How true, I noticed this already rather early in my shore management career. Managers boasting how many employees they had this year, always more than the previous year. The increasing numbers were probably also to impress the family and colleagues at birthday parties and company barbecues.
Later as a manager of managers I confronted them with graphs of their departments showing the productivity or profit against the number of personnel. Those graphs, except one, all had a downward trend while with more personnel one would expect an upward trend. Their defense always was that this was necessary to increase the quality. When I asked for figures to support that they had none. From then on every request for more personnel had to go through me with a full motivation. After that there were very few requests.
Actually, I think these guys have a case. At some point the automated âfixâ for an aerodynamic risk adds so much complexity that the net risk goes up. By this time there canât be a 737 MAX pilot in the world that doesnât know about the aerodynamic problem with that aircraft. Since the function of MCAS was to enable pilots to fly successfully in ignorance of that problem (an approach that failed catastrophically), what function does it perform now?
Sorry, I didnât make myself clear. What I got from the article was this:
Late in its development cycle, Boeing discovered that the MAX did not fly exactly like its predecessor 737s. This fact invalidated Boeingâs entire marketing thrust that airlines did not have to spend time and money retraining pilots to fly the MAX. Rather than admit this fact, Boeing added an automated âassistâ based on a single fragile sensor to compensate for the difference in flying characteristics, and did not publicize that fact. This strategy went horribly wrong.
Today everybody knows the MAX does not fly like âordinaryâ 737s and has a tendency to perform uncommanded pitch-up in some circumstances. Now the question raised by regulator staffers is this:
is training pilots to recognize and compensate for the pitch-up in a MCAS-free MAX more or less risky than trying to âfixâ MCAS? I think the question is worth investigating.
There are also a couple of side issues. Somewhere (and I canât find it) someone noted that uncommanded changes in flight attitude are violations of a FAR. Also, even if MCAS persists in the aircraft, the likelihood is that pilots are not going to trust it and shut it off at the first sign of anomalous behavior of the aircraft, which may be worse than doing without it and having pilots continually alert to symptoms of pitch-up and trained to handle it.
Human-machine interactions can get interesting when the machine has a mind of its own.
A friend of mineâs uncle was a senior executive in one of the worlds safest airlines. He had a list of airlines that no one in the family should fly with and several Indonesian airlines were mentioned. Garuda was one.
I have a few buddies that are sim instuctors, dont fly unless the pilots have grey hair as back when they learnt they were allowed to learn how to fly but not these days
Boeing is an example of late stage capitalism destroying a once proud engineering company via financialization aided by regulatory capture of the FAA. However, expect them to get a bailout that the US taxpayer will pay for, whether increased military contracts or other means.
Our government has just ordered some Poseidon aircraft. It is a sizeable chunk of change for a small country and I sure hope they can make all landings controlled.
not to mention pilot training
My buddy that does sim training said most guys walking in the door were unaware that their new planes had MCAS
Sorry I cant train you on it as the sim doesnt have that feature but here is a download for your tablet please read it
When Airbus began manufacturing Way below boeingâs costs boeing had to scramble. Theyâd prob been ok except they moved manufacture to N. Carolina (wtf?) and they also have to contend with Chinese parts, and lots more but moving the headquarters to chicago and buying McDonnal Douglas I think eliminated the âoldâ boeing and brought them into the political arena. Eventually i suppose the country with the cheapest labor will be making the aircraft ⌠of course you can still fly USA built Cessna or Lear etc. (if you are one of âthemâ ) !!
The move to Charleston, SC was a union busting tactic. SC offered breaks worth a reported $900 million and a strong anti-union society. Moving the headquarters to Chicago removed management from having to live with or near the people they were screwing in the Seattle area.
Boeing has been in the âpolitical arenaâ since the 1930s and is one of the fattest corporate welfare queens in the USA.
Regarding the 737 Max grounding. Pilots had complained for some time. The US FAA did nothing until the EU grounded the 737 MAX. On March 11, China banned them, But on March 11 the FAA affirmed the airworthiness of the 737 MAX , March 12 the EASA closed its air space to the 737 MAX and on March 13 the FAA finally decided it probably shouldât fly. I guess even regulatory capture and millions paid by lobbyists doesnât make up for worldwide embarrassment. Nice to know there is some limit.