737 Max freakout

Woke AF

Tom Curren status
Jul 29, 2009
11,439
7,754
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Southern Tip, Norcal
With the European Union grounding the 737 MAX, North America is one of the last places on Earth you can get a ride on Boeing's deathliner. Despite the brand-new jet's disturbingly similar crashes and hundreds of dead travelers, the FAA and U.S.-based carriers insist it's safe to fly. Several airline pilots disagree.

Pilots repeatedly voiced safety concerns about the Boeing 737 Max 8 to federal authorities, with one captain calling the flight manual "inadequate and almost criminally insufficient" several months before Sunday's Ethiopian Air crash that killed 157 people, an investigation by The Dallas Morning News found. ... The disclosures found by The News reference problems with an autopilot system, and they all occurred during the ascent after takeoff. Many mentioned the plane suddenly nosing down. While records show these flights occurred in October and November, the airlines the pilots were flying for is redacted from the database.

Will another one go down before the problem is fixed? Capitalism is all about risk and inertia, and American businesses love taking risks and doing nothing.
 

emmohl80

Nep status
Oct 17, 2010
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Just realized my connection from Miami is on one of these. I will be changing my ticket.
 

xxx

Nep status
Nov 18, 2006
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I'm in san Antonio and fly back to hell A friday. How do I find out what plane I'm in? Phew! 737-700

 

Truth

Phil Edwards status
Jul 18, 2002
5,896
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flying a MAX 9 next week - any concerns about them ?
 

GromsDad

Duke status
Jan 21, 2014
54,153
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West of the Atlantic. East of the ICW.
Autoprax said:
You gotta be an Einstain to fly that thing.
One of my neighbors is a first seat 767 pilot. Trust me he's no Einstein. Also surprisingly low paid considering the position of great responsibility he's in. His pay is closer to that of a school bus driver than a physician. We had a conversation after the last crash. He explained to me that these planes practically fly themselves and that the trouble occurs when the pilot doesn't trust the plane and tries to fly it himself.
 

SteveT

Phil Edwards status
Apr 11, 2005
5,867
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GromsDad said:
Autoprax said:
You gotta be an Einstain to fly that thing.
One of my neighbors is a first seat 767 pilot. Trust me he's no Einstein. Also surprisingly low paid considering the position of great responsibility he's in. His pay is closer to that of a school bus driver than a physician. We had a conversation after the last crash. He explained to me that these planes practically fly themselves and that the trouble occurs when the pilot doesn't trust the plane and tries to fly it himself.
That is truly scary :eek:
 

Woke AF

Tom Curren status
Jul 29, 2009
11,439
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Southern Tip, Norcal
GromsDad said:
Autoprax said:
You gotta be an Einstain to fly that thing.
One of my neighbors is a first seat 767 pilot. Trust me he's no Einstein. Also surprisingly low paid considering the position of great responsibility he's in. His pay is closer to that of a school bus driver than a physician. We had a conversation after the last crash. He explained to me that these planes practically fly themselves and that the trouble occurs when the pilot doesn't trust the plane and tries to fly it himself.
Yeah blame the pilots not the software. Who would trust a low paid human who isn't even an Einstein.
Trust the machine.
Machines, corrupt politicians and CEO's all have our best interest at heart.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/13/18263719/boeing-ceo-dennis-muilenburg-trump-tweet-call
 

bluemarlin04

Michael Peterson status
Aug 13, 2015
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GromsDad said:
Autoprax said:
You gotta be an Einstain to fly that thing.
One of my neighbors is a first seat 767 pilot. Trust me he's no Einstein. Also surprisingly low paid considering the position of great responsibility he's in. His pay is closer to that of a school bus driver than a physician. We had a conversation after the last crash. He explained to me that these planes practically fly themselves and that the trouble occurs when the pilot doesn't trust the plane and tries to fly it himself.
He is probably a regional airlines pilot. They dont make much. Its all about the multi engine hours with passengers. Once they move up to a Big airlines (Delta, United, Alaska, Hawaiian, etc) they start making A LOT of money. Esp once they make captain.

The planes fly themselves but Pilots need to know how to do emergency procedures, communicate, and navigate and how to respond properly.
 

$kully

Duke status
Feb 27, 2009
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GromsDad said:
Autoprax said:
You gotta be an Einstain to fly that thing.
One of my neighbors is a first seat 767 pilot. Trust me he's no Einstein. Also surprisingly low paid considering the position of great responsibility he's in. His pay is closer to that of a school bus driver than a physician. We had a conversation after the last crash. He explained to me that these planes practically fly themselves and that the trouble occurs when the pilot doesn't trust the plane and tries to fly it himself.
Lot of truth to that. In the golden age of air travel Pilots were high profile, well-paid members of society akin to Doctors. We looked up to them. Now they're underpaid bus drivers. Michael Moore covered that years ago. My cousin is a pilot and he got out of commercial air travel because it was such a shitty industry. He now has it good. He works for a French private jet manufacturer and basically flies the mobile show room from air strip to air strip whenever someone is interested in buying one. Better pay. Better benefits. Better hours. He's now pretty much on call. Gets paid more to spend his days in NJ cycling and hanging with his kids and when he gets a call he jumps in the plane and flies to Japan or Europe for a few days. Hangs out and does touristy sh!t while the sales guys do their thing and then flies the plane back. It's kind of crazy to me how that could pay more than being responsible for the lives of hundreds of people flying and doing sometimes multiple flights a day 5 days a week.
 

mundus

Duke status
Feb 26, 2018
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Boeing forced bigger heavier engines into an existing airframe and tried to cover the air worthiness problems with software, now they are paying the price.
 

studog

Duke status
Jan 15, 2003
35,863
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CA
mundus said:
Boeing forced bigger heavier engines into an existing airframe and tried to cover the air worthiness problems with software, now they are paying the price.
lack of training seems to be a problem too. international carrier pilots not getting enough training for the new software :shrug:
 

racer1

Tom Curren status
Apr 16, 2014
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Honolulu, Hawaii
Buddy is a captain with Hawaiian. He said Hawaiian didn't buy any of these because it would take lots of training for the Pilots Union and they already do a shitload of training.

Southwest is supposed to launch Hawaiian routes and interisland to compete with Hawaiian, and while I doubt they'd use 737 Max to fly inter island, they do own 34 Max's (the most in the US) so I wonder if they'll still be doing Hawaii / California routes?
 

jackcheez

Legend (inyourownmind)
Aug 9, 2015
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GromsDad said:
Autoprax said:
You gotta be an Einstain to fly that thing.
One of my neighbors is a first seat 767 pilot. Trust me he's no Einstein. Also surprisingly low paid considering the position of great responsibility he's in. His pay is closer to that of a school bus driver than a physician. We had a conversation after the last crash. He explained to me that these planes practically fly themselves and that the trouble occurs when the pilot doesn't trust the plane and tries to fly it himself.


The problem with the Max happens when the autopilot system mistakenly senses the plane stalling. It responds by nosing down. Normally the proper way to deal with something like this is to pull the circuit breaker for that system and fly the plane yourself.

If it happens on takeoff there may not be time to find and pull the breaker. The pilots who crashed in these planes were fighting the runaway autopilot when they crashed.