“Radical” is contextual. What might be ho-hum to a (say) crack Singapore construction crew might look pretty far out to some New Orleans ones. Again, I’m working solely from the blog’s implication that the construction process was too much for the crew. If it was, that’s a failure of engineering management, not the crew. If it wasn’t, then this whole discussion is irrelevant.
Cheers,
Earl
And to get back on topic, Boeing lobbied for and won legal limits on FAA oversight:
Earl
The implication in the blog is that the crew may be to blame since they’re willing to work for such low wages. There’s no suggestion that the construction process by design was out of the ordinary.
Doesn’t have to be out of the ordinary, just too much for the crew assigned to the job – the characteristics of which should have been known in advance, and compensated for. Knowing the reputation and capabilities of contractors is a prime responsibility of architects and structural engineers.
Actually, if you asked me to prioritize factors to investigate, I’d put maintenance of the cranes above overwhelmed crew.
Cheers,
Earl
We may never know the cause. Last week a series of explosions were set off to topple the cranes looming over the partially collapsed hotel.
Is FAA on top of this or not?
Boeing’s grounded 737 MAX could be cleared to return to the skies in the U.S. as early as this year, despite a continued cascade of damning revelations about the design and approval of the passenger jet that crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia, killing a total of 346 people.
If the MAX flies again soon, it will be a major test of the international credibility of U.S. aviation regulators, who risk finding themselves out of step with the rest of the world if authorities in Europe and elsewhere continue to prohibit the aircraft from flying in their airspace.
and it goes on…
Scrutiny moving down the chain to the software supplier:
Collins Aerospace Feeling Heat
From the article:
Collins reorganized business units and retrained managers, with an eye toward efficiency and speed. It pushed its suppliers to do the same, and established partnerships with companies such as HCL Technologies, which provides outsourced, lower-cost engineering services from India.
Greed kills.
Earl
These shortcuts are necessary to fulfill the mantra of shareholder value maximization.
Looks like they are just as bad at security:
Report: Poor Security at Boeing
I’ll bet that if you lift the lid on this situation you’ll find severe understaffing, oh excuse me, “right-sizing” in the Boeing IT department.
Earl
Although Boeing expects to resume delivering 737 Max jets in December, the green light for the plane’s airworthiness, contrary to Boeing’s beliefs, is not expected to be given any time soon.
Although Boeing has maintained since the summer that it would be able to get the Max flying again by the fourth quarter of 2019, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines recently pulled the plane from their schedules until early March.
It just keeps getting worse:
Southwest pilots urge airline avoid the Max
For those of you outside the US, Southwest is a 100% Boeing 737 fleet.
Earl
The 737 needs to just be put out of its misery. Read the scary takeoff speed required: https://www.askthepilot.com/757-v-737/
I was jammed into the cockpit jumpseat — more of a jump-bench, actually — on an American Airlines 737-800 not long ago, flying from Los Angeles to Boston. Man, if we didn’t need every foot of LAX’s runway 25R, at last getting off the ground at a nearly supersonic 165 knots — thank god we didn’t blow a tire — then slowly step-climbing our way to cruise altitude. What would it have been like in the opposite direction, I wondered — a longer flight, from a shorter runway, in the face of winter headwinds?
By contrast, I recently piloted a 757 on a flight from Boston to San Francisco. At flaps 20, we lifted off at a docile 130 knots from Logan’s stubby, 7000-foot runway 09, with nearly half the runway still remaining! With every seat full and seven hours’ worth of fuel, we climbed directly to 36,000 feet and flew all the way to California. That’s performance.
I didn’t read entire article, but this quote made me flinch. Supersonic speed at ground level is 667 knots. So maybe author is using a hyperbole to prove a point relative to other airplanes. But on an A320, the typical takeoff speed is 150 knots. So what is the issue?
What about the greedy corporate robots who created the current debacle? Easy. Shift focus to the assembly line, make highly visible changes there and collect bigger bonuses for their brilliant problem solving skills. It’s a win win.
Just another great American corporation, killed and eaten by the financial community.
Earl
130 vs 165 is a huge difference in potential energy when shit happens.
I take it you’ve never worked for a major corporation? Lucky you.
The problem lies in how all power structures seek to expand and solidify. To someone in upper management, how well the business is doing is of secondary importance. First comes how important their department is within the organization. The quality of the product is utterly irrelevant so long as it has no short term budgetary impact.
When marketing, accounting and the various associated bullshit departments get the upper hand over QA and engineering, it takes very strong leadership indeed to get out of it. I can think of few if any examples with a happy ending, and I don’t see one for Boeing. They are so far out of the flight envelope that the pilots couldn’t get out of the spin if they were interested, and it doesn’t look like they even have authority over the flight surfaces.
Sad.
