Hm. I hesitate to defend Boeing here, but I think the outset of this article is a bit unfair.
> Pilots start some new Boeing planes by turning a knob and flipping two switches.
> The Boeing 737 Max, the newest passenger jet on the market, works differently. Pilots follow roughly the same seven steps used on the first 737 nearly 52 years ago: Shut off the cabin’s air-conditioning, redirect the air flow, switch on the engine, start the flow of fuel, revert the air flow, turn back on the air conditioning, and turn on a generator.
So? What does this have to do with anything? Is the goal to produce an airplane where pilots press a button "fly to destination", and the plane does it?
> The strategy, to keep updating the plane rather than starting from scratch, offered competitive advantages. Pilots were comfortable flying it, while airlines didn’t have to invest in costly new training for their pilots and mechanics. For Boeing, it was also faster and cheaper to redesign and recertify than starting anew.
> But the strategy has now left the company in crisis, following two deadly crashes in less than five months.
How was it the strategy to keep updating the plane that left to this crisis? The strategy itself is not to blame here, and I very much like the idea to gradually improve a proven model. It was a bad execution of this strategy that left the company in crisis.
In Germany, the national train agency Deutsche Bahn (and its predecessors) basically had a policy for nearly a century to order rolling stock that was designed to be produced for around 40 years. During this production run, the model was gradually improved. Some of the rolling stock designed in the 50ies is still in use, and quite reliable at that [0]. During the 90ies, agency and industry switched to a policy where basically every train generation was newly developed from scratch (for example, the ICE high speed trains). Guess what - you can channel a lot of public money into private hands that way, but bleeding edge technology is not what you want or need when you are trying to build a reliable transportation system.
> So? What does this have to do with anything? Is the goal to produce an airplane where pilots press a button "fly to destination", and the plane does it?
When you're nose down heading into the ground, taking your hand off the stick to adjust the trim can get panic-y. Especially since the MCAS may be working against your trim adjustments.
The design of the Max line seems to be just enough compete with the A320neo, and just enough to not "need" re-certification. But these two justs, together, may have cost several hundred people their lives.
> Pilots start some new Boeing planes by turning a knob and flipping two switches.
> The Boeing 737 Max, the newest passenger jet on the market, works differently. Pilots follow roughly the same seven steps used on the first 737 nearly 52 years ago: Shut off the cabin’s air-conditioning, redirect the air flow, switch on the engine, start the flow of fuel, revert the air flow, turn back on the air conditioning, and turn on a generator.
So? What does this have to do with anything? Is the goal to produce an airplane where pilots press a button "fly to destination", and the plane does it?
> The strategy, to keep updating the plane rather than starting from scratch, offered competitive advantages. Pilots were comfortable flying it, while airlines didn’t have to invest in costly new training for their pilots and mechanics. For Boeing, it was also faster and cheaper to redesign and recertify than starting anew.
> But the strategy has now left the company in crisis, following two deadly crashes in less than five months.
How was it the strategy to keep updating the plane that left to this crisis? The strategy itself is not to blame here, and I very much like the idea to gradually improve a proven model. It was a bad execution of this strategy that left the company in crisis.
In Germany, the national train agency Deutsche Bahn (and its predecessors) basically had a policy for nearly a century to order rolling stock that was designed to be produced for around 40 years. During this production run, the model was gradually improved. Some of the rolling stock designed in the 50ies is still in use, and quite reliable at that [0]. During the 90ies, agency and industry switched to a policy where basically every train generation was newly developed from scratch (for example, the ICE high speed trains). Guess what - you can channel a lot of public money into private hands that way, but bleeding edge technology is not what you want or need when you are trying to build a reliable transportation system.
[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Wagen