Posted on 03/14/2019 9:49:47 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The software fix that Boeing said it is working on could take as long as six months, according to Bank of America.
Boeing earlier this week said a software change is in the works as well as updates to pilot manuals and training and the Federal Aviation Administration said it would mandate those changes by April.
“Once Boeing identifies the issue on the 737 MAX, the most likely scenario, in our view, is that the company will take about 3-6 months to come up with a fix and certify the fix,” the bank’s analyst Ronald Epstein said in a note on Thursday.
The FAA on Wednesday grounded all Boeing 737 Max jets in the U.S., citing links between two fatal crashes. The turnaround came after dozens of countries around the world grounded the planes, tanking the stock nearly 11 percent this week, on pace to post its biggest weekly decline since 2008.
Bank of America kept its buy rating and $480 price-target on Boeing as the bank believes the investigation would have a “definitive timeline” as the recovery of the black boxes is already underway. This would significantly reduce the uncertainty around Boeing and the 737 Max model, the bank said. The two black boxes from the Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed on March 10 in Ethiopia were being taken to Paris for investigation.
“We would expect Boeing to continue to produce the 737 at the current rate of 52 per month in order to minimize disruption in the supply chain. Boeing may have to carry inventory in its balance sheet of about $5.5bn per quarter. We would expect working capital to improve as the aircraft begins delivery again,” Epstein said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
They already have the fix.
What they don’t have is a certified trading program for the airplane, that Boeing spent millions to avoid, so they could keep it on the current type certificate, just a “ transition video”.
Trading= training.
I really do hate Apple correct
I know nothing of aircraft software or flying planes, but just wonder.
Can’t they still fly these planes manually, without use of the troubled software?
Apologize for my ignorance of things, but it seems that the software problem would not be there, if the pilots flew the plane the old fashioned way. Then again, do pilots rely on these software packages to navigate nowadays? Is it required to have software to perform the tasks needed to fly a jet?
I owned a Beech Baron for about 5 years in the eighties. Loved it.
I learned how to land it just in case my pilot had a stroke or something and I flew it hands on for maybe several hundred hours over 5 years at altitude.
One thing I learned was that there WAS a requirement to pay real close attention to what was going on because there was a little thin line between level flight and disaster.
I think airplanes today are similarly behaving and the pilots are too computer oriented. We had basic auto pilot but that’s about it....you really, really needed to be absolutely ready to manually fly the airplane on split second notice.
If B17’s in WWII had a critical problem, how quickly would it be fixed?
They have to make the plane foolproof so that pilots who don’t know how to fly won’t crash when there’s an easily manageable problem.
I read one US incident where the pilots engaged the autopilot after takeoff and the nose immediately went down. They disengaged the autopilot and flew manually the rest of the way.
So the answer to your question is “yes.”
Bank of America is known for it’s aerospace prowess.
“Can’t they still fly these planes manually, without use of the troubled software?”
I really doubt that! They are certified with a certain parameters including any software or hardware designed into the a/c. To circumvent any of it would void the type certificate that the FAA issued. From what I have read, the new engines, which are a really big piece of the reason for this new generation of 737 according to my next door neighbor who is a captain with Southwest ( they have remarkably improved fuel efficiency), have created weight and balance issues. As a consequence, they have new software and hardware designed to make sure the plane is stable. My guess is that the planes have a more rearward weight bias, and may need “electronic supervision” to make sure that the plane doesn’t get close to a stall. But that’s only a guess on my part.
Apologize for my ignorance of things, but it seems that the software problem would not be there, if the pilots flew the plane the old fashioned way. Then again, do pilots rely on these software packages to navigate nowadays? Is it required to have software to perform the tasks needed to fly a jet?
Navigation is knowing where you are. Aviation is flying the plane. I’m reminded of a question an old WWII carrier bomber pilot asked the FAA investigator about a guy who flew into a mountain in instrument conditions:
“Could he fly in instrument conditions?”
“When he hit the mountain, was he flying straight and level?”
“Yes”.
“Then he could fly instruments. But he was a lousy navigator”
I don’t know about this particular aircraft, but starting around the time of the reverse-swept wing X-29, which was never developed as a production model, and this was going on 30 years ago, fighter planes were so complicated that no one could fly them without software to deal with the tricky control surfaces. Basically, IIRC, the word on the X-29 was if the software crapped out the plane was unflyable by anyone.
So the answer to your question as to that type of aircraft is “No, you can’t fly it the old fashioned way.”
I don’t know the extent to which this has translated to commercial aircraft, particularly this breed of 737.
“I read one US incident where the pilots engaged the autopilot after takeoff and the nose immediately went down. They disengaged the autopilot and flew manually the rest of the way.
So the answer to your question is “yes.””
Not necessarily, because the fact that they had to override the a/c’s normal operating system meant that there was a malfunction that would have to be corrected before the plane would be allowed to fly again.
Here’s the question Boeing will never answer:
“In what country was the software in question written?”
Care to take a guess as to the answer?
They fixed the problems in real time in the field and bypassed the red tape.
The B-17 originally had weak nose armament. The USAAF troops in the pacific fitted twin 50's in the nose. Later Boeing formally designed and put the chin turret on the B-17s.
“I don’t know about this particular aircraft, but starting around the time of the reverse-swept wing X-29, which was never developed as a production model, and this was going on 30 years ago, fighter planes were so complicated that no one could fly them without software to deal with the tricky control surfaces. Basically, IIRC, the word on the X-29 was if the software crapped out the plane was unflyable by anyone.”
And that is ditto for the F-117 and the B-2. These planes cannot fly without the “help” of computers because they are, like the X-29, basically unstable. Human pilots cannot “keep track” of enough of the flight parameters to achieve stable flight. It’s like the human pilot, tells the plane where he want’s it to go via his controls, and the flight computers make the necessary adjustments to the control surfaces to effectuate the pilot’s wishes.
There can also be short term fixes and work arounds to allow the plane to be flown safely in the interim. These can be released as procedural manual changes and training syllabus changes.
You can bet the airlines have already put uncontrolled pitch changes into the simulators.
The MCAS system was designed to take control away from the pilot during critical events, and it is believed it did so erroneously in the case of these crashes. 737 Max is not fly by wire, but is throttle by wire as well as some other systems.
I’m one of those folks with a simple mind who intensely dislikes complexity, especially when it’s unnecessary. Can this airplane be saved, without there always being some risk? If i’m reading it correctly, this plane wasn’t engineered “ground up”. A lot of the improvements aren’t compatible with the original design.
If software is the culprit in the 2 crashes, manual override is the reason more have not occurred.
“They have to make the plane foolproof so that pilots who don’t know how to fly won’t crash when there’s an easily manageable problem.”
That’s a huge point.
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