Air Current story that MCAS was not needed on the 737 Max

Oldmanb777 said:
Who was the airline that drove the max. Wanting another 737, instead of a much better updated 757. But the devil is in cheaper seats. Always cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. No value in air transportation, so it needs to be cheaper. That's where it all started, and it all went down hill from there.
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Southwest, United, American, you name it. They all have large 737 fleets and want to keep the same type rating just with a newer more efficient airplane. Not as many 757 operators or pilots around, so a new 757 may just as well be a clean sheet airplane.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Not as many 757 operators or pilots around, so a new 757 may just as well be a clean sheet airplane.
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Setting aside the type rating issue and looking only at development costs, a clean sheet design will almost always be far more expensive to develop and certify than mods to an existing design, particularly one that is still in production. If it's not practical or possible to modify a configuration to meet the requirements, then a new design is warranted. Yes, I realize the 757 is no longer in production.

Nauga,
stretchy
 
nauga said:
Setting aside the type rating issue and looking only at development costs, a clean sheet design will almost always be far more expensive to develop and certify than mods to an existing design, particularly one that is still in production. If it's not practical or possible to modify a configuration to meet the requirements, then a new design is warranted. Yes, I realize the 757 is no longer in production.

Nauga,
stretchy
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My comment was intended from the airline's point of view. Bringing a new 757 into service for an airline would require re-typing a large group of pilots, which is expensive and time consuming. Much easier to bring in a newer shinier version of an existing platform. Which is why this problem was created in the first place. The airlines aren't concerned about the development side of things except what it adds to the acquisition cost.
 
midwestpa24 said:
The airlines aren't concerned about the development side of things except what it adds to the acquisition cost.
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I agree with everything you said in your last post. You might also say that they aren't concerned by a new type rating except for what it adds to the operating cost. ;)

Nauga,
and two sides of the same coin
 
As a passenger (self loading cargo) I like the 757. It has always been a comfortable ride (as long as the legroom is adequate - think UA E+).
 
midwestpa24 said:
Not as many 757 operators or pilots around, so a new 757 may just as well be a clean sheet airplane.
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The 757 is too heavy. Performance and range is great but few routes need it.

A 737-9 MAX carries roughly the same number of passengers as a 757-200 but the 757-200 burns 60% more fuel. No airline is going to choose that.
 
I’ve long thought it odd that I would need 50 hours of dual in type to be insurable in the ASEL PA-46, but the airlines found enough value in the 737 type rating qualifying pilots to fly the Max that it was better for Boeing to put in weird auto-trim software than to deliver a new type.
 
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It is really time for Boeing to come out with a new design to replace the old 737. Just adding more seats to the basic old design obviously didn't work out very well. They could call it "Hopefully this Crashes Less Often".
 
kayoh190 said:
The plane makes the airlines money, and the pilots that fly them (including me) think it’s safe. And with Boeing’s changes and the huge amount of scrutiny an argument can be made that it’s now the safest airliner flying. I don’t begrudge my airline for sticking with it.
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Any passengers that refuse to fly on the MAX don't have very good awareness or comprehension skills. Not only has the aircraft been subjected to the most thorough engineering review in the history of aviation, every pilot that flies it has undergone rigorous simulator training.
 
YKA said:
It is really time for Boeing to come out with a new design to replace the old 737. Just adding more seats to the basic old design obviously didn't work out very well. They could call it "Hopefully this Crashes Less Often".
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Hasn't worked out well? More than 10,500 737s have been built since 1966. Over 7,000 of those are Next Generation 737s built since 1993. You know, the ones with additional seats. The fleet has surpassed 300 million flight hours.

Statisticians won't be surprised that 737s are involved in many commercial aircraft losses, they make up over 30% of the worldwide commercial fleet and fly more hours than any other variant.

I guess someone has to provide the uninformed comments that appear in internet forums. It may as well be you.
 
AlphaMike said:
Yeah, probably right. People would start to board and think "wow this looks like a new plane" then sit down and see the safety card and read 737 max, "Ohhh Helllll nooo!" and get back off. :)
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I would get off if the safety card said Lion Air or Ethiopian Airlines.
 
3393RP said:
Hasn't worked out well? More than 10,500 737s have been built since 1966. Over 7,000 of those are Next Generation 737s built since 1993. You know, the ones with additional seats. The fleet has surpassed 300 million flight hours.

Statisticians won't be surprised that 737s are involved in many commercial aircraft losses, they make up over 30% of the worldwide commercial fleet and fly more hours than any other variant.

I guess someone has to provide the uninformed comments that appear in internet forums. It may as well be you.
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Exactly my point, it's 55 years old, time for a new model.
 
Ghery said:
As a passenger (self loading cargo) I like the 757. It has always been a comfortable ride (as long as the legroom is adequate - think UA E+).
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The 757 always looked like a cheetah to me, skinny body on tall legs. I heard it was so the cockpit height matched the 67 so both could be flown on the same type rating.
 
When I was graduating from college, the 757 and 767 were in development. The 767 was predicted to require a pitch augmentation system to maintain controllability in all regimes. GE up in Elmyra was working on it at the time (along with the autothrottles). I interviewed there at the time and the comment that if the two redundant systems couldn't agree, the error would be written in NVRAM for recovery from the wreckage. I was relieved to find that a couple of years later (while working for a different aerospace company) that the flight testing had decided that the passenger versions weren't going to require it (though the tanker variants did end up using it).
 
YKA said:
Exactly my point, it's 55 years old, time for a new model.
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Why? About the ONLY thing that is 55 years old on it is the shape. Everything else has been updated and modernized over the years.
 
YKA said:
It is really time for Boeing to come out with a new design to replace the old 737.
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In general, Boeing was developing a clean sheet aircraft called the NMA. And they bet the bank the market, i.e., the airlines, would wait for it. Then Airbus came out with the NEO and the market shifted to the NEO to include long term Boeing customer American Airlines. Enter the MAX 8, then the MAX 9 to compete with the NEO or risk losing market share for the NMA. Boeing took it one step further and had the MAX 10 in the pipe with its unique telescoping landing gear. The market controls the OEM not the other way around. Just ask Airbus how their A380 model is working out.;)
 
iamtheari said:
I’ve long thought it odd that I would need 50 hours of dual in type to be insurable in the ASEL PA-46, but the airlines found enough value in the 737 type rating qualifying pilots to fly the Max that it was better for Boeing to put in weird auto-trim software than to deliver a new type.
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Every stretched version of each type airliner out there has some weird bandaids incorporated to accommodate the stretch.
 
iamtheari said:
it was better for Boeing to put in weird auto-trim software than to deliver a new type.
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The 737 has had "weird auto-trim" software for decades. It's the Speed Trim System and auto-trims many dozens of times on every flight. MCAS is an additional function added to the STS software. The Douglas DC8 and DC9 had pitch-trim/Mach-trim compensator systems which put pressure on the control yoke at higher Mach speeds. Some transports have stick-pusher systems that violently push the yokes down, so hard that it rips the control wheel out of the pilot's hands, as they approach a stall. Many transports, more than not, have artificial feel systems which fake the "feel" of air loads on the controls. Concorde and the MD11 had trim fuel tanks in the tail and would pump fuel in/out of them to change the CG during different phases of flight. MCAS in the 737 is not unique.

YKA said:
It is really time for Boeing to come out with a new design to replace the old 737
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They spent quite a bit of time presenting ideas for new designs to their customers. The customers didn't want to wait for it or to pay what it would have cost. Airlines wanted the MAX for it's commonality with existing 737 fleets and its best-in-class per-seat efficiency.

Boeing's mistake was in classifying the risk associated with unscheduled MCAS activation in flight. It was classified in a lower category, which allowed the separate channel operation, based on the assumption that crews encountering the failure would apply the Runaway Stabilizer procedure which, when applied, works. The first crew (Lion Air incident flight) to encounter an unscheduled MCAS event did (eventually) apply the correct procedure and landed safely. The second (Lion Air accident flight) and third (Ethiopian) did not.

Also, none of those three incidents was the result of a failure of an aircraft component. The two Lion Air incidents (same airplane) were the result of Lion Air installing an unairworthy AoA sensor (improperly overhauled). The Ethiopian flight had a bird strike which detached the AoA vane from the AoA sender immediately after liftoff.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
That’s the kind of thinking that scares spouses all over the world.
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Seriously, my wife would rather get a LSA than a 60's-70's vintage Cherokee 140 or 180 because she "doesn't want a plane older than we are." And she doesn't even know about the wing issue on some PA28's.
 
Jeff767 said:
Every stretched version of each type airliner out there has some weird bandaids incorporated to accommodate the stretch.
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Even when they stretched the King Air into the Beech 1900D and put random pieces of sheet metal all over it like a kid building something out of cardboard :eek:
 
I'm just happy they are going to emphasize training on these modified 737s and MCAS to prevent future problems.

For some reason, this reminds me of the opposite issues with the A300-600 rudder incident where the simulators emphasized hard right and left rudder to get out of specific situations. This training ultimately trained the pilots to overreact and lose their rudder.
 
Bill said:
The 757 always looked like a cheetah to me, skinny body on tall legs. I heard it was so the cockpit height matched the 67 so both could be flown on the same type rating.
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Pretty sure cockpit height being tied to a common type rating was not a driving factor. Shorter gear legs = dragging engines across the concrete.
 
Busflyer said:
Pretty sure cockpit height being tied to a common type rating was not a driving factor. Shorter gear legs = dragging engines across the concrete.
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I heard it was because if the gear legs were any shorter the wheels wouldn't reach the ground. ;)

Nauga,
MOTO
 
nauga said:
I heard it was because if the gear legs were any shorter the wheels wouldn't reach the ground. ;)

Nauga,
MOTO
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And it takes full power to taxi. Messy.
 
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