737 max loses window

Took me a minute to spot but

I've taken a self-imposed holiday from a US based aviation forum, after getting told off for making a snarky post about Boeing and quality.
Apparently if you've never designed or built an airliner, you're not allowed to criticize a company that can manage to fit nearly all the required fasteners.
Don't forget that in December there was an urgent FAA warning to all 737 Max operators to check that the rudder was bolted on securely

If I hadn't taken a break, I'd definitely post those two pics there - and probably get flamed to death.

A very interesting read. Thanks for the correction.

As my post said, I knew that the MAX had pitch-up tendencies in stall/high AoA conditions but my (entirely 'armchair') understanding was that this was merely what made differ too much in handling from earlier 737s, not that it was outright against the certification standards.

Not really sure which is worse: Boeing fitting a janky and under-documented control augmentation system to the MAX to make it handle like its predecessors in order to save operators some money or Boeing fitting a janky and under-documented control augmentation system to the MAX to work around fundamentally poor aircraft behaviours.

In the early 2000s I used to frequent the airliners.net forums and there was a huge intra-forums bust-up when someone published what purported to be an open (but anonymous) letter by a group of Boeing engineers laying out their concerns about the company's declining in-house ability to properly engineer, develop, test and check its products. At the time this was in the context of the 7E7 project (what became the 787) but the letter laid the blame on managers and management practices inherited from the McDonnell Douglas merger (the letter noted that McDD was hardly the exemplar of sound engineering or project management in its declining years) and the rise of dividend-chasing and cost-cutting at Boeing Commercial generally in line with much of corporate America, especially the old Big Names in manufacturing, all infected with Jack Welch short-termism and seeing employees as burdens rather than assets. The letter noted that Boeing officially changed its corporate purpose from the unstated one which had carried it through the previous 70 years ("Making and selling desirable commercial aircraft on a for-profit basis") to a new, stated one of (something like) "complex systems integration". Apparently this was Boeing Commerical's core competency, so all others could be farmed out to subcontractors, only overseen at the highest level by an extremely small team of Boeing in-house engineers and project manager. Boeing no longer needed to keep the skills and knowledge and competency for, say, designing and building aircraft structures, in-house: Spirit, Mitsubishi, Leonardo, Hanjin etc. can do all that 'boring' stuff. Boeing can just use its core competency to get all these structures, components and systems sourced from subcontractors all over the world and slot them together in Seattle.

At the time the post was heavily dismissed as disloyal corporate grumbling, probably groundwork for union campaigns to protect jobs. The thread rumbled on and on for pages and pages with anti-Boeing, pro-Boeing and 'loved Boeing, now hate Boeing' factions emerging. Then the whole thing got locked down. IIRC the authenticity of the letter was never really proved even in general terms, and lots of posters who were (at least claimed to be) Boeing Commercial employees said that they did not recognise any of the issues or factors raised.

But I can't help remembering that letter now, when Boeing 737s have what the CEO calls 'quality escapes' for door plugs falling off in flight, need checks for loose bolts in the rudder, the MCAS debacle etc.

There's no doubting that there was a sea-change in Boeing management practices and styles after McDD came into the fold. And that Boeing Commercial has (like every major manufacturing industry in the same period) made heavy use of off-shoring and subcontractors and a preference to lean-out what skills and work it keeps in-house. But the two factors don't seem to mesh very well. Contrast with Airbus, which from Day One was a multi-national operation with delegated responsibilities between sites and partners, and that has only increased with globalisation. But it seems that, by and large, Toulouse has managed to keep a much tighter rein and a watchful eye on its satellites and contractors and doesn't seem to have divested all its in-house expertise to the extent that Boeing has.

I believe the MCAS was required because the engines were pushed forwards, which gave some undesireable flying characterists that MCAS was intended to alleviate. Appears to be a downside of amending an existing design rather than clean sheet.

As I understand it a part of that problem was they didn't document it nor train pilots on what it did, why it was needed, when it may engage, what effect it has on the aircraft. Airlines couldn't write their operational procedures with it in mind (which pilots are expected to comply with), pilots may have undertaken training but were not made aware of it.

Kinda important to tell a pilot about something that may take over control of the aircraft.

I see the Boeing CEO has said there was a "quality escape" that was the cause of the door incident..

Seattle Times article here with some diagrams. Also mentions that NTSB do not think the depressurisation events the aircraft encountered prior to the incident are related.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aeros...

Amusing video, &not to defend Boeings incompetence, but the reality is that the aviation industry has always been held to a far higher standard than the maritime world. That's just how it is.

Amusingly that bloke flies Airbuses.

So PH...

Of course there were loose bolts - they'd lost the Allen key.

Surely they can both add DEI and perform their duties safely. Not every role in the FAA is going to be safety critical, after all - they’ve got to have tons of back office staff…

Can’t say I find anything in the article particularly worrying. It seems to be a Fox / Musk “anti-woke” load of nonsense.