So what is Boeing doing about the 737 MAX?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I flew the 300,500,700,800, and 900 series 737s after they parked the 727s. I figured they had pushed it with the 800/900 series as far as calling them 737s but in reality there were many commonalities. The 300s had analog flight instruments while the later versions had CRTs.. Most of the transition time was on computer work stations learning the flight management system (FMS) and how to make the aircraft fly coupled up to the autopilot and go where you wanted it to go.. A common phase was "why is it doing that ?" Then you flew a couple of hours with an IOE instructor (initial operating instructor) and if you didn't screw up you were turned lose. The IOE stuff was with passengers and that came after a few hours in a simulator.

To certify and aircraft as a new model cost big bucks and time and then you have to get the pilots type rated in your new aircraft which again takes time and money. I understand why they tried to do the 737 trick and do away with the expenses.. Also the airlines were pushing for the same type rating for the aircraft because they have to pay for the pilots type rating. Does not make it right but it was a business decision that the feds bought off on. What is good for Boeing is good for the country etc etc. None of the two crashes would have happened if the pilots had been more than push button aviators.. It happened to others and all they did was to either turn the trim switches off or decouple the autopilot.

Even before I retired they were pushing the pilots to turn the autopilot on at 1000ft after take off..which created great button pushers but sorry stick and rudder guys and girls. Most of my generation prided ourselves on being able to fly the aircraft thus many of us did not turn the autopilot on during climb out until 18,000 and actually hand flew the approach to landing because we could do it smoother that the autopilot .. or so we thought.

a reply to: 727Sky

You made a couple of great points. In my spare time I teach aerobatics, using a Decathlon and Extra. I get a lot of airline pilot students. They may be great button pushers and system managers but they can't fly an airplane. They have no idea what to do with their feet. I had one high time captain ask me where the angle of attack indicator was. I told him it was an integrated system using his fingertips, eyes, ears and butt for sensors and his brain for an indicator. If you are nibbling at the edge of the critical angle of attack, the airplane will communicate that very clearly, without the need of stick shakers, flashing lights, blaring horns, or Suzy Safety calling out "airspeed, airspeed" or "stall, stall." I guess that is the naturel result of having pilots flying long haul routes and actually flying the airplane for 10 minutes of a 14 hour flight and being systems managers for the other 13:50, letting the autopilot, FMS, autothrottle, etc be the actual pilot during that 13:50. The ultimate was when a captain asked which button to push for an outside snap roll! Coupled approaches probably are safer than the hand-flown, raw data kind, but at some point you must learn to be a pilot. Technology is creating a class of pilots who feel they don't need to know how to fly.
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a reply to: F4guy

Scary. 😡😡😡

a reply to: KansasGirl

This conversation really began to get serious when Asiana hit the runway in San Francisco. The crew didn't understand how all the autopilot systems worked, and at the FLCL mode to the new altitude they were assigned, and thought that the autothrottle would adjust to maintain the speed that was set.

I really don’t understand this need to over complicate the simplest of functions. To add layer after layer of automation and coding making the simplest troubleshooting impossible. Example, I just want a barebones pickup truck with a manual transmission. I don’t need a $60,000 rolling entertainment center where the radio goes out the brakes don’t work, or software patch after software patch is released to get the transmission to shift right.

originally posted by: neutronflux
I really don’t understand this need to over complicate the simplest of functions. To add layer after layer of automation and coding making the simplest troubleshooting impossible. Example, I just want a barebones pickup truck with a manual transmission. I don’t need a $60,000 rolling entertainment center where the radio goes out the brakes don’t work, or software patch after software patch is released to get the transmission to shift right.

So, in aviation terms, you want a DC-3 instead of a 787? Any aircraft that weighs 560,000 pounds, and can fly at 41,000 feet at 80% of the speed of sound but can also slow down to 145 knots to land, and then stop in 3500 feet will necessarily be technologically complex. The real key is not simplification, it is to crew these beasts with competent, trained pilots who are pilots and not ipad trained button pushers.

a reply to: F4guy

No. I don’t want over automated versions of past highly successful vehicles. Machines so over automated and systems so integrated that technicians and end uses can completely do everything by the book and the jet still crashes because nobody knew exactly the consequences of the million lines of code.

Following steps recommended by Boeing didn’t save the Ethiopian flight
By Tripti LahiriApril 3, 2019

qz.com...


Black-box data showed the pilots did this, people familiar with the accident investigation findings, which are not yet public, told the Journal. Following the recommended process also means that autopilot can’t be used for the remainder of the flight, according to pilots familiar with the 737 Max system.

However, after turning off power to the flight system, the pilots couldn’t get the plane to climb. They then flipped the switches again to restore power to electrical controls. Just six minutes after taking off, the plane crashed in a field, killing all 157 people on board.

Or code so complicated, programmers can tweak the code to respond one way while testing. Then the code acts different during real world conditions. Sorry another car example.

www.bbc.com...

What is Volkswagen accused of?
It's been dubbed the "diesel dupe". In September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many VW cars being sold in America had a "defeat device" - or software - in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results. The German car giant has since admitted cheating emissions tests in the US.

Reading through this thread, and others like it, I feel a growing urge never to set foot in a plane again. At least not without sorting out my last will and testament beforehand.

Here I was thinking there were actual pilots able to actually fly the damn thing manually, and it turns out this is largely an illusion.

It's going to be a looooong boat and train ride for the family come the next vaccation.

Boeing expects to turn over the software update within two weeks. They've completed 96 test flights, totaling 159 hours to date.

www.cnbc.com...

a reply to: beetee I hear you. I was Aircrew in the navy many years ago. Our pilots were commercial pilots when not on weekend drills. When my time was up in the navy, I said I didn't want to ever fly again. I've only had to do it a couple of times in the last 23 years. I must take lots of medication and be lead thru the airport and to the plain by a competent adult. I really hated flying commercial, after my years of flying in military planes.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
Boeing expects to turn over the software update within two weeks. They've completed 96 test flights, totaling 159 hours to date.

www.cnbc.com...

How about the retrofit of redundant hardware as well? An angle-of-attack sensor can be a single point of failure if not paired with another in the same physical location. Even the MCAS main board could be made redundant. Is this not more than just a software update?.. perhaps a System update?



BTW: I do not claim to be an avionics expert, for sure. However I have implemented redundant systems so that an advertiser does not miss their commercial que. Surely, aircraft safety is magnitudes more important.

a reply to: charlyv

The software will take data from both the left and right sensors, instead of just the left (which was a really stupid idea). If the two sensors disagree, MCAS won't activate.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks. That is something substantial, anyway.

a reply to: charlyv

It's also been changed so that the system only activates one time, for a few seconds.

Crew described the simulator demonstration.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks for the link. I subscribed to read the article.
Looks like they pushed that due date out.. recent news.

a reply to: charlyv

Yeah, they're sitting down with regulators from pretty much everyone, and had a couple other changes they had to make that they weren't expecting.