Inside the Boeing 737 MAX Scandal That Rocked Aviation | WSJ

rcdancer · Mar 11, 2020

AH-1G · Mar 11, 2020

It is/was about money and still is satisfying their stock holders.

rcdancer · Mar 13, 2020

There are lessons hopefully learned here for the rest of industry about foolishly shifting focus from engineering to Wall Street. It’s bizarre how there are almost no engineering degrees on the Boeing Board (finance, hedge fund, etc.) Bloomberg's take ...

AH-1G · Mar 13, 2020

Hopefully Boeing will get back on course, but in my view it will take decades to get there.
By or Buy the way at 4:33 in the video they misspelled "Crazy", they spelled it"craxy". Must have been thick fingers????

R.Perry · Mar 15, 2020

If I understand correctly the new engines changed the CG of the aircraft and they only used one sensor to correct the nose up tendency. Normally flight systems don't depend on just one sensor but multiple sensors for the same purpose. Reason being if you have one of the sensors fail you don't lose the input needed for the flight computer.

What really got me is Boeing decided they didn't need to inform the pilots, that is nuts. I'm wondering if the pilots could have disengaged the flight computer fast enough and took control if they could have leveled the aircraft quick enough.

Here again, inadequate pilot training and pilots depending on the flight computers.
Very sad for all the people lost.

AH-1G · Mar 15, 2020

It seems in my opinion education is teaching to rely on computers, rather than you as individual processing information, evaluating and coming to a conclusion.
Granted computers are a help, however, you start to second guess yourself, "who's right, me or the computer"? Scary thought!???
@R.Perry, you are correct, your statements, about redundancy and lack of transparency
Boeing shot themselves in the foot several times, I guess the first few attempts didn't hurt enough. Their character and ethical status is at stake if not has diminished considerably.

R.Perry · Mar 15, 2020

Here is a link to how the pilots could have saved both aircraft.

What are the checklist items for a runaway stab trim on a B737 MAX 8 and MAX 9?

This is a follow up question to this question. This question is not directly related to the MCAS system in the new B737 MAX aircraft, instead, my question is about the checklist for a runaway stab...

aviation.stackexchange.com

All they needed to do was disengage the MCAS computer then trim the aircraft. If the pilots had been taught this procedure that only takes a few seconds they could have taken control of the aircraft and trimmed it out.

After looking at the new motors, I wonder if the problem isn't a CG issue as much as the thrust angle of the motors, but I'm no aeronautical engineer so it is just a question.

AH-1G · Mar 15, 2020

Yes a simple procedure that could have been done.

However one of my closest friend is a retired airline pilot, also taught pilots to fly 747's and Airbus 320's. One fact he learned, in many countries, you go by the book and do not deviate at anytime, or pilots will loose their job.

He mentioned he avoids fling those commercial airline companies at all cost. ?

I'm wondering with a very hard left or right bank 35° to 50° would it have helped with nose down (temporarily putting the plane into a slight circle, and then try to level out. This might have helped discover other options to fly the plane.
it's a given when turning any plane gravity wins, no matter how slight of a turn.
For me I would like to use a simulator trying this scenario.

My buddy did nod his head with raised eyebrows. ?

R.Perry · Mar 15, 2020

One thing about talking to pilots, is many times that all have different opinions. One of the problems with an airliner going into a nose down attitude is how fast they build up speed. Remember most airliners below 15000 feet are to remain at 250 mph or less. Put that into a nose down attitude and you can exceed that in a heartbeat.

Lets be honest, no matter what we are flying we have become use to letting auto fly. Set your heading, altitude and put auto in the drivers seat. With the larger aircraft you also have throttle control so you also set your airspeed.

To me, flying has become too automated, but I'm and old school kind of person, and that isn't what aviation is about today.

SWA Pilot · Jan 5, 2021

R.Perry said:
One thing about talking to pilots, is many times that all have different opinions. One of the problems with an airliner going into a nose down attitude is how fast they build up speed. Remember most airliners below 15000 feet are to remain at 250 mph or less. Put that into a nose down attitude and you can exceed that in a heartbeat.

Lets be honest, no matter what we are flying we have become use to letting auto fly. Set your heading, altitude and put auto in the drivers seat. With the larger aircraft you also have throttle control so you also set your airspeed.

To me, flying has become too automated, but I'm and old school kind of person, and that isn't what aviation is about today.

Old thread I just found....good discussion. The Max is back flying. Next month I’ll be back on it. In my opinion....you and previous are spot on on many of the problems. There are a lot of things that contributed to those 2 mishaps. But bottomline....pilots need to be able to fly the airplane when automation, maintenance, or management fails. Same with UAV flying.....hope for the best....plan/practice for the worst.

Lokinator · Sep 25, 2022

R.Perry said:
One thing about talking to pilots, is many times that all have different opinions. One of the problems with an airliner going into a nose down attitude is how fast they build up speed. Remember most airliners below 15000 feet are to remain at 250 mph or less. Put that into a nose down attitude and you can exceed that in a heartbeat.

Lets be honest, no matter what we are flying we have become use to letting auto fly. Set your heading, altitude and put auto in the drivers seat. With the larger aircraft you also have throttle control so you also set your airspeed.

To me, flying has become too automated, but I'm and old school kind of person, and that isn't what aviation is about today.

Couldnt have said it better. The Boeing thing was a true tragedy. So many errors in my opinion, only 1 sensor, lack of informing the pilots, relabeling the system so they didnt HAVE to train the pilots. Can you imagine the terror of the pilots and passengers? I feel for all of them and their families. Can you imagine being a pilot with all those lives in your hands and you cant figure out why the plane is doing something you didn't expect and have a short time to figure it out. There's several good documentaries on this topic.