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thewayneEd Clark had been in charge of the Max program for almost three years. He came up through the ranks and had been with Boeing for 18 years, having previously been chief engineer and chief 737 mechanic. He knows the plane.
This is purely sacrificial, a move by the board to appease investors. There was also a shuffling of directors and the creation of a new director position. See: Titanic and deck chair rearrangement. If they don't stop putting shareholder return above safety, it's not going to do a damn thing to improve the situation. Clark was not the reason those bolts weren't there, it was the board's drive for money by more rapidly pushing the planes out the door and increasing deliverables. Also a crappy ticketing system.
And this is what the board is trying to appease: "Beyond the problems that have resulted in the grounding of the 737 Max 8 and Max 9 after the incidents, the problems at Boeing have also postponed certification of two new versions of the jet, the Max 7 and a stretched version, the Max 10.
The CEOs of three key Boeing customers – United Airlines, Southwest and Delta Air Lines – have recently all said they no longer are counting on getting those new versions of the planes they had ordered anytime soon. United CEO Scott Kirby referred to the Alaska Air incident as the “straw that broke the camel’s back” in terms of his airline’s planning assumptions for the Max 10." Southwest's entire fleet is almost 100% 737. They did this to standardize maintenance operations. If Southwest is willing to break that up, that's seriously bad news for Boeing.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/boeing-removes-head-of-737-max-program-in-wake-of-safety-incidents/index.html
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/02/24/0553215/boeing-removes-head-of-its-737-max-program-after-januarys-door-bolts-incident
This is purely sacrificial, a move by the board to appease investors. There was also a shuffling of directors and the creation of a new director position. See: Titanic and deck chair rearrangement. If they don't stop putting shareholder return above safety, it's not going to do a damn thing to improve the situation. Clark was not the reason those bolts weren't there, it was the board's drive for money by more rapidly pushing the planes out the door and increasing deliverables. Also a crappy ticketing system.
And this is what the board is trying to appease: "Beyond the problems that have resulted in the grounding of the 737 Max 8 and Max 9 after the incidents, the problems at Boeing have also postponed certification of two new versions of the jet, the Max 7 and a stretched version, the Max 10.
The CEOs of three key Boeing customers – United Airlines, Southwest and Delta Air Lines – have recently all said they no longer are counting on getting those new versions of the planes they had ordered anytime soon. United CEO Scott Kirby referred to the Alaska Air incident as the “straw that broke the camel’s back” in terms of his airline’s planning assumptions for the Max 10." Southwest's entire fleet is almost 100% 737. They did this to standardize maintenance operations. If Southwest is willing to break that up, that's seriously bad news for Boeing.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/boeing-removes-head-of-737-max-program-in-wake-of-safety-incidents/index.html
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/02/24/0553215/boeing-removes-head-of-its-737-max-program-after-januarys-door-bolts-incident
no subject
Date: 2024-02-25 07:12 pm (UTC)You can claim one boltless door is an accident; you can, apparently, remediate things in manufacturing (like painting over missing rivets) that'd be a federal crime if done as part of maintenance. But if they've got proof you shipped multiple boltless-door equivalents, it can't be considered accidental.
Those CEOs almost certainly know what is in each other's post-door inspection reports; they absolutely know what is in their own.
It's quite possible that the FAA is going to decertify Boeing, and this is effectively advance positioning.
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Date: 2024-02-25 07:13 pm (UTC)You just know that the Airbus sales force is looking at some really nice bonus checks in the near future.
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Date: 2024-02-25 07:21 pm (UTC)Airbus is maxed out on production and is subject to laws that force them to stop selling most of their current inventory by 2030.
A Boeing decertification would produce a global widebody aircraft shortage more than it would help Airbus.
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Date: 2024-02-25 07:25 pm (UTC)I had not heard this about Airbus! Is their permits on current frames expiring and they have to produce new models, or what?
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Date: 2024-02-25 07:36 pm (UTC)It's EU climate change legislation; minimum engine efficiency, effectively, though I think the law is written in terms of CO2 per passenger kilometer. So effectively permit expiry on the current airframes.
And you can't generally fix efficiency without changing engine family and the more efficient engine families from both GE and Rolls Royce are behind schedule. Plus we've just found out that it's really hard to do that when there's a change in nacelle diameter involved. There's rumblings that Airbus is looking at a propjet, basically an unducted turbofan. (Remember the 7J7? Boeing was looking at this some time ago, and the engine makers couldn't do it at the time.)
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Date: 2024-02-26 07:58 pm (UTC)Interesting. I thought it might have had something to do with Brexit, this makes a lot more sense. I suspect there will have to be an exemption until the engine makers can catch up. I know in Europe, there's a lot of turboprop planes in use for short distance commuter runs, but that won't work nearly as well for trans-Atlantic distances.
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Date: 2024-02-26 08:13 pm (UTC)To a first approximation, turbofan engine efficiency is a function of the bypass ratio, which is the ratio between the hot fast air going through the gas turbine and the cold slow air going through the fans but not the turbine.
The unducted prop engines (modern high-efficiency turbofans are effectively ducted props) get you a much higher bypass ratio than you can with a ducted turbofan in a nacelle; the historical problem was the noise. (Spin the prop blade tips at supersonic speeds and the noise is a hazard; see the XF-84H under "Noise". But even subsonic props can be a problem, where ducted turbofans use the nacelle for sound damping.) Modern banana-blade props can mostly mitigate this.
There are people making public statements about a 30% efficiency gain between unducted turbofans and new wing technologies (generally longer, higher aspect ratio, and bendy); that's a very large deal as mature as airliner technologies are.
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Date: 2024-02-26 01:02 am (UTC)With respect to the FAA actually taking strong action against Boeing - one of Boeing's subtiers that my factory provides material to explicitly requires its suppliers to identify the political district associated with each factory address. The instant any action is rumoured, there will no doubt be auto-generated lobbying letters to $Politician alerting them to the upcoming job loss in $District if they do not rein in the FAA.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-26 01:07 am (UTC)There's a lot of paperwork saying everything is correct; if it's not correct, Boeing is breaking at least some laws. If it's frequently incorrect, there's no "oops" defense. It becomes impossible to preserve the impression that there's meaningful regulation without some enforcement action.
Most congresspeople have to fly a lot for their job. They are obliged to care about the safety regs. Plus "the door flew off" was unspeakably bad optics after the 737 Max crashes.
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Date: 2024-02-26 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-26 08:05 pm (UTC)And there have been more than one congresscritter, over time, that have died in airplane crashes. Most recently, IIRC, was an Alaskan politician within the last decade or so.
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Date: 2024-02-26 08:04 pm (UTC)McDonnel-Douglas did this with the F-35: almost every congressional district has a supplier of some sort for this program!
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Date: 2024-02-26 12:50 am (UTC)Perhaps it's the board that needs to be sacrificed. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon
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Date: 2024-02-26 08:01 pm (UTC)Oh, there's no doubt! The entire board should be sacked, but that's not going to happen. It will be lower heads that roll, such as Ed's.
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Date: 2024-02-27 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-02-28 07:29 am (UTC)