Another brand new 737 Max crashes

[rattlsnak]

Originally Posted by flipper35

I think if he did he would not know what to do if thing did no match the checklist.

Happens routinely in the 121 world. I'm amazed every time I go into the simulator how many pilots don't see the big picture when something goes wrong.

I just came here to post about the NYT piece, but you guys had already seen it. Really great piece of writing.

I found the different approaches to airplane design philosophies applied by Boeing and Airbus were especially interesting. We've seen the same shift in cars, with all the automated nannies, and we're about to see the next step in a big way with self-driving cars.

Originally Posted by flipper35

It was a good article and similar to what some of us stated early on. It is a training issue. That is whey the 5 or 6 MCAS "failures" here in the US ended in non-eventful flights. Not that Boeing couldn't have handled it much better or shouldn't share some of the blame.

I think it was much more than a training issue. It was also a regulatory issue, with the Malaysian government's failure to properly regulate airlines. Also a corruption issue, in every part of Malaysian society, and with companies like the one in Cockroach Corner selling junk. Also a company culture issue, with Lion Air going to extremes to cut costs, which resulted in crummy maintenance and inexperienced air crews. Also an economic issue, with Boeing trying to catch up to Airbus by doing a quick low-cost redesign of the 737. It certainly was a human factors/software design issue. And some of it was the inevitable result of a rapid increase in air travel in any region.

Like most bad things, it was the result of a lot of stuff happening together.

[greglepore]

Originally Posted by madcorgi

I just came here to post about the NYT piece, but you guys had already seen it. Really great piece of writing.

I found the different approaches to airplane design philosophies applied by Boeing and Airbus were especially interesting. We've seen the same shift in cars, with all the automated nannies, and we're about to see the next step in a big way with self-driving cars.

It helps that Langewiesche was a commercial pilot. He wrote a book following the Hudson incident "Fly by Wire" that was a deep dive into the philosophical difference between Airbus and Boeing, and argued that the reduced cockpit workload likely helped Sully, although his airmanship made it possible. This is not new turf for him.

No different than gps, really. Ask someone who is reliant how to get somewhere they've relied on gps to go, and they're often helpless. We may be raising a generation of aviators like that.

[legion]

The problem with designing automation, be it in cars or airplanes, is that it is really difficult to outsmart an idiot.

[edgemar]

Look what happened at SFO when that Asiana 777 crew tried to manually fly an approach...

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by edgemar

Look what happened at SFO when that Asiana 777 crew tried to manually fly an approach...

Yup. Training is different here than most of the rest of the world. Those guys are FMS programmers.

In general aviation we still have to know how to use the old circular slide rule/flight computer with a stop watch and a chart.

Back when we had military pilots with actual combat experience Boeing had the right idea. I believe AF447 would not have stalled into the water had the flight controls mirrored each other instead of sitting limp and then when the other pilot tried something it averaged the input.

I think the ideal design philosophy is in between the two.

Originally Posted by legion

The problem with designing automation, be it in cars or airplanes, is that it is really difficult to outsmart an idiot.

I agree. I've seen that with cars at the track. The laws of physics remain the laws of physics, no matter what the computers do. Their interventions simply mean that when it all goes wrong, the car will be going far faster than it would have been without the nannies. Worse still, most drivers no longer know how to drive at the limit, which means that the situation is unrecoverable. Sort of the automotive version of "airmanship."

[flipper35]

This. People get used to the nannies saving them and when they suddenly can't that person becomes a helpless passenger.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by edgemar

Look what happened at SFO when that Asiana 777 crew tried to manually fly an approach...

[edgemar]

Originally Posted by greglepore

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

This guy can write...his account of the post 9/11 work at ground zero is brilliant, as was his recent piece on malaysia air.

This was a great article. Thanks for sharing...