OAN:
(Reuters) – Boeing Co has made corrections to simulator software that mimics the flying experience of its 737 MAX jets, which were involved in two fatal crashes, and the company has provided additional information to device operators, a spokesman said on Friday.
The spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said the changes will ensure that the simulator experience is representative across different flight conditions and will improve the simulation of force loads on the manual trim wheel that helps control the airplane.
The comments came after the New York Times on Friday reported that Boeing recently discovered that the flight simulators airlines use to train pilots could not adequately replicate conditions that played a role in the 737 MAX crashes.
“Boeing is working closely with the device manufacturers and regulators on these changes and improvements, and to ensure that customer training is not disrupted,” Johndroe said. more here
Wonder how many people are going to want to fly on one of these after they reenter service?
Sort of like volunteering for a dangerous mission, IMO. Not something everyone will enjoy doing.
A spokesman with the name: Johndroe?
Lemme see yer toe-tag.
I wonder if China is going to drop Boeing for Airbus during this trade war… ? Sort of a perfect storm against Boeing…
I can see a funny SNL skit about the ‘updated’ simulator version.
Well, if SNL were still funny anyway.
737 Max is now probably the safest commercial plane in the sky. I’d rather fly in one instead of anything built by Airbus.
And by the way, Airbus is a stupid name for an aircraft company. Even though airline travel for us peons has become too much like the Grayhound experience, I don’t need to have it rubbed in my face.
In the 70s the music store at which I worked had a customer who worked at Boeing. He told us he would find a cubbyhole in the airplane he was working on and would sleep all day. When the company promoted him to a new job where he couldn’t find a sleeping space he quit.
They knew there were issues and thought it
was not a big problem. They actually were
greedy enough to try to sell the fix for it
as an “upgrade”. I wonder if the ass(s) who
thought that up still have a job after all
the deaths and billions in lost contracts.
The simulators are actually quite safe as there have been no fatalities reported during their use.😉
MCAS itself – as a concept – is a fricken disaster, as is the MAX’s design history. Fixing the stupid software is one thing, but making the system electro-mechanically redundant and safe is another. I will not fly in one.
The “problem” was a cultural problem. Our pilots are not concerned , they know how to fly the airplane.
In the old days the phrase used to be “if it ain’t Boeing, I’m not going.”
Today? Not so much….
My dad used to be a bigwig at FAA and our family was fixing to fly to a vacation spot. But as we walked down the boarding ramp, dad took one look out the window and saw it was a Scarebus. He turned us all around, marched us back up the ramp to the gate, flipped open his FAA identification to the gate agent and said ” put us on another flight. There is no way my family is getting on that deathtrap.”
The idea for the system was to minimize its intrusion into the airplane’s controls and sensors, in order to make it simple enough to not requre retraining of pilots. There is only one sensor for the system – this is the only system on the plane that does not have redundancy.
The push to get the new 737 into the market was akin to the space shuttle being pushed into fast-track use despite the seal problem. We saw how both these ideas worked.
The fix for the 737 software is now simple: if the plane goes into a sudden dive, all the pilot has to do is hold down the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys for seven seconds, at the prompt: hit ‘enter’; then type the passcode (q3wljaoi7979sdfouewoj-98g7yhumok#$%); if the plane has not crashed into the groud yet, hit ‘enter’.
See? Simple solution.
I work at Boeing. Except for those in storage, every aircraft in production has a lot of people on board. There aren’t any places to hide and sleep. Not where you could get comfortable.
It would be easier to sleep in a bathroom stall… but I haven’t seen that since the 80s at McDonnell Douglas.
Every big company suffers from executives out of touch with activities on the ground. You can always find detractors who will say the executives pushed to launch a product, and that shortcuts were made… and indeed they often are. But the executives may have no awareness of it due to all the layers of management. Boeing isn’t getting rich off their products. It can easily take more than 1000 sales to recoup the cost of development. So, it’s more accurate to say that executives push for certification to keep from going broke, rather than to bathe in riches.
I’m an engineer. I can tell you that the company’s production process suffers plenty from inefficiency caused by layer upon layer of procedures and specifications. The employees who build these jets in Everett and Renton are (in my experience with many of them) very serious about the quality of the product they produce. That said, the ensemble of systems and processes and software can certainly find some sequence of events to create a crisis.
I will fly the MAX without hesitation… as long as it isn’t departing out of Ethiopia.
I flew the 737-200/300 and the 767-200/300/400 for many years with a major airline. I’m up to speed on the 737 Max issue. While there are side issues about the training, the fact is both MAX accidents were the result of pilot error and poor pilot training.
As stated above, the MAX is safe in the hands of all well trained pilots.
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/398764-vaughn-cordle-cfa/5290930-boeing-737-max-8-crashes-case-pilot-error?fbclid=IwAR3hZ0ybllF0ZCZuPqf7C5HSl2QQNN1skLWrCJ4Kt0c5ZUh6odUw7mc7xFM