Anybody else following the Boeing 737-Max fiasco ?

I have been following the Boeing 737 Max groundings, it has some pretty important ramifications for not just Boeing and aviation but aitomobile manufacturers but all forms of transport especially automous vehicles. From what I see Boeing released a system they knew wasn't up to the job and worse failed to properly inform the airline pilots and tech about the system --- !

There’s more redundancy and runaway protection on drive by wire throttle bodies than on keeping that thing in the air. Beyond that, like you said, pilot knowledge was a big fail too. Unbelievable

I think Lockheed uses 4 of those attack angle sensors

AvE on YouTube talked about this a bit while doing a tool tear down.



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Link to recent New York Times Article

I honestly can't decide whether I'm more appalled as a software developer or as a pilot...

The 737 out grew itself, I was working in airport ground facilities management in the the early 1990's when the second generation of 737 the 737 Classic was introduced. The weight had increased to such an extent from the 200 series that hard standing at the loading gates had to be ripped up and replaced by a surface with much deeper foundations. The next generation the NG increased both the weight and the fuselage length again as Boeing tried to fill the gap left by the 757.

The NG although way overstretched in the 800 version has a truly outstanding safety record.

Most of what I have to say was said in the comments of the NYT article. But I won't let that stop me.

There have been stick shakers and stick pushers on various airliners since I was a little boy. They are not strong enough to outpush a pilot, let alone two. But if you remove the MCAS description from the manual then I suppose it could catch a person by surprise. Not much room for error when you're close to the ground.

So help me, I can't back this up with any studies, but my experience has been that there is something about getting a bunch of alphas around a conference table that guarantees idiocy will prevail. I'd hate to see Boeing go under but I'm not sure they are going to get out from under this one unless they lead a good bit of their management to the gallows and commit to a major change in corporate culture.

Istr stick shakers and pusher date back to at lesst the 1960s. I am not sure who came up with idea but in the early 1960's a lot of new airliner types had T tails and were prone to lethal deep stall. In contrast to recent events those days the companies concerned went public and even shared data with direct competitors

Boeing must not go under, this applies equally well to Airbus, what concerns me is corporate attitude, Boeing has got used to having too much clout. Boeing completely beat Douglas and Lockheed out of the civil market, for a whole host of reasons as a result we have only two major players.
I remember travelling a lot for work in the 1970's long and short haul, mainly on Tridents, One-Elevens, DC-9, VC10 and 747 when on a journey to join a ship at Cape Town I flew a brand new SAA Airbus A300 instantly I realised that aircraft was a game changer.
It is now a two horse race Boeing v Airbus with Embraer and (until recently) Bombardier trying to get a foot hold.

Yeah, no disrespect, I agree that it would be horrible for Boeing to go under. I'm in the USA and I don't want this blow to the economy. And, as you point out, I also don't want Airbus to be the only game in town.

But so many planes are grounded that I don't see the airlines getting over this one for a long time.

And I honestly have never seen this much coverage of a problem outside of the aviation press, which few people read. If people refuse to fly on 737s then they are finished. In the 1950s de Havilland was set to dominate the new jet market with the Comet. After a few of them broke up in flight, the flying public steered away from the Comet and opened the door for the other manufacturers to catch up. And that was not a case of corporate greed and stupidity. It was an honest design error (square windows) that was relatively easy to correct.