rdamonSounds like they are using the same approach for SC-44 training in Washington for Amtrak
With the same vetting, training and supervision. Not to mention the same observation of the local terrain.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Sounds like they are using the same approach for SC-44 training in Washington for Amtrak
It's ironic, but you normally get more comfortable the more that you know about something, but the more that I learn about aviation (between my brother and a site called airliners.net), the fewer the airlines that I want to fly.
GERALD L MCFARLANE JR Yes, and Southwest dropped a number of flights from SFO as well, adding some out of OAK(Oakland) and an even greater number out of SJC(to pick up the slack) because ROI wasn't high enough from SFO. As for the MAX issues, the only thing I have to say is that American pilots are still trained to fly their planes manually where as Asian pilots rely on the auto-pilot for virtually everything(that includes take-offs and landings, this was from the NTSB report on the Asiatic Air crash at SFO a number of years back), which explains why the dead heading pilot on the previous Lion Air flight knew to disengage the MCAS system and NOT reengage it(as you should with anything that isn't working, turn it off but do not turn it back on).
Yes, and Southwest dropped a number of flights from SFO as well, adding some out of OAK(Oakland) and an even greater number out of SJC(to pick up the slack) because ROI wasn't high enough from SFO.
As for the MAX issues, the only thing I have to say is that American pilots are still trained to fly their planes manually where as Asian pilots rely on the auto-pilot for virtually everything(that includes take-offs and landings, this was from the NTSB report on the Asiatic Air crash at SFO a number of years back), which explains why the dead heading pilot on the previous Lion Air flight knew to disengage the MCAS system and NOT reengage it(as you should with anything that isn't working, turn it off but do not turn it back on).
A friend who instructs foreign pilots on Boeing jets stated that most cannot do a decent visual approach ( Hand flying) and it is not in most training guidelines for foreign pilots.
OvermodOvermod wrote the following post 2 hours ago: charlie hebdo The false equivalence narrative is one reason we are in trouble. Can you explain this statement in a bit more detail?
I was not referring to Boeing alone.
daveklepper The only two-cents worth I'd like to add to the discussion is I not mind seeing technical problems of passenger airplanes or any airplanes for that matter, or cars, or buses or boats, discussed in this Forum. They all are passenger transportation and compete with railroads. And the technical problems are interesting. But do try and minimize politics, in order that tempers not rise and forums remain un-blocked. Thanks.
The only two-cents worth I'd like to add to the discussion is I not mind seeing technical problems of passenger airplanes or any airplanes for that matter, or cars, or buses or boats, discussed in this Forum. They all are passenger transportation and compete with railroads. And the technical problems are interesting.
But do try and minimize politics, in order that tempers not rise and forums remain un-blocked. Thanks.
Practice what you preach, Dave. You have brought religion and international relations into your posts at times. We were discussing potentials for influence-peddling in regulatory agencies which may have an impact on rails, roads and airways, not politics per se.
I am a cynic!
The USA has the best government money can buy. It is bought and sold daily - at all levels - from Congress to Dog Catcher.
charlie hebdoThe false equivalence narrative is one reason we are in trouble.
Can you explain this statement in a bit more detail?
According to the provided data, which I have no particular grounds to contest, contributions from the principal Boeing organizations are almost evenly split between parties, with the actual percentage difference in the most recent complete cycle being only 5 percentage points. I note with some amusement there was an actual predominance of contribution to Democrats in 2008 and 2010, something that may bear looking into in more specific detail; particularly useful is to tot up the relative difference in absolute dollar contribution for the years 2008 through 2014 and then express that as a percentage of average contribution. I think you will have substantial difficulty even establishing a reason to gin up a debunking of a 'false equivalence narrative' given these data. However, I await your clarification, and any better data you may have on this situation.
I also note that no few of the affiliates are strongly Democratic ... and the aggregate contributions by most of the affiliates listed, including the ones I see that contributed strongly Democratic, are comparatively piddling by 'buying influence' standards.
Add up the totals by party. The false equivalence narrative is one reason we are in trouble.
rdamonBA covers both sides of the aisle pretty well. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000000100&cycle=A
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000000100&cycle=A
Most big companies paper both parties with donations - they can't afford to be the enemy of either party's members of Congress.
BA covers both sides of the aisle pretty well.
rdamonI think the biggest thing that has happened due to the MAX is with the FAA. It is what our fellow poster 243129 is trying to do with AMTRAK, shine some daylight on the bad procedures.
It has been preached by a particular political party that the government is the problem and we must get rid of the regulators. They have succeeded to the point that people are dying.
Absolutely! ;-}
Truce? :)
BackshopRight! You're constantly talking down to other posters and cut and pasting and acting like you're an expert on everything. Pot, meet kettle.
I'll own that criticism. On the other hand most of what I say isn't intended as insulting (or condescending) to other posters or denigrating their knowledge -- and when I fail in that, as I have on at least a couple of notable occasions, I apologize.
And I do try to keep it on a factual basis, and take care to express my opinions as such.
Right! You're constantly talking down to other posters and cut and pasting and acting like you're an expert on everything. Pot, meet kettle.
BackshopThe inherent instability in many current jet fighters has nothing to do with what is wrong with the Max.
It only illustrates that response from a haptic system may be necessary to provide stability in some instances, which is very much related to what is wrong with the MAX. But why argue?
Also, my brother is also type-rated in the 737, so he has hands-on comparisons, not your "better sources".
And far be it from me to dispute what he knows, or even the conclusions he draws from them. Unlike you, who seem to be intent on disparaging other posters to score some kind of superior knowledge points.
Have your brother post here what the problems he's observed are, and what he thinks the proper responses or solutions should be. Your own posts aren't advancing the subject. It's not my place or my interest to criticize your attitude -- I'm certainly not the Forum 'police' -- but it would be nice if you amended it.
The inherent instability in many current jet fighters has nothing to do with what is wrong with the Max. Also, my brother is also type-rated in the 737, so he has hands-on camparisons, not your "better sources".
BackshopYour google is strong, but reading only goes so far. I'd rather believe someone with real world experience.
He thinks the A320 is a superior design. I think I'll believe my own better sources. We'll agree to leave it at that. (This has probably strayed too far from any railroad context anyway...)
At least I don't think Faulkner wrote short sentences!
Your google is strong, but reading only goes so far. I'd rather believe someone with real world experience.
PS--You're the only person that probably thinks War & Peace is a short story.
You need a slightly different analogy. Most planes are designed to have inherent stability under common flight attitudes. Planes that 'don't' (like the Hopeless Diamond that became the F-117 airframe, or the X-29, can't be flown without continuous computerized assistance. It's possible to have versions of an airframe that are unstable only in certain attitudes, and provide assistance to get out of them (think a fancy version of the drag chute ejection to stop a flat spin in certain Century fighters)
Now let's suppose you learned to drive on a 1966 Corvair Yenko, and all your reflexes are formed properly to handle this in all weather. Imagine further that the car has been equipped with drive-by-wire, but this only automates the responses you're familiar with, including the haptic feedback.
Now imagine for a moment that GM has gone back to swing axles, flexible sidewalls, and heavier weight bias in the rear, but has not told you. They tinker with your drive-by-wire so it behaves just the way your old chassis did, including control over overcompensating for skids if you turn too quickly and start to slide. Now, if one of the sensors fails and the computer can't detect you're turning hard enough to push the sidewall over to the point the rim digs in and flips the axle up, you are in grave danger, because the "safety system" won't let you countersteer enough to compensate for the upsetting moment.
Now, returning a moment to airframe issues, a well-established problem with many relatively high-speed jet wing and fuse designs is that they preferentially start to stall at low airspeed nose-high in a way that makes it difficult to get the nose down. The BAC-111 was notorious for being crashed, slightly nose-high with all control surfaces trimmed normal and all three engines at cruise power, straight down into the Humber River during low-speed testing. In my opinion, this kind of what is inherently mushing was a factor in the two 737MAX accidents; the computer system physically prevented the pilots from getting their nose down when it was necessary to do so.
"Isolating the bad sensor" wasn't an option here: its output wasn't available other than internally, so unless it had much better BITE than it did, nobody could know it was 'bad'; the problem is really much more alarming in that the MAX depends on complex interactions not revealed to the crew to fly in many circumstances, including when linked in with the flight-director system, and in this particular case provided a fairly insistent control over AOA that was indistinguishable in response from a 'correct' system output.
Or so I understand it at present. Note that some very small changes make the software 'safe'. Were the software equipped with multiple independent AI/ES logic, it would have detected the increasing departure from safe envelope, designed possible corrections other than what seemed right but was actually causing the problem, using combinations of other redundant sensors, and queried the pilot about what to do.
I have not yet looked over the Boeing software changes in detail. But I suspect they will not have made the aircraft itself inherently safe.
Here is my brother's take on the 737 problems. Let me say that he thinks the A320 is a much superior plane. There is a saying at Delta that it's an acronym for Don't Ever Leave The Airbus. Good airlines train their people way more than the minimums. Some US pilots did have problems but knew how to deal with it. They are taught to do certain things go wrong. You worry about the fix later. Here's an analogy--you're going down the road in your car on cruise control. All of a sudden, the car starts accelerating. You don't address what's wrong to make it keep accelerating, you turn off the cruise control. If you're getting bad inputs from some sensors making the nose pitch down, you don't fight with the plane, you isolate the bad sensor. It all comes down to superior training and having procedures to deal with everything ahead of time. Pilots are constantly getting updates on how to handle things whenever there is an unusual incident. Every plane has quirks. I'm not saying that the MAX was fine the way it was, but good training can mitigate many things until they are fixed. The Lion Air plane would have been grounded by a western airline after the problems that they had on the previous flight until the problem was found and corrected. Also, because of the higher flight hour hiring standards by US carriers, pilots make their mistakes in much smaller planes. By the time they reach the majors, they've seen or heard about just about everything.
Overmod I've certainly been around airplanes a long period of time, and love many things about them. Amusingly, the only ones I flew either had no engines or only used them a small part of the time. Everything technical we think we know gets revised, sometimes with little advance warning, And sometimes things that shouldn't be computer-optimized away, like the longitudinal 'instability' of the 737MAX in some parts of its expected flight envelope, don't get thought through 'enough'. The Internet model of 'testing' and 'design correction' breaks down terribly for such things, but that lesson remains wilfully unlearned in too many areas of current planning and design.
Everything technical we think we know gets revised, sometimes with little advance warning, And sometimes things that shouldn't be computer-optimized away, like the longitudinal 'instability' of the 737MAX in some parts of its expected flight envelope, don't get thought through 'enough'. The Internet model of 'testing' and 'design correction' breaks down terribly for such things, but that lesson remains wilfully unlearned in too many areas of current planning and design.
This discussion has gotten beyond the scope of railroading, but since we are there, I would like your view on this statement.
How come the only two 737Maxs that got away from the pilots were being piloted by overseas airline pilots. One would think that Southwest's pilots would have encountered a similar problem. Southwest has more 737Maxs than anyone.
JPS1It sounds like you are a pilot or at least have been around airplanes for a substantial period of time.
I've certainly been around airplanes a long period of time, and love many things about them. Amusingly, the only ones I flew either had no engines or only used them a small part of the time.
Everything technical we think we know gets revised, sometimes with little advance warning, And sometimes things that shouldn't be computer-optimized away, like the longitudinal 'instability' of the 737MAX in some parts of its expected flight envelope, don't get thought through 'enough'. The Internet model of 'testing' and 'design correction' breaks down terribly for such things, but that lesson remains wilfully unlearned in too many areas of current planning and design. (Not saying I'm immune or any better as a designer, either!)
Overmod JPS1 I read in one of the Airbus manuals that the engines spool up automatically when the flaps are set at 20 degrees. I cannot remember which model(s). This fits with my understanding of how much computers have taken over some of the cockpit workload. I'd expect a commanded increase in engine power when the flaps are extended, to preserve 'commanded' thrust with the resulting increase in drag, but that's just like anticipated response in a PID controller. (Personally I'd disagree with that as an 'automatic' response without warning ... but I am no more a heavy multiengine pilot than I am an engineer)
I'd expect a commanded increase in engine power when the flaps are extended, to preserve 'commanded' thrust with the resulting increase in drag, but that's just like anticipated response in a PID controller. (Personally I'd disagree with that as an 'automatic' response without warning ... but I am no more a heavy multiengine pilot than I am an engineer)
I did not do a deep dive into the feature. I presume it complies with the appropriate regulations.
I never flew a jet. The largest airplane that I flew was a Queen Air.
It sounds like you are a pilot or at least have been around airplanes for a substantial period of time.
Most people that sit in the back of the plane and think they know what is going on don't. That's also true for those of us that have every ticket issued by the FAA but have not piloted an airplane in decades.
Don't fly very often and only have experienced one "go around". I was on UAL into SEATAC and was listening to the plane's cockpit radio channel. Plane had been routed to a holding pattern, made one circle and cleared to land. As I'm watching the ground get closer, I hear the pilot on the radio ask the tower if there is traffic near us and simultaneously, I feel full thrust being applied. But what frustrated me was the cabin feed of the radio was switched off. Plane made a circle and an uneventful landing. Never found out what occurred.
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