The US Hamster Wheel

[Undried Plum]

It's a bad thing that the 737 Max needs to be grounded.

It's a good thing that one small corner of the swamp that is the corporatocracy of America has been dragged by the hair into the civilised world and has been forced by imperial diktat to ground the bloody thing.

[Boac]

Bo,is the grounding of the worldwide Max fleet that Trump has ordered a good or a bad thing?

Seen - difficult question to answer. I suspect we have yet another Chump 'mis-speak' in the interest of self-aggrandisment here to add to the growing pile of doo-doo.

I don't have the 'actual' but I believe he said 'My administration will...' which is different.

If you are asking if the grounding itself is good/bad - you are joking, are you not?

Don't forget that HIS closure of the US governmental processes may well have contributed to the cock-ups we see, although the apparent design failures well precede that.

[BenThere]

I think it's a wise move to ground the fleet. Two crashes in a short time of new aircraft resulting in hundreds of lives lost calls for examination.

I'm 737 type-rated, but I haven't flown it since the -200 series. I'm not qualified to comment on the operational environment of the Max series. I'm also type-rated in all A-320 and A-330 series, which gives me some perspective about the interface between the pilot and advanced aircraft automation.

The automation takes a lot of the burden off the pilot, and the job becomes one more of programming and data input, then monitoring as the airplane flies itself. The problem is that the programming and input has to be done right - perfect, in fact, every time, and pilots need to maintain their basic flying abilities, a perishable talent, which automation works against. That factor has been known for a long time. KAL 007 is a good example of faulted programming.

The current problem is a bit different. Modern aircraft, really starting with the A-320 to my knowledge, incorporate fail-safe type software systems designed to sense impending stalls and overspeeds and will take control of the aircraft for recovery. The hitch is that these safety systems rely on sensors that send data to the flight control computers and systems that will intervene and control the airplane. As far as I know all the sensors are at least redundant and usually triple redundant. That is, if one sensor is faulty, an AOA vane, pilot tube, or static port is iced up for example, the computer compares the input to the other two sensors and throws out the outlier. But what happens when two of the three sensors are iced up or faulty and the system throws out the reliable one?

Tragedy, or at least embarrassment for the pilots, results when the aircraft protection systems take over the aircraft and advance full throttle and climb or pull throttles to idle and dive, sensing an overspeed or impending stall. On the A-320, if you didn't activate the approach you'd be in for a throttle-advance surprise on final approach, that was the sin I committed. Conversely, that automation is mostly good. Air Florida crashed into the Potomac River a long time ago because a sensor iced up and the pilots thought they were at a lot higher airspeed than they actually were. They didn't have the automation that might have saved them - they stalled, crashed into the river, and many died.

I don't like to speculate on the cause of crashes before the investigations are done, but I'm pretty confident that the Lion and Ethiopian crashes are due to erroneous sensor data taken on as valid by the aircraft software which took over flying the airplane. The pilots, I suspect, weren't prepared to override the systems and take manual control. The procedure to disengage the automation and fly manually is a bit complex, requiring several steps to be performed by memory under the stress of flying an aircraft out of your control. Better software would allow that to be done with a big red pushbutton labelled MANUAL CONTROL.

When I transitioned from a career of analog Boeing, Douglas and Lear to the A-320 it was the most difficult training I ever did in an airplane, just getting the logic and automation into my aging brain. It took me about six months, fortunately flying as first officer, and a time or two the throttles would advance to full thrust without any input from me and I didn't know why. That's how you learn, though, when it happens to you.

Last point: My airline drilled into our heads during recurrent training how to disable the automation and fly the airplane manually, taking control back from the automation under ALL conditions. My training evolved as well after the Air France A-330 went down over the Atlantic, and other, less spectacular incidents were analyzed. The 737 Max series is new and it follows that all the pilots flying it are new, too. They need the same seasoning I did, and it only comes with time in the cockpit. Further, call me chauvinist, but I believe I got a lot better training at Delta, and the selection process for pilot hires at Delta is more demanding, than might be the case at Lion, Ethiopian, and similar.

[Seenenough]

Bo-it would have been Trump who signed the order.I dont know what the government shut down has to do with it.

I know jack about flying passenger liners and the best I did was go solo on fixed wings which I packed in while doing circuits and landings which seemed as boring as watching pait dry.

I then switched over to fly helicopters.

I believe he was correct in taking the action he did.As Ben says the PIC should be able,at any time of the flight and with a moments notice, to disengage automation and take over manual control of the aircraft.

We will learn down the road as to why they could not get manual control.

[Boac]

So, Seen - were you joking or not?

[Boac]

I see the stupid 'Emergency' has been knocked on the head, 59-41. Donald next, please.

[John Hill]

Is this another angle of attack sensor problem? They need a couple of these indicators, the red ones, on each side window.

[Boac]

I think that is a yaw sensor, John. Only useful, then, for knife-edge manoeuvres.

[John Hill]

Yeabut when you stick them on the side window they are angle of attack sensors!

[Boac]

I wonder if the Chump is regretting mouthing off about how safe he had made aviation?

PLUS

Patrick Shanahan, Acting Secretary of Defense, told Congress that he welcomes an inspector general investigation into whether he violated any ethics rules by promoting Boeing Co. products while serving in the Trump Administration.

Shanahan, who came to the Pentagon after spending more than three decades at Boeing, has routinely fended off questions about potential conflicts of interest with the aerospace company that also happens to be one of the largest suppliers for the U.S. military.

The Chump seems to have an over-riding desire to recruit liars, crooks and con-men to his bosom.

[BenThere]

Boac, you came to the conclusion of the last sentence in your post before you looked into the depth and details and considerations the issue at hand.

FAA and DOD rely on experts in aviation to provide them qualified expertise to execute and manage their roles. I suggest that 30 years at Boeing, at an executive level, is a resumé qualifier, not a detractor. I've seen nothing - nada - to suggest Mr. Shanahan is corrupt or ethically challenged.

A secondary point is that as Boeing is an American producer of jobs, revenue, and key component of American economic well-being, why would President Trump want to undermine its success? I don't fault EU for promoting Airbus, just as I don't fault the US for promoting Boeing.

Just what do you have, Boac, to suggest Mr. Shanahan is a liar, crook, or con man? Just that he worked for Boeing is inadequate to sway me.

[Boac]

er - they were two separate paragraphs. However, since you ask, I know not, but it is a valid observation of your hero.

I view he Chump putting a fox into the chicken run was NOT ideal.

[llondel]

Just what do you have, Boac, to suggest Mr. Shanahan is a liar, crook, or con man? Just that he worked for Boeing is inadequate to sway me.

The fact that he's 'qualified' to go work for Trump is a good bit of anecdotal evidence.

[Boac]

Another achievement for the Chump - the so-called 'manifesto' of the New Zealand White Extremist murderer said it
"hailed Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose".

You must all be proud.

[Magnus]

BenThere, the EU policy of "You're all welcome to come here" is interesting, particularly when the front-line countries, Italy for example, are saying "feck off, no more" in defiance of Brussels' diktats.

Sorry to all for going rather off-topic.

[BenThere]

Magnus, I'm pretty sure you and I are on the same plane.

EU has been on a full-throttle immigration bent for some time now, also promoting the welfare state welcoming committees of its member states. The rub is that when the dust settles, and people realize the damage that has been done, all the feel-good, magnanimous homilies like 'no child is illegal' or 'we are our brother's keeper' lose their impact as quality life is degraded little by little in the receiving countries.

I think it may be that former Soviet bloc Eastern European states have the experience of Socialism and have a natural skepticism about Socialist swan songs about equality, care for all, compassion, etc., and they know it's a charade that ultimately returns misery along with loss of Freedom, as Venezuela is demonstrating right now.

Interesting, in my opinion, is that the current US administration is non-interventionist, 'America First' is its motto. Yet we remain humanitarian and have positioned much needed food, medicine and other aid in Colombia, ready to assuage Venezuela's pain. That aid is being stopped by the Socialist Venezuelan regime lest it reflect negatively upon the glorious Bolivarian revolution Huge Chavez visited upon the Venezuelan people with their consent expressed at the polls and endorsed by many commenters here and at TOP as it was happening. Not by me, though. I saw what was coming.

[Boac]

Well, isn't that a surprise? Look at Big Chief Sh1tting Bull's right hand. Anyone recognise the gesture?

WP.jpg (44.91 KiB) Viewed 189 times

How many dead in NZ?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

That's the scuba diver's 'OK' hand signal (says one of your resident Open Water Scuba Instructors). What else is it then?

[Boac]

'WP' read the NZ thread where the killer 'praised' the Chump

[Undried Plum]

Anyone recognise the gesture?

Is that him bragging about the size of his willy?