Attention since the Nov. 4 incident has focused on the Airbus 380's damaged Rolls Royce engine. As many as half of the 80 engines that power A380s, the world's largest jetliners, may need to be replaced, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said Thursday. That raises the possibility of shortages that could delay future deliveries of the superjumbo.

Qantas has grounded its fleet of six A380s.

The drama two weeks ago still wasn't over when the pilots finally got the plane back to Singapore and the runway was in sight.

Wing flaps that are used to slow the plane were inoperable. So were the landing gear doors. The pilots used gravity to lower the gear.

Brake temperatures reached over 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit during the landing, causing several flat tires. If fuel leaking from the damaged wing had hit the brakes, it could have caused a fire. The pilots allowed the plane to roll almost to the end of the runway so it would be close to fire trucks that could put foam on the brakes and undercarriage.

Among the other issues Woodward said the pilots faced:

• When the engine failed it caught fire, but the fire suppression system was difficult to deploy.

• An electrical bus — a connection between electrical devices — on the left wing failed. The plane was designed so that a second bus on the same wing or the two buses on the opposite wing would pick up the load. That didn't happen.

Actually, Woodward praised the plane, saying it was a testament to its strength that it was able to continue to fly relatively well despite all the problems. But he also said it's likely reconsideration will be given to the design and location electrical wiring in the wings.

Ruh roh....

All Nippon Airways (ANA) announced it was canceling Wednesday flights among its fleet of the trouble-beset Boeing 787 Dreamliner after a battery alarm signal activated on one plane, prompting an emergency landing in Japan.
Flight 692, with 129 passengers, made an unscheduled landing at Takamatsu airport, airline officials said. It left Yamaguchi Ube Airport and was en route to Haneda, airline spokesman Takuya Taniguchi said.
Those on board reported a burning smell in the cabin.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/15/travel/japan-dreamliner-emergency-landing/index.html

Both ANA and Japan Airlines have grounded their 787 fleet for now.

It'll probably blow over in a few weeks, as is tradition.

Not quite KBP: FAA has grounded all 787s. This might be the biggest lemon since the DC-10!

NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/global/deepening-crisis-for-the-dreamliner.html

The 787 proves that outsourcing your design with a million different parts to hundreds of factories in a few dozen countries speaking a few dozen different languages just doesn't work as well as outsourcing running shoes and digital cameras.

Never, but never, fly on one if you have the slightest choice in the matter.

That NYTimes article is already obsolete, here's their new one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/faa-orders-grounding-of-us-operated-boeing-787s.html?pagewanted=all

The 787 proves that outsourcing your design with a million different parts to hundreds of factories in a few dozen countries speaking a few dozen different languages just doesn't work as well as outsourcing running shoes and digital cameras.

Never worked well for the B-1 bomber either (Rockwell and SAC took the tactic of outsourcing component manufacturing to as many congressional districts as possible)

Qatar has grounded the 787 fleet as well now, so errr...

I still reckon this will blow over in the end (but I'll say months rather than weeks now), as Boeing are dealing with technical issues rather than major structural faults (not that you'd want to deal with the former in the middle of a twelve hour flight, of course).

The oil seals thing on the A380 caused a similar grounding. This seems worse, not least because the Oil seals were only in one out of two engine choices whereas these battery boxes are in all 787s, and worse because the delays to the 787 programme were worse in the first place and they've already had high profile issues with outsourced components.

Yeah no...

What It's like to Fly the What It's like to Fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class3,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class

In 2008, Singapore Airlines introduced their Suites Class, the most luxurious class of flying that is commercially available.

The Suites were exclusive to their flagship Airbus A380, and they go beyond flat beds by offering enclosed private cabins with sliding doors that cocoon you in your own little lap of luxury. The interior was designed by French luxury yacht designer Jean-Jacques Coste and comes along with a plush soft leather armchair hand-stitched by the Italian master craftsmen Poltrona Frau. Perhaps most well-known of all, Singapore Airlines became the first and only commercial airline with a double bed in the sky.

However, the experience came with a hefty price tag. With round-trip tickets costing up to S$23,000 (or US$18,400), it was completely unattainable for most people.

Formerly, the only way for an average person to fly in the Suites was to take out a bank loan. And then I remembered that most of my personal net worth exists in frequent flier miles rather than cash.

can i just have the bed? the rest of it seems like overkill.

my idea of a perfect flight is a place to sprawl out, free wifi, and a couple of strong cocktails.

US aviation authority: Boeing 787 bug could cause 'loss of control'

A Boeing Model 787 airplane that has been powered continuously for 248 days can lose all AC electrical power due to the generator control units (GCUs) simultaneously going into failsafe mode. This condition is caused by a software counter internal to the GCUs that will overflow after 248 days of continuous power. We are issuing this airworthiness directive to prevent loss of all AC electrical power, which could result in loss of control of the airplane

The number 2,147,483,647 (or hexadecimal 7FFF,FFFF16) is the maximum positive value for a 32-bit signed binary integer in computing

248 days is 21,427,200 seconds, so likely they're storing the number of seconds in a 32-bit variable somewhere to represent runtime or something, and it's overflowing

good on them for not rebooting their airplane for that long, I guess

Heck of a climb angle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYbM-3E11Qo

Airbus Will Stop Building Its A380 Superjumbo Jet
https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbus-will-stop-building-its-a380-superjumbo-jet-11550121699

A350 is the best plane flying, at least from a sitting in it for hours at a time perspective

I fuckin hate flying in 787s, the windows and lighting feel like a sensory distortion experiment and the seats are tiny

I'm a huge fan of 787s myself - have done both short haul/long haul & economy/business and really enjoyed the experience every time. The lower altitude makes a huge difference on a long haul journey.

(My economy 787 experience was with Air New Zealand and had no issue with the economy seat, even sitting next to a professional rugby league player.)

Feeling a bit sad about the A380s no longer being built, they really did feel like the future ten years ago - but if any airline is going to make any money these days, it'll be with a A350 or B787. Nothing will really every top a A380 done properly right, I suspect (for example, Etihad's A380 product has ~wooden floors~ on the top floor entrance for Business/First. Outrageous. And that's before you check out The Residence.)

i very much enjoy my transatlantic trips on the 787

but im a tiny person so i guess i don't notice seat size so much

all planes are bad and the aerospace industry has been suppressing carbon-negative teleportation technology for years, ama

I miss the Lockheed L-1011

I basically am only on 737s in the ordinary course of events these days, though I suppose it's possible I'd end up on an A320 post Alaska/Virgin America merger. Not sure what routes they're using those on.

Second 737 MAX 8 crash after takeoff in a few months:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-47513508

The Jakarta one in October prompted Boeing to issue guidance for pilots to ‘address erroneous cockpit readings’.

this seems like a pretty big deal

NB it doesn't take much to scare me off flying for a few months

The Chinese government has grounded all 737 Max planes and a bunch of airlines around the world have done the same.

It’s potentially huge in terms of implications for Boeing but I don’t think there are all that many of them flying at the moment. It’s very new and I think only a couple of hundred are in use - the older 737s are fine.

Kind of scary because my brother works in the coffee business and Indonesia and Ethiopia are two places he visits a lot.

There’s more of these planes flying in the US (for Southwest and America mainly) I’d be more worried there because they haven’t grounded their planes.

Sad connection to the school board I work for.

http://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/03/10/canadians-mourn-as-victims-of-ethiopian-airlines-crash-identified/

There’s a fairly suspenseful close call tale from this one making the rounds, a guy from Greece who missed the flight despite his prior connecting flight being on time, and was desperately trying to convince them to let him board but they firmly refused and put him on a followup flight, then didn’t let him board the next flight because they had to take him aside and gently break the news about the crash, and confirm why he was the only ticketed passenger to not make it onboard.

Can't wait to see his shitty animated series, "Household Dude".

wait why was he the only ticketed passenger not to make it on board

He turned up too late at the gate.

Fuck me running

Why hasn't the FAA grounded these planes yet???

I would think Boeing is doing everything they can behind the scenes with the FAA to keep them from doing that.

I work for a company that supplies some aviation equipment for the 737 and was slightly relieved it didn’t have anything to do with what what we provide them. I will say that based on the stories I’ve been told, Boeing is ridiculously strict with this kind of stuff so the fact that this is even happening is a major fuckup on their end.

UPDATED #FAA Statement regarding @Boeing 737 MAX. pic.twitter.com/HxObBr7qRf

— The FAA (@FAANews) March 12, 2019

(My day job is supporting the FAA. I can only say that some of the responses to FAANews are...interesting.)

Hmm, so the acting administrator of the FAA is a former aircraft manufacturer lobbyist, and the Secretary of Transportation is Mitch McConnell's wife. Sounds like we've got some tough independent oversight.

The industry-to-government-to-industry revolving door continues to turn at full speed.

jfc let's just stay out of step with every other country on every single issue, what could go wrong?

these planes are safe, and until we see the evidence in the form of 9, maybe 10 more crashes, we're gonna let these things fly.

I’m flying american tomorrow and thankfully have learned it’s not on one of these planes. really not sure what I’d do if it were...on one hand it seems incomprehensible that the planes would allowed to continue flying if there really were something wrong and that other countries are grounding them out of an abundance of caution, but...jeez

do Delta or Spirit use em?

https://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/#/customers no spirit or delta

interesting that the chinese civil aviation admin says: yeah, this problem with angle of attack sensors happens all the time. Carl Liu, a 23-year-old pilot who has been flying 737s since June for a Chinese domestic airline, said the new model would sometimes show that the aircraft was climbing steeply, even though it was climbing by 10 degrees, and automated systems would nudge the plane’s nose down, causing a temporary loss of control. (also damn this pilot is 23 years old??) https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3001428/china-taking-lead-ground-boeing-737-max-signals-challenge-us-authority
i'm not sure i'm convinced it's part of a move against boeing in the ongoing trade war but there's that factor too, i guess.

that sounds sketchy af

I had a grim lol at someone saying that pilots were not informed about aspects of its autopilot and "why not?" "oh we didn't want to overburden them with too much information".

The EU has banned the 737 Max from its airspace now.

A bunch of pilots have reported weird readings and needing to manually compensate to override erratic automatic functions.

The line the airlines still using them seem to be sticking to is that experienced pilots with the appropriate training should be able to manage it ok. I’ve read that the ‘training’ is a 90-minute iPad presentation though.

i'm trying to understand what went on... the mcas gets the wrong reading from angle of attack sensors, thinks it's climbing, nudges the nose down, but does it eventually recover in most cases or does it have to be—and this is where i don't know what pilots do on takeoff—put back under manual control, mcas switched off? and put back into a climb? what role does maximum command limit play in this?

i see that they're updating the software by april: https://qz.com/1570960/boeing-will-update-the-737-maxs-flight-software-by-april/

what's the over/under on the software update introducing another catastrophic bug and/or bricking the plane entirely

they're not allowed to fly in France atm (and the rest of the EU too, I think).

The software fix to solve the unexpected nosedive problem in these planes had been expected in early January but the government shutdown reportedly "halted work on the fix for five weeks." pic.twitter.com/KDFwnuFIuX

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) March 13, 2019

I'm gonna need some verification of these claims, but if the Federal Government shutdown did delay rollout of a software patch....*laughs bitterly*

Also I don't think there is a head of the FAA right now. Only an acting administrator. An article I saw said that there were 5 complaints logged in a voluntary database against that model type and the plane nosing down. I don't know how relative that is against other complaints.

(CNN) — US pilots who fly the Boeing 737 Max have registered complaints about the way the jet has performed in flight, according to a federal database accessed by CNN.
In one of the complaints, a captain reported an autopilot anomaly which led to a brief nose-down situation -- where the front of the aircraft pointed down, according to the federal database. In another complaint, a first officer reported that the aircraft pitched nose down after the autopilot was engaged during departure. The autopilot was then disconnected and flight continued to its destination, according to the database.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/13/us/pilot-complaints-boeing-737-max/index.html

canada joins ban

US ban now as well.

This is as appropriate a moment as any to revive this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW-pFoYgaUs

update: I’m alive

thank you president donald trump

i had the fun of flying on one of these this afternoon! i, uh, wasn't thrilled about it. looked like about half the southwest planes at lax were 737 maxes.

had to happen and even if the authorities hadn't grounded them, the operations would have to do (by association, individual leisure travellers and corporate travel programs wouldn't fly any of those airlines at all)

Amazing reporting by @seattletimes on the fatal flaws in the Boeing 737 MAX's flight control system—and the regulatory capture within the FAA to hastily approve it. Essentially, this plane could try to crash itself because of a single faulty sensor.https://t.co/LdnnMhN1Gx pic.twitter.com/Z9Iwnz7YBs

— Reed F. Richardson (@reedfrich) March 18, 2019

This still seems completely extraordinary.

i am not aviation engineer, but "this plane could try to crash itself" seems... bad?

No no, the pilots just needed to be told to switch off that part of the plane if/when it decided to crash itself, and if they didn't know how to do that, it was because they didn't buy the optional part of the safety manuals which explained this. Not at all Boeings fault, really.

do you want to turn off The Medusa Touch suicide pilot option yes/no?

it's incredibly horrifying and i mean horrifying.

boeing seems cool

Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air didn't pay extra for Boeing's "upgrades" on communications, navigation, and safety features, so Boeing didn't warn them that the planes were prone to sensor malfunctions that would send them crashing into the ground. https://t.co/2Nvka4tNVI

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) March 21, 2019

On a plane that was prone misreading the angle of attack (and then overcorrecting), Boeing charged extra for the "angle of attack indicator" and the "disagree light"—features which "could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings." pic.twitter.com/DclKa8pOYo

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) March 21, 2019

And don't think for a second that this was a developing world issue. Major U.S. airlines also didn't buy these safety "upgrade" features, as they were not required by the F.A.A. pic.twitter.com/EhR21vuQMD

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) March 21, 2019

Boeing even charges extra for back-up fire extinguishers, despite the fact that "a single extinguishing system may not be enough to put out flames that spread rapidly through the plane." And you have no way of knowing which safety features your airline has bought. pic.twitter.com/8j4lV51FXM

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) March 21, 2019

this all stinks of engineering/business management hell. I wonder how the AoA sensors can be so bad. They look pretty "dumb", which usually means they'd be more robust than a wiimote.

i mean call me old-fashioned but i just don't think paid-for downloadable content should be a business model which should be applied to air safety

new board description ^

please don't put the weird EA-hating tantrum videogame lords upset that they have to pay for extra character outfits while also unable to resist doing so on the same level as this issue. this involves some hardware and has better, older analogues.

then again, you may have just been playing off my wiimote comment. apologies.

naw i was totally trying to gamergate boeing

the FAA should drag the gamergate lords away from their current john wick number trailer, call the flight simulator a videogame, and enjoy how they badger boeing into a future clean safety record.

horse armour fine whatever

paid DLC so my plane doesn't crash I draw the line

i am not aviation engineer, but "this plane could try to crash itself" seems... bad?
― i'm w/ tato, super hot AND weird!! (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 18 March 2019 15:31 (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

this is so incredibly fucked

that comment is actually bad because the same system that can crash the plan can potentially save the plane in some situations. it exists for a reason. the auto-pilot, -stabilization, -etc of aircraft is coupled to the evolution of giant aircraft, and you want those systems to exist the same way you want your car to be capable of 100 mph on flat land because that's a much lower speed going up a hill.

The future is crowdfunded/upgradable DLC safety features during the flight booking process.

i had the fun of flying on one of these this afternoon! i, uh, wasn't thrilled about it. looked like about half the southwest planes at lax were 737 maxes.

― circles, Wednesday, March 13, 2019 8:49 PM (one week ago)

probably an 737-800. Can confirm all the SWA 737 MAX flights in/out of LAX were cancelled one week ago.

This and the other comments about sensor triple redundancy in the article best sum up the engineering problems with the plane. The problems are more fundamental than "dumb planes are safer".

As R. John Hansman, a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told me in a March 28 interview,

"As I understand it, at high angles of attack the Nacelles -- which are the tube shaped structures around the fans -- create aerodynamic lift. Because the engines are further forward, the lift tends to push the nose up -- causing the angle of attack to increase further. This reinforces itself and results in a pitch-up tendency which if not corrected can result in a stall. This is called an unstable or divergent condition. It should be noted that many high performance aircraft have this tendency but it is not acceptable in transport category aircraft where there is a requirement that the aircraft is stable and returns to a steady condition if no forces are applied to the controls."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2019/04/02/mit-expert-highlights-divergent-condition-caused-by-737-max-engine-placement

got off a 737-800 a few hours ago and my knees are still feeling it. screw safety, what these things need is 3 more inches of legroom

I feel your pain as a 6'4" guy. Legroom is driven by the airlines' seating configuration, not the manufacturer. Our discomfort is another row or two of ticket revenue. NPR has an article that suggests nothing will change. Would like to see officials load their own families on a 90-second evac trial, and then praise seating arrangements.

Note to self - fly airbus

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190403/p2g/00m/0bu/002000c

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html

Not great.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer

not great.

Boeing Has So Many Grounded 737 Max Planes Waiting to Be Fixed They're Parking Them in the Employee Parking Lot

In a bit of good news, one company is interested in buying quite a few of them.

Boeing on Tuesday won its first order for 737 Max planes since the jets were grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes. The vote of confidence from British Airways’ parent sent shares of the manufacturer sharply higher.

International Consolidated Airlines Group, or IAG, signed a letter of intent at the Paris Air Show to order 200 Boeing 737 Max planes.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/18/british-airways-parent-places-first-new-order-for-boeing-737-max-since-grounding.html

For Seattle ilxors, you can view the parking lot in the jalopnik article from the south park bridge. It’s amazing, maybe 30 of them sitting along the river, iceland air and thai smile and turkish and so many others i don’t recognize

Boeing 737 MAX 8 Likely Grounded for Rest of 2019 After New Concerns Raised

Some of the language in that article is a maybe a little bit hyperbolic.

This is a bit more measured, Boeing still don't come out of it very well at all:

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/faa-and-boeing-initially-disagreed-on-severity-of-catastrophic-737-max-software-glitch/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

That’s a good read.

Although it doesn’t really offer any solutions- just a very well researched and well written description of the problem. I’m mildly suspicious of the expert graybeards from central casting that he quotes throughout the piece, because it all seems a little one-sided, but then again the Indonesian and Ethiopian crews that are still around to talk are apparently not allowed to.

Boeing pilots' messages on 737 MAX safety raise new questions

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/

What is your own personal practice on flying Boeing aircraft now?

“When I worked on the 747, the 767, the 777 in Everett, those are beautiful planes. And the people there fully understood what it took to build a safe and airworthy aircraft. I hate to throw the entire label over the whole product line. But as far as the 787, I would change flights before I would fly a 787. I’ve told my family — please don’t fly a 787. Fly something else. Try to get a different ticket. I want the people to know what they are riding on.”

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30470973/boeing-737-max-employees-emails/

I don’t want to read this. I’m just posting it here

"This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”

But the the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee provided excerpts of those messages to Bloomberg News that un-redacted the Indonesian carrier’s name.

“Now friggin Lion Air might need a sim to fly the MAX, and maybe because of their own stupidity. I’m scrambling trying to figure out how to unscrew this now! idiots,” one Boeing employee wrote in June 2017 text messages obtained by the company and released by the House committee.

In response, a Boeing colleague replied: “WHAT THE F%$&!!!! But their sister airline is already flying it!” That was an apparent reference to Malindo Air, the Malaysian-based carrier that was the first to fly the Max commercially.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-14/lion-air-idiots-sought-more-max-training-boeing-thwarted-it

is there anyway to check (in advance of booking) which type of aircraft will be used on your flight? would not fancy going on one of these for say, oooooh, about 10 years?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22165956/boeing-737-max-flight-brazil-gol-airlines

Gol Airlines told the publication it plans to use the 737 Max in regular service starting later this month, and passengers who don’t want to fly on the plane will be able to exchange their tickets.

all airlines need to do this imo

You can go to FlightAware.com and enter your flight # which will give you a lot of data about that flight; below the flight map you'll see a log of scheduled flights and what aircraft will be used, plus a record of what aircraft were used in previous flights.

Some airlines' websites, e.g. JetBlue's, tell you the aircraft used for each flight when you go there to do your booking. I wouldn't say they're accurate 100% of the time but I think they generally are.

Another 737 gone missing after taking off from jakarta

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-not-spirit-mis-installed-piece-that-blew-off-alaska-max-9-jet/

The fuselage panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet earlier this month was removed for repair then reinstalled improperly by Boeing mechanics on the Renton final assembly line, a person familiar with the details of the work told The Seattle Times.

If verified by the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, this would leave Boeing primarily at fault for the accident, rather than its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which originally installed the panel into the 737 MAX 9 fuselage in Wichita, Kan.

That panel, a door plug used to seal a hole in the fuselage sometimes used to accommodate an emergency exit, blew out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 as it climbed out of Portland on Jan. 5. The hair-raising incident drew fresh and sharp criticism of Boeing’s quality control systems and safety culture, which has been under the microscope since two fatal 737 MAX crashes five years ago.

Last week, a different person — an anonymous whistleblower who appears to have access to Boeing’s manufacturing records of the work done assembling the specific Alaska Airlines jet that suffered the blowout — on an aviation website separately provided many additional details about how the door plug came to be removed and then mis-installed.

is there anyway to check (in advance of booking) which type of aircraft will be used on your flight? would not fancy going on one of these for say, oooooh, about 10 years?

KAYAK Lets Users Filter Out Boeing 737 Max 9 Flights After Door Blows Off Plane

oof

Nationalize Boeing

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/24/delta-air-lines-plane-nose-wheel-falls-off

More concerns as Alaska Airlines flight arrives at PDX gate with open cargo door
https://www.koin.com/news/alaska-airlines-safety-concerns-cargo-door-pictures-portland/

o_0

Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

It said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted" wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

Damn

Also this today https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/03/11/at-least-50-injured-on-latam-airlines-boeing-787-after-technical-problem-causes-sudden-drop-in-altitude/

Jon Oliver did a good piece on them last week, the gist of it is their only priority right now is shareholder value

I know nothing about financing, stocks, etc. But it seems to me that if I owned a business that I really cared about, I would never take it public.

Really good article that sums up Barnett's (the now dead whistleblower) complaints.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/