Boeing 737Max

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So if I am reading this right...
Boeing did an engineering bodge.
Then a software bodge.
And then denied everything.
And blamed everyone else.
I am not expert in the aviation industry so I don't know if this is how it is.
 
So if I am reading this right...
Boeing did an engineering bodge.
Then a software bodge.
And then denied everything.
And blamed everyone else.
I am not expert in the aviation industry so I don't know if this is how it is.
You got it right. I think there's more to come. Something is rotten in the kingdom of Renton. Quality control issues with the 737-800 series are starting to surface via long-suppressed whistle blowers fired by Boeing for commenting on "the emperor's clothes".
 
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Things don't look much better from the crash in Moscow, can a 2 year old passenger plane be made unflyable by a lightning strike?
Listen, if Boeing, the supposed master of airliner technology can't get it right, what can you expect of a third world mafia kingdom masquerading as a super power?
Airbus comes up smelling like a rose, despite the skeletons in their closets.
Cheers,
Wes
 
Listen, if Boeing, the supposed master of airliner technology can't get it right, what can you expect of a third world mafia kingdom masquerading as a super power?
Airbus comes up smelling like a rose, despite the skeletons in their closets.
Cheers,
Wes
I just thought it was strange or stupid to say the plane was disabled by a lightning strike, they happen all the time and have since the start of aviation.
 
I just thought it was strange or stupid to say the plane was disabled by a lightning strike, they happen all the time and have since the start of aviation.
I say again, third world country. Deficiencies in design, manufacture, crew training, procedures, and probably maintenance, each seemingly insignificant in themselves, can come together in a chain of events to create an event like this. Despite all our experience, we haven't totally quantified lightning, and there's certain to be rogue circumstances that could overwhelm any bonding or "hardening" system, even something as crucial as FBW.
Judging from the video, the Aeroflot crew were not flying anything like a stabilized approach at a normal angle. From the speed and deck angle, it looked like a no flap or min flap landing with a panicked attempt to drive the plane onto the rapidly diminishing remaining runway at too high a speed. This could have been poor training, inoperative equipment or instruments, inadequate procedures, or just plain panic. There's probably enough blame to spread around quite widely.
Cheers,
Wes
 
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This could have been poor training, inoperative equipment or instruments, inadequate procedures, or just plain panic. There's probably enough blame to spread around quite widely.
Just for grins, let's put ourselves in the cockpit. You're approaching glide slope intercept in heavy precip and turbulence, radar showing a storm cell in your 1 o'clock, flaps are on their way to 20°, when ZAPP!!. Your lights flicker, radar goes out with a flash, and warning and caution lights flash all over the cockpit. Your engine FADECs are zapped, so your standby engine controls can only give you approximate power settings, and slowly, and your flaps are stuck at 12°. Your glide slope needle is alive, so you quickly throw down the gear and reduce power as the needle fluctuates through an on glideslope indication, screaming at your crew for the appropriate checklists, as your MFDs have gone dark. On slope, your Vref is going to be higher because of your reduced flaps, and you quickly go high on the glideslope, so you quickly pull off a gob of power, but your slow standby controls take too long, so now you're high and fast, and you don't notice that the engine power has undershot your target setting and is too low. Now you plummet through the glideslope and "Betty" starts bitching "Glideslope, glideslope, PULL UP", and one of your struck dumb crewmembers wakes up and says "Airspeed!". You're 15 knots below your flap setting Vref, so you cram on some power, but again the response is slow and overshoots the target, and you pop out of the murk high and fast just as your baggage hold fire warning light comes on and the head FA rings the cockpit to warn "Fire in the aft compartment!". The rest we saw in the video.
 
I've been hit in flight something like 4 times now, once in my superb (my radio exploded) and 3 times in transports. After inspection the ancient aircraft (not FBW) only had the small entrance-exit holes.

I think in the Sukhoi 100 SJ incident there may have indeed been an issue related to a lightening strike disabling flight controls.

Landing and crash looks much like someone trying to land via using pitch trim.

A little info from Sukhoi on the FBW:

Now few words about the hardware. Since the FBW system does not include a mechanical backup, the reliability requirements are very high! For this we have to say "Thank You" to AR MAK, i am talking seriously. Take into account that this plane was designed to fit into a predefined price, so we had to make it cheap and sophisticated, that seems to be impossible. The Russian creative approach in conjunction with German thoroughness is it turned out, are able to create a miracle. I won't go into complete debris, just let you know that taking into account the cost/quality of modern processing units, a complete two level network is deployed on-board, with such a large number of computer nodes that it's not longer possible to talk about a per-channel backup in a traditional way.

In order to "knock out" such a system, it is necessary to destroy more than 70% of computers, which is almost impossible given their heterogeneous hardware and software. At the same time, due to the development of a technology in the microelectronics segment,our system is relatively cheap, and despite the fact that the number of processing units in it is more than in A320, the FBW cost is lower, having a higher reliability.
 
Part 25 regulations 25.203 to be exact on acceptable stall characteristics was the bug bear discovered in flight test that led to MCAS as a workaround.

The larger LEAP nacelles, positioned marginally more forward, at high AOA began to generate lift. What this did at high AOA was to move the center of lift forward and at a certain point cause a division from the requirements of FAR 25.203.

(a) It must be possible to produce and to correct roll and yaw by unreversed use of the aileron and rudder controls, up to the time the airplane is stalled. No abnormal nose-up pitching may occur. The longitudinal control force must be positive up to and throughout the stall. In addition, it must be possible to promptly prevent stalling and to recover from a stall by normal use of the controls.

Longitudinal (stick) force must be positive up to and throughout the stall. The movement of the Center of Lift caused a problem with meeting thins requirement. The fudge around was to have the AOA sensor tell the trim motor to trim against the pilots to provide increased stick force.

We know how that worked out!

Possibly a better system would have been a stick force augmenter (disconnect able). The 747 had an artificial feel system to add stick resistance with speed to give the pilots tactile feedback.
 
You got it right. I think there's more to come. Something is rotten in the kingdom of Renton. Quality control issues with the 737-800 series are starting to surface via long-suppressed whistle blowers fired by Boeing for commenting on "the emperor's clothes".
Now if they went to Cryptome or WikiLeaks, they'd have gotten the correct attention.
Listen, if Boeing, the supposed master of airliner technology can't get it right, what can you expect of a third world mafia kingdom masquerading as a super power?
That's a great description of Russia...
Airbus comes up smelling like a rose, despite the skeletons in their closets.
Which ones, I've lost track?
 
Self paced self administered training has its place but in critical engineering and aircrew training a live person who can work back to why you made a critical mistake is crucial. Maybe in this case it was appropriate but, until an audit of that training is completed, I will remain suspicious.
Crappy third world training definitely played a part here. The below article suggests that the Indonesian pilots in particular were shoddily trained in fast tracked pilot farms, meaning they had no ability to deal with failed systems of any circumstances out of the ordinary.

What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 Max?
 
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