Boeing 737s Grounded

Tantalum said:
I can forgive people for not knowing the difference in AWD vs true 4WD.. but do people really not know that sending power to all four wheels will NOT help you slow down..
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Yes, there are people that really do not know this. A girl once told me that her boyfriend told her to buy an all wheel drive so she would never have to worry about driving on an icy road.

I saw a BMW on a snow covered road go off an iced over bridge and into the ditch. These people were driving at highway speed and were really surprised to learn that ice is slippery no matter what vehicle is driven on it. Car was totaled but the occupants were uninjured.
 
So here's my take on automation and I'll run with the automotive analogies: it's all in the implementation.

I've had several vehicles with traction control that I felt was pointless or even made the vehicle worse.

I had a 98 Crown Victoria and I had a few incidents where, while turning right onto a busy street a little bit of gravel caused some wheel slippage and the system did what it's designed to do- cut power and apply brakes. It just so happened it was hitting my brakes and cutting my power while I was turning onto a road with traffic barreling down on me that I needed to be accelerating away from. I actually permanently disabled that system because it did't really help anything and made situations like that more dangerous.

Years ago in our 2010 Outback, my wife backed into a snowbank while leaving home for work and got stuck. Couldn't deal with it until I got home from work... before I got my truck to tow it out I just tried getting in to see if I could drive it free- again the traction control was detecting wheel slippage and hitting brakes/cutting power. I hit the disable button and easily drove the Outback out of the snowbank unassisted. This system again doesn't really give you any improvement over active driving but it doesn't get in the way much either except in scenarios like this so I didn't disable it... but it seems pointless for anyone who knows how to drive.

So then there's my 2012 F-150... when I bought this truck given my previous traction control experiences I expected it to be crap and want it off. So I played with it a bit and it didn't give me a problem. I tried climbing an icy hill in 2WD and to my shock the system worked! It found it's way and clawed up that hill when I'm fairly certain I couldn't have done that without it. I even tried flooring it from a stop on an icy road- just outright stupidly jamming the gas to the floor. The truck just moved forward... straight forward and steady. The traction control in that truck works, I've never turned it off other than to just experiment.

The new(then) Ford systems assisted me as the driver in doing what I was trying to do and didn't get in my way. I can easily and quickly disable the system if it is a problem. That's what you need automation to do- it should never override the human just assist and be easy to shut off. The truth is these things do work faster than humanly possible and can accomplish things pure driver(or pilot) skill can't but the software needs to be done right. I absolutely welcome these things when they are well designed and implemented.
 
Tantalum said:
..heads up, I'm about to dork out.. but I'm actually happy you shared that.. below:

*there are many situations in which ABS is actually NOT your friend.. but typically this comes to finer surfaces.. like sugary sand, etc. In my experience, certain snow conditions also get better stopping power when you let the wheels lock up and DIG IN so to speak

I've experimented with this too.. in the FJ coming down a soft sugar sand hill you are basically not able to stop in 2WD since the ABS keeps the wheels turning and down you go.. however, if you lock your diffs and go to 4WD and pull the hand brake (which usually activate just rear axle) then I can come to fast and quick stop.. since the wheels dig in. Back in Boston in fresh or deep snow I found the same to be true there too. In fact, I've talked with some off roaders who have found ways to disable ABS (via toggle) for situations of sand, gravel, certain types of snow, etc.

In the video above, I believe that's what we're seeing.. with the 4WD system on we're effectively disabling the ABS by locking the wheels together and letting them dig in more. You can see on the video.. the car with all four tires locked stops faster than the car that has the ABS cycling

In general though.. short of tech gimmicks.. and especially in AWD (read, not 4WD) car like most lux SUVs.. the all wheel drive component will not help

Personally I loathe ABS.. it's a nanny state invention designed for incompetent drivers. If I could buy my cars without ABS I would.
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I agree that ABS do not help with stopping distance in snow, but these Jeeps do not have ABS. This was all just due to 4WD. here is another video that makes that clearer

https://jalopnik.com/heres-the-confusing-difference-between-braking-in-2wd-a-1822351916
 
cowman said:
So here's my take on automation and I'll run with the automotive analogies: it's all in the implementation.

I've had several vehicles with traction control that I felt was pointless or even made the vehicle worse.

I had a 98 Crown Victoria and I had a few incidents where, while turning right onto a busy street a little bit of gravel caused some wheel slippage and the system did what it's designed to do- cut power and apply brakes. It just so happened it was hitting my brakes and cutting my power while I was turning onto a road with traffic barreling down on me that I needed to be accelerating away from. I actually permanently disabled that system because it did't really help anything and made situations like that more dangerous.

Years ago in our 2010 Outback, my wife backed into a snowbank while leaving home for work and got stuck. Couldn't deal with it until I got home from work... before I got my truck to tow it out I just tried getting in to see if I could drive it free- again the traction control was detecting wheel slippage and hitting brakes/cutting power. I hit the disable button and easily drove the Outback out of the snowbank unassisted. This system again doesn't really give you any improvement over active driving but it doesn't get in the way much either except in scenarios like this so I didn't disable it... but it seems pointless for anyone who knows how to drive.

So then there's my 2012 F-150... when I bought this truck given my previous traction control experiences I expected it to be crap and want it off. So I played with it a bit and it didn't give me a problem. I tried climbing an icy hill in 2WD and to my shock the system worked! It found it's way and clawed up that hill when I'm fairly certain I couldn't have done that without it. I even tried flooring it from a stop on an icy road- just outright stupidly jamming the gas to the floor. The truck just moved forward... straight forward and steady. The traction control in that truck works, I've never turned it off other than to just experiment.

The new(then) Ford systems assisted me as the driver in doing what I was trying to do and didn't get in my way. I can easily and quickly disable the system if it is a problem. That's what you need automation to do- it should never override the human just assist and be easy to shut off. The truth is these things do work faster than humanly possible and can accomplish things pure driver(or pilot) skill can't but the software needs to be done right. I absolutely welcome these things when they are well designed and implemented.
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Things are not exactly great or useless with TC or stability systems. The standard answer is it depends. They work well in most conditions and make life worse(if you are stuck) in other conditions.. but consider this from a decade or so ago:

 
Talk about thread drift. I had to check to see if I clicked on the right thread.

Came here to see the newest information on the 737 groundings and am currently getting a 400 level course in automotive design...
 
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Zeldman said:
I saw a BMW on a snow covered road
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BMWs are notoriously bad in snow.. their XDrive system flat out sucks. Clarkson did a review of it.. the mud and snow part start around 4 minutes in. My sister has a '17 X5 and the '98 Jetta drives better in the snow.. oh well

 
Matthew said:
I thought I read the pilot said he was returning because of a problem.

If there was some sort of bad airspeed indication, combined with a turn back to the airport, combined with essentially a single-pilot operation on that flight, combined with the extra stress of having a problem, that seems like a formula setting up for forgetting to "fly the airplane".

I wonder if there will be an expedited investigation since this has become such an international incident for Boeing and a lot of aviation administrations.
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Think I heard that the FO had only 200 hours. Really?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Zeldman said:
Yes, there are people that really do not know this. A girl once told me that her boyfriend told her to buy an all wheel drive so she would never have to worry about driving on an icy road.

I saw a BMW on a snow covered road go off an iced over bridge and into the ditch. These people were driving at highway speed and were really surprised to learn that ice is slippery no matter what vehicle is driven on it. Car was totaled but the occupants were uninjured.
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I’ve had a BMW and a MB, both were terrible on the snow


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
From what I have been able to glean from news reports and interview of pilots and engineers, it appears that information about how the MCAS functions and could fail was not communicated to pilots in the US until after the Lion Air crash. I don't know what documentation of MCAS and its potential fault conditions and emergency procedures were communicated to aviation authorities in other countries. US pilots were reportedly rather angry that essential operational information of the 737 Max series, differing from other 737 models, was not shared with them.

It's too early to know if the MCAS was a contributing factor in the Ethiopia crash. However, if the MCAS system is implicated, I would expect there to be requirements to modify the software to minimize this failure mode as well as clearer training and communication about failure modes and emergency procedures to handle them before returning the aircraft to service. I'd hate to think that the airlines were involved in an unintentional beta-test of flight control safety systems.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Talk about thread drift. I had to check to see if I clicked on the right thread.

Came here to see the newest information on the 737 groundings and am currently getting a 400 level course in automotive design...
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We are just talking about traction control, we haven't gotten to drifting yet.......

th
 
Sluggo63 said:
Came here to see the newest information on the 737 groundings and am currently getting a 400 level course in automotive design...
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...and a Kiddie Kollege level course in forensic engineering. :rolleyes:

Nauga,
from where a miss is as good as a mile
 
Tantalum said:
In my relatively low hour count (<1000) I've had three different issues with trim issues.. each time mind you on Pipers
1.) scariest: the yoke trim button got physically stuck when I trimmed down for cruise.. the trim wheel went full nose down. I had about 75 hrs.. so man forced it and flew an ugly approach and landed
-in hindsight yes I know I could have untoggled the elec trim switch.. but I was trying too hard to keep the plane somewhat level

2.) different Archer.. the manual trim wheel got stuck in the take off setting.. you physically could not spin the wheel.. didn't even leave the pattern

3.) same Archer as #2.. the trim wheel moved suspiciously freely, only to find out it was "slipping" internally and not actually trimming
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Find another FBO before one of those poorly-maintained airplanes kills you. If the trim system isn't up to standard, there are likely other systems way out of spec as well.
 
I got into mountain wave once. Autopilot commanded fairly aggressive pitching up to try to regain altitude in the downdraft .. which almost put me into a stall. Never trained for it but figured speed = life so I kicked the AP to the curb and put my nose down. Pretty scary when automation takes the wheel in a dumb way. Not the fault really of the autopilot since it was trying to do what it is supposed to do... But scary and a learning experience nonetheless.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
True.

That's why you buy really, really good snow tires. The difference is astounding.
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This. Performance tires, which come standard on BMWs, are terrible in the snow. The problem is compounded by being mounted on wide low profile tires. Order a second set of wheels pre mounted with snow tires and swap them out. Mine will go through anything as long as it doesn’t bottom out.
 
I'm not a heavy iron pilot but talked to one shortly after the Lion Air... There must be more to solving the problem if that new unit goes sideways on ya, as he was a 737 driver and when I brought up the Lion Air crash and the word was coming out Boeing hadn't trained them right on it, he was spitting nails angry about the situation and the lack of informing them as pilots to this potential situation.
 
Tantalum said:
BMWs are notoriously bad in snow.. their XDrive system flat out sucks. Clarkson did a review of it.. the mud and snow part start around 4 minutes in. My sister has a '17 X5 and the '98 Jetta drives better in the snow.. oh well
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Meanwhile in the real world

The secret to the snow is tires, really.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
*there are many situations in which ABS is actually NOT your friend..
True.

That's why you buy really, really good snow tires. The difference is astounding.
Click to expand...

I'll never forget one day back when I lived in upstate NY, there was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, obviously on schidt tires, spinning all four and not getting up a steep snow/ice covered hill. I politely went wide left of him and drove right up the hill in my old $800 Mk1 Jetta winter beater. The secret? I had four fresh Nokian Hakkapeliitta snows on the car. It was a friggin' snow cat with those tires, with a little forethought and planning, it would go anywhere. Ski car extraordinaire, I drove that beater all over New England during ski season!
 
Bill Jennings said:
I'll never forget one day back when I lived in upstate NY, there was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, obviously on schidt tires, spinning all four and not getting up a steep snow/ice covered hill. I politely went wide left of him and drove right up the hill in my old $800 Mk1 Jetta winter beater. The secret? I had four fresh Nokian Hakkapeliitta snows on the car. It was a friggin' snow cat with those tires, with a little forethought and planning, it would go anywhere. Ski car extraordinaire, I drove that beater all over New England during ski season!
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Mmm, Hakkapelittas. I ran circles around a friend in an F150 with my old station wagon, on snowy mountain roads, all thanks to a modest investment in Finnish snow tires.
 
WannFly said:
more bad news for Boeing
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Notice that the US pilots did not crash the planes though. The issue was recognized and dealt with. Just like any other in flight anomaly might be recognized and dealt with.

There is definitely something "wrong" with this software they put on the MAX.. but it need not be lethal. Part of this, unfortunately, is also politically driven. With the media completely run amok and a lot of tensions with the US and foreign countries the whole situation is mired
 
Sluggo63 said:
Talk about thread drift. I had to check to see if I clicked on the right thread.

Came here to see the newest information on the 737 groundings and am currently getting a 400 level course in automotive design...
Click to expand...

That's my fault. I was using the automated dumb-driver systems as a parallel to the automated dumb-pilot systems in some airplanes. Systems that can actually make things worse instead of better. If driver training was much more thorough and covered some physics (and decision-making skills) we'd have far fewer accidents, I think, and if pilot training was designed to prevent poorly-trained pilots from ever getting into an airliner cockpit we might have a lot fewer accidents there, too.

That's assuming that there are some really bad pilots in the airlines. it might not be true, at least in the Western countries, but some of the crashes we've seen seem to indicate that there's a shortcoming somewhere.
 
Dan Thomas said:
If driver training was much more thorough and covered some physics (and decision-making skills) we'd have far fewer accidents,
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Probably fewer. Far fewer is a stretch IMO. There's lots of stupid out there and teaching stupid has it limits.

and if pilot training was designed to prevent poorly-trained pilots from ever getting into an airliner cockpit we might have a lot fewer accidents there, too.
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That's not a pilot training issue, that's a pilot vetting issue.
 
Tantalum said:
Notice that the US pilots did not crash the planes though. The issue was recognized and dealt with. Just like any other in flight anomaly might be recognized and dealt with.

There is definitely something "wrong" with this software they put on the MAX.. but it need not be lethal. Part of this, unfortunately, is also politically driven. With the media completely run amok and a lot of tensions with the US and foreign countries the whole situation is mired
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As described by the pilots, however, the problem did not appear related to a new automated anti-stall system that is suspected of contributing to a deadly October crash in Indonesia.
 
Canada has joined the countries that have grounded the Aircraft.
 
First thing I’ve always done when the Airplane did something odd or unexpected is turn off anything that has “auto” connected with it. Part of my preflight is always knowing where that off/disconnect button is/are located. Never flown big iron but it seems intuitive to me.

zaitcev said:
Meanwhile in the real world

The secret to the snow is tires, really.
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On the second topic of this thread, I have driven my X3’s in the winter in Steamboat Springs for the past 13 years on the OEM Pirelli Scorpion all season tires and have had zero problems.

Cheers
 
EppyGA said:
the problem did not appear related to a new automated anti-stall system that is suspected of contributing to a deadly October crash in Indonesia
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I noticed that too... so the purpose of the article was just for clickbait it seems
 
By the way, did anyone else notice that one of the witnesses reporting fire, smoke, and "paper" falling out of the airplane? It appeared he (or she?) saw some debris or something coming from the plane before impact..
 
Tantalum said:
By the way, did anyone else notice that one of the witnesses reporting fire, smoke, and "paper" falling out of the airplane? It appeared he (or she?) saw some debris or something coming from the plane before impact..
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I noticed. She said "clothing", IIRC, and I wondered if there were bodies in the clothes.
 
I have a feeling this FDR is getting an expedited look. There's a lot riding on this, and not just Boeing stock values.

And, as usual, a lot of info will point to something that's going to result in, "Huh, yeah, that would do it."
 
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