Boeing problems...

[[DHT]Osiris]

There has to be a first flight with people on board. Flying people is part of the certification process.

Weird, I always assumed 'test flights' were done with everything but the human, then they include the human after the tests are done.

Are those 'test plus human' still considered test?

 

[sdifox]

Weird, I always assumed 'test flights' were done with everything but the human, then they include the human after the tests are done.

Are those 'test plus human' still considered test?

Err there is a reason test pilots exist.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Err there is a reason test pilots exist.

Well, a test pilot for a flight system that requires a pilot makes sense. Orbital flight vehicles don't require a pilot necessarily, they've been remote capable for what, decades? I can't fathom why your first fully assembled test flight of a system would include a human that can't affect change if anything goes wrong.

 

[Zorba]

Well, a test pilot for a flight system that requires a pilot makes sense. Orbital flight vehicles don't require a pilot necessarily, they've been remote capable for what, decades? I can't fathom why your first fully assembled test flight of a system would include a human that can't affect change if anything goes wrong.

This isn't the first flight, it is the third flight and it is a test flight.

For the record, SpaceX also did a test flight with people and has also scrubbed launches of Crew Dragon.

BTW: This was an Atlas V problem, not a Boeing issue. Yet, Boeing still gets the shit for it. Why don't you complain about ULA/Lockheed Martin?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

This isn't the first flight, it is the third flight and it is a test flight.

For the record, SpaceX also did a test flight with people and has also scrubbed launches of Crew Dragon.

BTW: This was an Atlas V problem, not a Boeing issue. Yet, Boeing still gets the shit for it. Why don't you complain about ULA/Lockheed Martin?

I wasn't aware they had multiple launches already, that's on me.

I'll complain about ULA/Lockheed when they demonstrate a cultural issue the way Boeing has. I shit on Boeing because Boeing decided to shit on engineers at some point in the last 20-30 years, and promote all the MBAs and marketing goons. ULA/Lockheed (and others) may have done the same, but it hasn't resulted in people dying.

 

[Zorba]

I wasn't aware they had multiple launches already, that's on me.

I'll complain about ULA/Lockheed when they demonstrate a cultural issue the way Boeing has. I shit on Boeing because Boeing decided to shit on engineers at some point in the last 20-30 years, and promote all the MBAs and marketing goons. ULA/Lockheed (and others) may have done the same, but it hasn't resulted in people dying.

The O2 systems on Lockheed F-22 were giving pilots blood poisoning and making them pass out in flight resulting in at least one accident. The Lockheed F-16 is nicknamed "The Lawn Dart" because they crash so much.

This problem was an ULA problem, yet you blame Boeing instead of ULA. I'm guessing the Key Bridge failure was also Boeing's fault because Boeing paid them to ship some parts, just like Boeing is paying ULA to transport their capsule.

I'm not saying Boeing doesn't deserve some extra criticism right now, but right now it's just an emotional dog pile.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

The O2 systems on Lockheed F-22 were giving pilots blood poisoning and making them pass out in flight resulting in at least one accident. The Lockheed F-16 is nicknamed "The Lawn Dart" because they crash so much.

This problem was an ULA problem, yet you blame Boeing instead of ULA. I'm guessing the Key Bridge failure was also Boeing's fault because Boeing paid them to ship some parts, just like Boeing is paying ULA to transport their capsule.

I'm not saying Boeing doesn't deserve some extra criticism right now, but right now it's just an emotional dog pile.

Probably true, but thems the breaks. I didn't put the blood in the water. Enough emotional pressure and the next MBAs that come along might remember to not fire half their engineers.

 

[brycejones]

Probably true, but thems the breaks. I didn't put the blood in the water. Enough emotional pressure and the next MBAs that come along might remember to not fire half their engineers.

Spreadsheet says work is fine.

 

[hal2kilo]

Weird, I always assumed 'test flights' were done with everything but the human, then they include the human after the tests are done.

Are those 'test plus human' still considered test?

I seem to remember footage of an early test flight of an F-16 that could barely get off the ground and once airborne was difficult to land. Modeling has gotten somewhat better now.

 

[Zorba]

Probably true, but thems the breaks. I didn't put the blood in the water. Enough emotional pressure and the next MBAs that come along might remember to not fire half their engineers.

I do agree with your premise they did make their bed with decades of laying off the experienced people and union busting. MBAs won't learn though.

 

[Zorba]

I seem to remember footage of an early test flight of an F-16 that could barely get off the ground and once airborne was difficult to land. Modeling has gotten somewhat better now.

YF-22 crashed in the test competitions. Lockheed set the flight control against wrong at landing, leading to severe pilot induced oscillation.

 

[hal2kilo]

YF-22 crashed in the test competitions. Lockheed set the flight control against wrong at landing, leading to severe pilot induced oscillation.

Are they still confusing meters and feet?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I seem to remember footage of an early test flight of an F-16 that could barely get off the ground and once airborne was difficult to land. Modeling has gotten somewhat better now.

See above, flight platform that requires a pilot vs one that doesn't. Humans are passengers on space launch vehicles, unless there's some new space planes I'm unfamiliar with.

 

[Paratus]

See above, flight platform that requires a pilot vs one that doesn't. Humans are passengers on space launch vehicles, unless there's some new space planes I'm unfamiliar with.

All of our capsule have manual flight capability for orbital ops. Manual handling characteristics is a part of the certification process.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

All of our capsule have manual flight capability for orbital ops. Manual handling characteristics is a part of the certification process.

Right, but it's not necessary. You could do a hundred test flights with an unmanned capsule prior to manning it, that's all I was saying. If they've done unmanned launches of these specific capsules then I stand corrected.

 

[Zorba]

Right, but it's not necessary. You could do a hundred test flights with an unmanned capsule prior to manning it, that's all I was saying. If they've done unmanned launches of these specific capsules then I stand corrected.

They've already done 2 unmanned flights.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

They've already done 2 unmanned flights.

Which apparently wasn't enough to tease out a faulty valve and a He leak.

 

[pmv]

I do wonder if the travails of Boeing are, in essence, the long tail of neo-liberalism.

Given that much of the commentary seems to trace the problem back to the McDonnel-Douglas merger, and the switch from being an engineer-run business that happened to make money to being a money-making business that happens to do some engineering, I wonder if it's not just another example of the shift towards an obsession with share-holder returns that began in the Reagan/Thatcher era? It just took a long time to start having noticeable effects in the aerospace sector, because there's so much inertia in that sector.

I mean, a lot of the bad effects of Thatcherism/Reaganism seem to have taken a very long time to become apparent (our water companies going bust, the rise of both China and Trumpism...). Maybe the decline of Boeing is just another one of them?

 

[sdifox]

I see Boeing issues exactly like an engineering issue. How thin can you make the tincan before it fails. They just happen to be reducing the headcount of people that know how tincans work.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Which apparently wasn't enough to tease out a faulty valve and a He leak.

Man, I just wanna see you get full control from the Boeing board and start firing the guilty people left and right 😛

 

[cytg111]

www sucks ass

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Man, I just wanna see you get full control from the Boeing board and start firing the guilty people left and right 😛

I'd love that, but I'd be wholly unqualified for such an adventure. I'd probably just fire anyone with their own office as a start.

 

[Zorba]

I do wonder if the travails of Boeing are, in essence, the long tail of neo-liberalism.

Given that much of the commentary seems to trace the problem back to the McDonnel-Douglas merger, and the switch from being an engineer-run business that happened to make money to being a money-making business that happens to do some engineering, I wonder if it's not just another example of the shift towards an obsession with share-holder returns that began in the Reagan/Thatcher era? It just took a long time to start having noticeable effects in the aerospace sector, because there's so much inertia in that sector.

I mean, a lot of the bad effects of Thatcherism/Reaganism seem to have taken a very long time to become apparent (our water companies going bust, the rise of both China and Trumpism...). Maybe the decline of Boeing is just another one of them?

I was thinking about this the other day. SpaceX takes investment money and uses it to do cool things. Boeing does cool things to give investors money. Obviously the sustainable spot is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

 

[Zorba]

Which apparently wasn't enough to tease out a faulty valve and a He leak.

I don't think Helium leaks are that uncommon, helium is a bitch to seal up. It's actually used for leak detection a lot because it's so small it can get through any leak path. But a tiny He leak is unlikely to hurt anything.

Not sure what the valve issue was, but also near zero chance the valve was directly designed by Boeing. Of course as the system integrator it's on them, but it likely was someone else's way too thin and inexperienced engineering staff.

 

[pmv]

I was thinking about this the other day. SpaceX takes investment money and uses it to do cool things. Boeing does cool things to give investors money. Obviously the sustainable spot is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

As I understand it, the thing about Boeing is that it seems to have undergone a significant change of character, and every discussion I see of it traces it back to that merger. Its earlier record is actually slightly surprising to me, insofar as it really did seem to put pride in engineering quality far ahead of maximising profits. Hence its safety record was really very good.

Maybe it's just coincidental, and an accidental consequence of what just, by sheer chance, was the nature of its early management vs the corporate culture of McDonnel-Douglas, but also in that respect its previous nature seems very much a product of the post-war boom years, when such an attitude was possible, and the shift seems of-a-piece with the way _everything_ has gone downhill since the end of the boom.

Much of the rest of the corporate world seems to have abandoned that conscientious, pride-in-one's-work approach long ago, but it seems that because aircraft development is such a long-drawn out process (and aircraft purchases such a long-term investment), it's taken longer for that shift towards short-termism and profit maximisation and 'shareholder value' to have filtered through in the aeronautical sector.

Seems that in recent years Boeing has started behaving much more in the way I'd (cartoonishly?) imagined corporations to behave, whereas up till quite recently my expected image of them would have been unfair.