Went past the Spirit Aviation Plant this morning; Looked like about 5 fuselages were loaded and in position to move out; first time in a long time that there have been multiple outbound. [sigh]
After months of seeing their production just going under tarps; and a large number under ‘tarps’ along the runways at McConnell. It was gratifying to see them starting to move them out. There have been no public announcements of how their production will start up, or when?
The one thing about it; they’ll all need a trainride to Northwest before they actually fly. Or maybe, they’ll do something different with them?
Boeing has already said they are moving the 787’s production to South Carolina…So who knows, how the renewed production on the 737’s will shake out. Since the late 1960’s the Boeing aircraft have been a component of traffic on BNSF.
Will be interesting to see how it all will work out, and on which railroads? [:-^]
From the link provided by **kgbw49 FTL:"…**I would imagine that this was coordinated with Boeing, though at the time Boeing’s press release continued to use the full “MAX” branding. To my knowledge this Enter Air press release is the first one where Boeing specifically mentions the new branding.
If Boeing were to rebrand the 737 MAX, the new naming convention makes a lot of sense. It’s the same as how the 787 variants are known as the 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10. Similarly, the new 737 variants could be known as the 737-7, 737-8, 737-9, and 737-10 (while older generation 737s were the 737-700, 737-800, 737-900, etc.)…"
Runaway stablizers is one of the more critical emergency situations a pilot can have happen. Jammed stab at high speeds can be another. Alaska air DC-9 jammed stab accident. The controls for moving the stab are pickle switches on each poilot’s yoke and usually on the center console. As well usually some kind of manual way to move the stab.
Douglas had 2 suitcase handle moved together to operate hydraulic. Boeing had a manual wheel on pedesal each side that pilot could use to move or grab when a runaway started. But trim power was slow on auto pilot and pilot pickel switches fast. Pilot could grab wheel to stop runaway until CB could be pulled.
Early 737s have wheel but not sure about max. Just a guess but appears not. I do not like that concept at all.
I was under the understanding that the issue with the MAX was in poorly/incompletely evaluated software and training, not in any jammed actuator issue, and that the fixes to make the aircraft nominally ‘airworthy’ were relatively slight.
This ignores the much greater issue whether any commercial passenger aircraft that is known dynamically unstable in any aspect of normal flight should be granted an airworthiness certificate in the first place – perhaps it’s fortunate for Boeing I don’t have a say in this, because I would not, even though I could design all sorts of better ways to kinda-sorta assure operating safety most of the time.
It is obvious to me that Boeing would divorce itself as thoroughly from MAX in future marketing as GM might from 8-6-4. Even if touting the same functional advantage for the same reasons.
Streak: wasn’t the Alaska accident due to a ball-screw actuator that went to full extension and stuck there? What can a pilot do to overcome that sort of failure?
Unfortunately fly at speed that you can control aircraft. But then slowing for landing ? ? ?
Many fellow pilots thought about the problem. The DC-9 Stab is controlled normally by a flight tab. ie airflow over the small wing on the stab forces the stab up and down.
The stab does have a hydralic assist for stab down only that is checked by pre departure flight control check. An annunciator notes stab full down. So if stab does not return to normal you cannot lift off on takeoffs, I believe that there has been a couple aborted take offs due to jammed stabs.
The aerilons and rudder also have flight tabs. We considered system very robust and not subject to hydraulic operation. Very safe. Most Boeings use hydraulic control.
Not really. The 787 was already built in SC. What Boeing said is that they are no longer going to build the 787 in both Washington State and South Carolina.
From the NTSB report on Alaska Flight 261 (January 31, 2000):
“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was a loss of airplane pitch control resulting from the in-flight failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew assembly’s acme nut threads. The thread failure was caused by excessive wear resulting from Alaska Airlines’ insufficient lubrication of the jackscrew assembly.”
We are sort of ‘wandering out into the weeds’ on this Thread.
Specifically, the "Problems’ with the B737 MAX type aircraft, came out of two crashes of the type. First was in October of 2018 and involved a Lion Air Flt.610[189 souls died]. Second was March of 2019 and involved an Ethopian Air Line Flt.302[157 souls died] .
In the aftermath, of these two (type-8)crashes; use of these aircraft was put on hold. Of course there was a ‘media storm’ and the finger pointing began. The FAA was sighted for being ‘too cozy’ with Boeing in the certification process, and Boeing caught much ‘flak’ for the apparent failure of their ‘MCAS’ systems.
FTL[below] :“…After the second tragedy, the 737 Max was grounded by regulators because an anti-stall system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was implicated in both crashes…”*
From the NTSB report on Alaska Flight 261 (January 31, 2000):
"The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was a loss of airplane pitch control resulting from the in-flight failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew assembly’s acme nut threads. The thread failure was caused by excessive wear resulting from Alaska Airlines’ insufficient lubrication of the jackscrew assembly.
We are sort of ‘wandering out into the weeds’ on this Thread.
Specifically, the "Problems’ with the B737 MAX type aircraft, came out of two crashes of the type. First was in October of 2018 and involved a Lion Air Flt.610[189 souls died]. Second was March of 2019 and involved an Ethopian Air Line Flt.302[157 souls died] .
In the aftermath, of these two (type-8)crashes; use of these aircraft was put on hold. Of course there was a ‘media storm’ and the finger pointing began. The FAA was sighted for being ‘too cozy’ with Boeing in the certification process, and Boeing caught much ‘flak’ for the apparent failure of their ‘MCAS’ systems.
FTL[below] :"…After the second tragedy, the 737 Max was g
The JWICKCK off board 31 @ Newton was abolished in April 2019. Since then, all switching @ Spirit in south Wichita has been called off the Newton extra board, about twice a week. Regular five night service (that is, a regular assigned job) will not return until the Max issue is settled and production ramps up. There have been discussions between the rr and Boeing/Spirit on how to format the “wick kick” when it returns. As for now, it is still “as needed” off the extra board.
There is nothing dynamically or otherwise unstable about the MAX. The software “fix” was to give the same “control feel” to the pilots at high angle of attack near the stall. This would save the airlines who own early 737 models money on retraining pilots for the MAX.
There was nothing wrong with the software, either. It was a design choice, however, to let the software feed in a large amount of downward pitch into the elevator trim, which on a jet like this is provided by tilting the whole horizontal stabilizer plane with something called a “jack screw.” The reason for doing this with planes that fly close to the sound barrier dates back to Chuck Yeager’s first supersonic flight, where he was able to retain control of the plane that lost “elevator effectiveness” at the sound barrier
I was under the understanding that the issue with the MAX was in poorly/incompletely evaluated software and training, not in any jammed actuator issue, and that the fixes to make the aircraft nominally ‘airworthy’ were relatively slight.
This ignores the much greater issue whether any commercial passenger aircraft that is known dynamically unstable in any aspect of normal flight should be granted an airworthiness certificate in the first place – perhaps it’s fortunate for Boeing I don’t have a say in this, because I would not, even though I could design all sorts of better ways to kinda-sorta assure operating safety most of the time.
It is obvious to me that Boeing would divorce itself as thoroughly from MAX in future marketing as GM might from 8-6-4. Even if touting the same functional advantage for the same reasons.
Streak: wasn’t the Alaska accident due to a ball-screw actuator that went to full extension and stuck there? What can a pilot do to overcome that sort of failure?
There is nothing dynamically or otherwise unstable about the MAX. The software “fix” was to give the same “control feel” to the pilots at high angle of attack near the stall. This would save the airlines who own early 737 models money on retraining pilots for the MAX.
There was nothing wrong with the software, either. It was a design choice, however, to let the software feed in a large amount of downward pitch into the elevator trim, which on a jet like this is provided by tilting the whole horizontal stabilizer plane with something called a “jack screw.” The reason for doing this with planes that fly close to the sound barrier dates back to Chuck Yeager’s first supersonic flight, where he was able to retain cont
Well, you don’t fly it inverted like Denzel Washington did in the movie. The wings are designed to generate lift in one direction to great effect, the other direction, not so much.
IIRC, Douglas used a control tab to move the control surface, not the entire horizontal stabilizer. The stab control yoke on right side of the pedestal controlled the angle between the fuselage and the horizontal stabilizer. This was adjusted based upon weight and balace calculations (that I did hundreds of time) so that it did not take a lot of force to control the pitch of the aircraft.
Boeing did not make use of control tabs, they now hydraulically move the control surface using input from the yoke and rudder pedals from the pilot. (anyone remember the ru