Boeing in trouble again

calodo2003

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Apparently the FAA had farmed out Boeing oversight to actual Boeing employees (seems to be an FAA policy due to staffing shortages). Unbelievable...

 

VorZakone

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‘This Has Been Going on for Years.’ Inside Boeing’s Manufacturing Mess.

Many of the problems with Boeing jets since the deadly crashes can be traced back to a production system adopted by Boeing and its aerospace rivals before Hart-Smith’s paper. Dozens of factories build key pieces of 737 and 787 jets before they are assembled by Boeing. One of them is a sprawling fuselage plant in Wichita, Kan., that Boeing owned until 2005.

At the time, then-Boeing executive Alan Mulally said selling the factory to a private-equity firm would let Boeing focus on final assembly, where it could add the most value to its airplanes.
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https://www.wsj.com/business/airlin...a-door-plug-spirit-18f7e233?mod=hp_lead_pos10
 

VorZakone

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^This quote is interesting with regards to the outsourcing approach. As always, saving money today may come back to bite you in the ass later if you cheap out.

In 2011, former Boeing executive Jim Albaugh said that the approach had backfired. “In hindsight, we spent a lot more money in trying to recover than we ever would have spent if we tried to keep many of the key technologies closer to Boeing,” he said in an address at Seattle University. “The pendulum swung too far.”
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pocco

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stefan92 said:
The issue is actually quite simple. A key point while developing the 737 Max was that it needed larger diameter engines because those are more efficient than the older smaller ones.

Fitting those to the original 737 is difficult because it just doesn’t have much ground clearance, it was just never intented to be upgraded this way. Keep in mind, it is amore than 50 years old design by now.

What they did was that they attached the new engines partially in front except of under the wings. This way their large intake fan fits the plane, but it of course leads to a different balance - the Max versions are quite top heavy, but at the same time and more importantly their engines can create a lot more lift than older ones.

Because of this they are not allowed to fly in certain angles that were no problem for older models of the 737. To help pilots dealing with this problem and not reachubg those angles of attack they developed their infamous MCAS system which failed in the two disasters.

Why did Boeing do this, if it leads to potential instabilities? Because of money. This way to develop the Max means that it still basically is a 737 with new engines. No need to recertify the whole plane, no need to retrain all pilots (that's what MCAS was for, ensuring every 737 pilot was just allowed to fly the Max without further training), no increased development cost etc.

In hindsight Boeing should just have constructed a 797 as completely new replacement for the 737, but at the time it loked like a smart business decision. But they butchered the execution of these ideas and therefore hundreds of people.
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Sorry I've only just seen this but thanks for the explanation. Seems like a really haphazard way of creating a new/ upgraded plane and I'm surprised its been allowed really.
 

Red in STL

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calodo2003 said:
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737-900ER's have been in service since 2007, if the door plugs were problematic there would have been incidents already, this is almost certainly a production issue relating to poor quality materials or bad process
 

Murder on Zidane's Floor

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stefan92 said:
The issue is actually quite simple. A key point while developing the 737 Max was that it needed larger diameter engines because those are more efficient than the older smaller ones.

Fitting those to the original 737 is difficult because it just doesn’t have much ground clearance, it was just never intented to be upgraded this way. Keep in mind, it is amore than 50 years old design by now.

What they did was that they attached the new engines partially in front except of under the wings. This way their large intake fan fits the plane, but it of course leads to a different balance - the Max versions are quite top heavy, but at the same time and more importantly their engines can create a lot more lift than older ones.

Because of this they are not allowed to fly in certain angles that were no problem for older models of the 737. To help pilots dealing with this problem and not reachubg those angles of attack they developed their infamous MCAS system which failed in the two disasters.

Why did Boeing do this, if it leads to potential instabilities? Because of money. This way to develop the Max means that it still basically is a 737 with new engines. No need to recertify the whole plane, no need to retrain all pilots (that's what MCAS was for, ensuring every 737 pilot was just allowed to fly the Max without further training), no increased development cost etc.

In hindsight Boeing should just have constructed a 797 as completely new replacement for the 737, but at the time it loked like a smart business decision. But they butchered the execution of these ideas and therefore hundreds of people.
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Thanks, Financialisation incarnate. feck flying.
 

Abizzz

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The newest 757 are 20 years old. That's on Delta.


:lol:@horsechoker. That's a gem.
 

Red in STL

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VorZakone said:
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Doesn't leave Spirit off the hook entirely, you have to question their competence as well given that the suggestion is that the door plug wasn't installed correctly in the first place, I'm guessing Airbus will be checking their A350's given Spirit does a lot of work for them
 

RedDevilQuebecois

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For all the jokes we make about Russian airliners falling apart, I swear all the BS from Boeing doesn't make their airliners look any different from the Russians'.
 

jadaba

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A couple of days earlier, Boeing whistleblower is found dead in Charleston--where he had been giving evidence and was due to give further testimony--in an apparent suicide [BBC].
 

Red in STL

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Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
You're totally right, it's never their fault, must apportion blame elsewhere.
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Well you wouldn't blame Toyota/Honda etc if a stone cracked your windscreen or if the wheel fell off 20+ years after they sold it to you, and you wouldn't blame Honda if your Toyota engine caught fire!
 
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