The USA is a bankrupt warmongering police state now.
The US used to love personal responsibility, freedom, morality, peace, and balanced budgets.
Americans are now embracing welfare, tyranny, immorality, war, and debt.
How could any American hate free speech, religious freedom, gun rights, freedom from unconstitutional searches and seizures, the right to silence, and the freedom from torture and extrajudicial assassination?
How could any American go through life without hearing about living in a free country, the Bill of Rights, Independence Day, the land of the free, and the Statue of Liberty at least once?
Why did Americans fight for freedom against the British and Hitler just to become a police state?
Do TSA agents who unconstitutionally grope, CIA agents who torture, NSA employees who wiretap, soldiers who carry out wars, movie stars who distract and brainwash, politicians who write laws enslaving Americans, reporters who push tyranny, elites who support the police state, voters, and taxpayers feel any guilt at all?
Do police officers who enforce unconstitutional laws, conduct checkpoints, kill unarmed Americans, seize property, confiscate guns, arrest protesters, smokers, drug users, gun owners, beggars, photographers, bank customers, farmers, dog owners, straw users, and business people say that they are not responsible for turning the US into a police state because they are just following orders?
Do Americans who love tyranny feel like traitors?
Do freedom loving patriots who stay silent and do nothing while the US collapses feel like they can take the moral high ground?
My interpretation of that first link: The new engines meant the plane would stall easier under some circumstances so rather than telling everyone about it, they bandaided this behaviour by adding pitch-down based on the measured angle of attack. However, if the single angle-of-attack sensor fails the plane can suddenly dive.
Sounds like planes need an "automation e-stop", some kind of quick standardized way to return a plane to full manual control.
My understanding is there are two FCCs (flight control computers), but there is only one sensor package used for the MCAS. Normally separate sensor packages would feed into the separate FCCs and require agreement before taking action.
I'm not sure why something that overrides pilot input wouldn't absolutely require multiple sensors monitored by the independent computers.
My understanding is each computer is dual-CPU, though I'm not sure if they exclusively have each computer check the other or if each CPU checks its partner within the same computer (or both), and whether that applies to all tasks or just some of them.
oof. It would be nice if there were some clarity on what happened on those flights - even if it's only for the families who lost people. That said it would be nice to know what is going that has resulted in such an (apparently) above mean crash rate.
It's ironic that it's a Boeing with bad software (or sensors) interfering between yoke and plane. After all, historically, Boeing has had the philosophy of trusting the pilot with direct control of the plane. This is in comparison with Airbus, where controls are by stick instead of yoke, and pilots are taught to trust the flight computer and move the controls less. (Of course, these days both manufacturers build fly-by-wire planes.) [1]
The addition of a 'maneuvering characteristics augmentation system' seems very unlike Boeing. I guess it became necessary after adding too-big engines without otherwise adjusting the airframe... [2]
This "we'll fix it with software later" attitude works well with CPU errata and maybe Teslas, but it doesn't look like we're there yet for airplanes, unfortunately.
On Mar 12th 2019 Boeing issued following release with respect to MCAS, Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian flight 302:
For the past several months and in the aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610, Boeing has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer. This includes updates to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) flight control law, pilot displays, operation manuals and crew training. The enhanced flight control law incorporates angle of attack (AOA) inputs, limits stabilizer trim commands in response to an erroneous angle of attack reading, and provides a limit to the stabilizer command in order to retain elevator authority.
...
The FAA says it anticipates mandating this software enhancement with an Airworthiness Directive (AD) no later than April. We have worked with the FAA in development of this software enhancement.
"Boeing has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer".
Just unbelievable. For the concerned software "enhancement", the undisputed fact here is that the current MCAS can crash the aircraft when the sensor reading is wrong. Apparently, that is now considered as "already safe" by Boeing! To be honest, that is not a "software enhancement", it is an urgent fix for a life critical system.
It is also important to notice that as of writing, FAA still refuses to ground all 737 Max for a full investigation. I don't think FAA is going to be that nice towards say Airbus aircrafts. It is a pure political move aimed nothing else but to trade human lives for some cheap protectionism for its domestic companies.
340+ real people already dead, 737 Max are being grounded by more and more countries, FAA still refuses to follow to do the right thing. Shame on FAA and Boeing.
This is very significant. Singapore has https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsI... a bilateral agreement with the FAA which "provides for the mutual recognition of airworthiness of civil aeronautical products" (Reuters reported China wants this but couldn't achieve it yet). Now, the SG CAAS did not yet issue a declaration on the airworthiness of the 737 Max 8 but this puts immense pressure on the FAA-EASA-TCAA-etc family to move.
Are you asking whether Singapore addressing the airworthiness of the Boeing 737 Max 8 would automatically extend to the USA and due to other agreements to the EU , Canada and Australia? No, the Airworthiness Directives are legally enforcable and it's a matter of very fundamental principle no country can create law in another. It would not automatically follow but it's basically unthinkable they wouldn't issue similar directives in rapid succession. For example, when the 787 got an Airworthiness Directive in 2013 https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsI... then the EASA adopted it https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/news/boeing-7... immediately but it needed to adopt it -- the FAA has no power in the EU.
Does airworthiness (USA: true; Singapore: false) evaluate to true or false? What does such a bilateral agreement mean? If I make a new plane, am I required to get Singapore's approval before I can fly it in the US?
Singapore didn't yet trigger a false. It's close but not yet. Banning the plane is not an Airworthiness Directive. If you make a new plane and you want to fly it in FAA controlled airspace you need to get FAA approval and if you want to fly it in Singapore airspace you need SG CAAS approval, however due to the bilateral agreement, if you have a FAA approval this is a non-issue. Basically you get to skip the entire approval process except the very last step where the authority issues the approval itself.
And, again, if Singapore did the unthinkable and deemed the 737 Max 8 not airworthy before the FAA did, then ... yes, everyone else would follow but that's not how this is done. Singapore practically says in the way this is done that the FAA should issue an AD and then they and everyone else would follow. To be honest, it's extremely likely at this point the FAA will cave in and issue a temporary AD within the next 24 hours until the dust clears. Right now they issued a "Continued Airworthiness Notification" https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/media/CAN_2019_03.pdf and going straight against that is ... even in the Trump era, that's impossible. It would, without exaggeration, unravel the fabric of smooth international air travel.
Multiple eye witness reports have the 737 trailing smoke and debris and making unusual sounds before impact [1]. That's not the sort of report one would expect if an otherwise intact aircraft flew into terrain due to some flaw with MCAS.
Because you are anonymous quoting a second anonymous party who had an unknown tell him it might have been the thing every accident is blamed on early on but it almost never is actually that thing? Also, that thing is heavily used by politicians for fearmongering. Do you understand now the heavy downvoting?
Yes, this seems quite possible and fits well but it's interesting the media is not commenting on this. Or a fire in the cargo.
But, you'd think the pilot would have said something more dramatic than "difficulties" if true.
"The pilot of the plane reported difficulties and asked to turn back, according to the airline’s CEO Tewolde GebreMariam."
The downvotes is because HN can't question the media, they have been fed the BOEING 737 MAX hardware/software story and have to stick with it. It's hard to think critically if it's outside the mainstream. Even though we've seen these hysterias before aka accelerators getting stuck.
Preliminary eyewitness reports are often fairly unreliable, so I won't put much weight into those. In any case, flames and vibrations can be explained by the engines experiencing a compressor stall [1] due to turbulent airflow or the aircraft otherwise operating outside of its design envelope [2].
22 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 57.3 ms ] threadThe US used to love personal responsibility, freedom, morality, peace, and balanced budgets.
Americans are now embracing welfare, tyranny, immorality, war, and debt.
How could any American hate free speech, religious freedom, gun rights, freedom from unconstitutional searches and seizures, the right to silence, and the freedom from torture and extrajudicial assassination?
How could any American go through life without hearing about living in a free country, the Bill of Rights, Independence Day, the land of the free, and the Statue of Liberty at least once?
Why did Americans fight for freedom against the British and Hitler just to become a police state?
Do TSA agents who unconstitutionally grope, CIA agents who torture, NSA employees who wiretap, soldiers who carry out wars, movie stars who distract and brainwash, politicians who write laws enslaving Americans, reporters who push tyranny, elites who support the police state, voters, and taxpayers feel any guilt at all?
Do police officers who enforce unconstitutional laws, conduct checkpoints, kill unarmed Americans, seize property, confiscate guns, arrest protesters, smokers, drug users, gun owners, beggars, photographers, bank customers, farmers, dog owners, straw users, and business people say that they are not responsible for turning the US into a police state because they are just following orders?
Do Americans who love tyranny feel like traitors?
Do freedom loving patriots who stay silent and do nothing while the US collapses feel like they can take the moral high ground?
https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365179
Sounds like planes need an "automation e-stop", some kind of quick standardized way to return a plane to full manual control.
A big red "disable all automation" and better user interfaces that actually tell you why the computer is commanding a maneuver would save lives.
I'm not sure why something that overrides pilot input wouldn't absolutely require multiple sensors monitored by the independent computers.
My understanding is each computer is dual-CPU, though I'm not sure if they exclusively have each computer check the other or if each CPU checks its partner within the same computer (or both), and whether that applies to all tasks or just some of them.
The addition of a 'maneuvering characteristics augmentation system' seems very unlike Boeing. I guess it became necessary after adding too-big engines without otherwise adjusting the airframe... [2]
This "we'll fix it with software later" attitude works well with CPU errata and maybe Teslas, but it doesn't look like we're there yet for airplanes, unfortunately.
[1] https://www.pprune.org/tech-log/10321-stick-vs-yoke-airbus-v...
[2] https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing...
On Mar 12th 2019 Boeing issued following release with respect to MCAS, Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian flight 302:
For the past several months and in the aftermath of Lion Air Flight 610, Boeing has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer. This includes updates to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) flight control law, pilot displays, operation manuals and crew training. The enhanced flight control law incorporates angle of attack (AOA) inputs, limits stabilizer trim commands in response to an erroneous angle of attack reading, and provides a limit to the stabilizer command in order to retain elevator authority.
...
The FAA says it anticipates mandating this software enhancement with an Airworthiness Directive (AD) no later than April. We have worked with the FAA in development of this software enhancement.
http://avherald.com/h?article=4c534c4a&opt=0
"Boeing has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer".
Just unbelievable. For the concerned software "enhancement", the undisputed fact here is that the current MCAS can crash the aircraft when the sensor reading is wrong. Apparently, that is now considered as "already safe" by Boeing! To be honest, that is not a "software enhancement", it is an urgent fix for a life critical system.
It is also important to notice that as of writing, FAA still refuses to ground all 737 Max for a full investigation. I don't think FAA is going to be that nice towards say Airbus aircrafts. It is a pure political move aimed nothing else but to trade human lives for some cheap protectionism for its domestic companies.
340+ real people already dead, 737 Max are being grounded by more and more countries, FAA still refuses to follow to do the right thing. Shame on FAA and Boeing.
And, again, if Singapore did the unthinkable and deemed the 737 Max 8 not airworthy before the FAA did, then ... yes, everyone else would follow but that's not how this is done. Singapore practically says in the way this is done that the FAA should issue an AD and then they and everyone else would follow. To be honest, it's extremely likely at this point the FAA will cave in and issue a temporary AD within the next 24 hours until the dust clears. Right now they issued a "Continued Airworthiness Notification" https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/media/CAN_2019_03.pdf and going straight against that is ... even in the Trump era, that's impossible. It would, without exaggeration, unravel the fabric of smooth international air travel.
According to https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airplane-witness... the plane "was making a strange rattling noise and trailed smoke and debris" which very well might mean it was a very different issue to the Lion Air one.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airplane-witness...
But, you'd think the pilot would have said something more dramatic than "difficulties" if true.
"The pilot of the plane reported difficulties and asked to turn back, according to the airline’s CEO Tewolde GebreMariam."
The downvotes is because HN can't question the media, they have been fed the BOEING 737 MAX hardware/software story and have to stick with it. It's hard to think critically if it's outside the mainstream. Even though we've seen these hysterias before aka accelerators getting stuck.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQWYhsYfMxE (Boeing Training Video on Compressor Surge/Stalls)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressor_stall#Causes
https://youtu.be/zfQW0upkVus?t=220