https://news.yahoo.com/ap-sources-boeing-changing-max-184231846.html
Boeing is working on new software for the 737 Max that will use a second flight control computer to make the system more reliable, solving a problem that surfaced in June with the grounded jet, two people briefed on the matter said Friday.
When finished, the new software will give Boeing a complete package for regulators to evaluate as the company tries to get the Max flying again, according to the people, who didn't want to be identified because the new software hasn't been publicly disclosed.
The Max was grounded worldwide after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed a total of 346 people.
Use of the second redundant computer, reported Thursday by the Seattle Times, would resolve a problem discovered in theoretical problem simulations done by the Federal Aviation Administration after the crashes. The simulations found an issue that could result in the plane's nose pitching down. Pilots in testing either took too long to recover from the problem or could not do so, one of the people said.
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https://www.npr.org/2019/12/17/788775642/boeing-will-temporarily-stop-making-its-737-max-jetliners
Production will stop in January. The jets were grounded after two crashes that killed nearly 350 people. Despite being grounded, Boeing continued cranking the planes out at its factory near Seattle.
(The interview had more good information, but at time of submission, the transcript wasn't available. There may be better articles out there.)
There are. Here's one:
Boeing will suspend 737 Max production in January at CNBC:
Boeing is planning to suspend production of its beleaguered 737 Max planes next month, the company said Monday, a drastic step after the Federal Aviation Administration said its review of the planes would continue into next year, dashing the manufacturer's forecast.
Boeing's decision to temporarily shut down production, made after months of a cash-draining global grounding of its best-selling aircraft, worsens one of the most severe crises in the history of the century-old manufacturer. It is ramping up pressure on CEO Dennis Muilenburg, whom the board stripped of his chairmanship in October as the crisis wore on.
The measure is set to ripple through the aerospace giant's supply chain and broader economy. It also presents further problems for airlines, which have lost hundreds of millions of dollars and canceled thousands of flights without the fuel-efficient planes in their fleets.
Boeing said it does not plan to lay off or furlough workers at the Renton, Washington, factory where the 737 Max is produced during the production pause. Some of the 12,000 workers there will be temporarily reassigned.
Previously:
Boeing's 737 Max Troubles Deepen, Taking Airlines, Suppliers With It
Review of 737 Max Certification Finds Fault With Boeing and F.A.A.
American Airlines Says It Will Resume Flights With Boeing’s 737 Max Jets in January
AP Sources: Boeing Changing 737 Max Software to Use 2 Computers
Boeing Falsified Records for 787 Jet Sold to Air Canada
Boeing Pledges $100M to Families of 737 Max Crash Victims
Capt. 'Sully' Sullenberger and Boeing 737 Max News
Boeing’s Own Test Pilots Lacked Key Details Of 737 Max Flight-Control System
Boeing CEO Defends 737 Max Flight Control System
Analysis: Why FAA-Approved Emergency Procedures Failed to Save ET302
Initial Findings Put Boeing's Software at Center of Ethiopian 737 Crash
Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max Flight Makes Emergency Landing (While Carrying No Passengers)
Airline Cancels $4.9 Billion Boeing 737 MAX Order; Doomed Planes Lacked Optional Safety Features
Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 Day Before Deadly Crash
DoJ Issues Subpoenas in 737 Max Investigation
Boeing 737 Max Aircraft Grounded in the U.S. and Dozens of Other Countries
Second 737 MAX8 Airplane Crash Reinforces Speculation on Flying System Problems
Boeing's promised 737 Max production halt begins:
The airline manufacturer had announced last month it would stop making the troubled craft at least until it was no longer grounded, but hadn't set a date. However the line has officially stopped producing planes while Boeing officials wait for regulators to give it the OK to fly again.
[...] The latest update estimated the grounding would last through at least mid-2020, Boeing said in a statement Tuesday.
Boeing will reassign 3,000 workers after 737 MAX production halt
Boeing Co said it will reassign 3,000 workers to other jobs as it halts production of the grounded best-selling 737 MAX jet in mid-January.
The announcement came after American Airlines Group Inc and Mexico's Aeromexico disclosed they were the latest carriers to reach settlements with Boeing over losses resulting from the grounding of the 737 MAX aircraft.
Neither airline disclosed the compensation. A number of airlines have struck confidential settlements with Boeing in recent weeks. Boeing said it does not comment on discussions with airlines.
Boeing's biggest supplier lays off 2,800 workers because of 737 Max production suspension:
Spirit AeroSystems (SPR), which makes fuselages for the Max as well as other items for Boeing, announced Friday that it is furloughing approximately 2,800 workers. Shares of the Wichita, Kansas-based company fell more than 1% in trading.
"The difficult decision announced today is a necessary step given the uncertainty related to both the timing for resuming 737 Max production and the overall production levels that can be expected following the production suspension," Spirit AeroSystems CEO Tom Gentile said in a press release.
Boeing wants to resume 737 Max production months before regulators sign off on the planes:
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Monday August 05 2019, @02:45AM (14 children)
It needs to settle any arguments between the first two.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Monday August 05 2019, @03:00AM (1 child)
And a fourth, for redundancy.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday August 05 2019, @04:25PM
There could be a fifth computer in the belly of the beast that completes the ring and binds them together.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 05 2019, @04:04AM (4 children)
That's what the Space Shuttle did. As I recall in the very early 1980s, it was usually disagreements between the flight computers that scrubbed launches.
A redundant computer sounds like a good idea in a risk management meeting, but the implementation can create more problems than it solves, particularly if it is done as a rushed band-aid.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday August 05 2019, @08:24AM (3 children)
IIRC they also ran completely different software. As in, the software was developed by independent teams to do the same task.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 05 2019, @01:10PM (2 children)
Brilliant, in theory.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday August 06 2019, @01:30AM (1 child)
And costly.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 06 2019, @01:06PM
Maybe not as costly as the political fallout from a loss of vehicle event...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by noelhenson on Monday August 05 2019, @06:38AM (2 children)
Actually you would need four to resolve the malicious liar scenarios. To handle n simultaneous errors, I believe you need 3n+1 computers.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday August 05 2019, @08:26AM (1 child)
You don't need four, you need a committee. They can then agree to convene a subcomittee to carry out a study and report back to the committee, who will bring in outside consultants to assess the results of the study and then submit it to auditors to verify the results, before it goes back to committee for a planning draft and then...
In the meantime, people will be using teleporters to get around after the last aircraft were retired thirty years earlier, but at least the proper procedure will have been followed and no-one will have to take responsibility.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @03:18PM
First you need a Mission Statement and a Vision Statement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @10:15AM (2 children)
How else can it properly support Rock Paper Scissors?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday August 05 2019, @11:47AM (1 child)
But what happens when Lizard and Spock come into the picture?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @03:06PM
You go down in a fiery crash?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 05 2019, @02:21PM
A third computer will upset the aircraft's equilibrium. Two computers of equal mass can maintain equilibrium by both being located on one side of the aircraft.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday August 05 2019, @03:03AM (2 children)
both computers took a vote; they agreed: humans deserve to die.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 05 2019, @02:19PM (1 child)
First they use cookies.
Then they use JavaScript.
Then they record your audio and do face recognition.
THEN they decide all humans must die.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @03:29PM
Would you prefer they simply skip the first three steps?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @04:01AM (1 child)
Modern cars already have ~50 microprocessors.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 05 2019, @05:04AM
They're mostly used to track you, compile data, and send it to "the man". /s
(Score: 5, Touché) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday August 05 2019, @04:29AM (14 children)
. The loved ones of 346 dead people disagree that the problem is theoretical.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 05 2019, @04:33AM (12 children)
Sadly what they're saying is that they don't definitively know what caused the crashes. Or, they don't want to admit it, and are hedging, thinking they can appease the public.
Supposedly what they discovered a few months ago was that the MCAS computer could get overwhelmed with data (and go berserk- Lost in Space robot flailing comes to mind).
My solution: GIVE THE PILOTS AN MCAS OFF SWITCH (I'm shouting at FAA and Boeing).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 05 2019, @04:47AM (10 children)
An "off" switch would be good. But, how about you just don't give MCAS control to start with? Consign it to a warning role only. If MCAS thinks the craft is about to stall, an alarm goes off. The pilots remain entirely responsible for correcting the situation, or dismissing the alarm as being false. The pilot's default action when the alarm goes off should be level flight, and gain speed, neither ascending nor descending, so that he has time to assess the situation. At such time as the pilot determines that MCAS was a false alarm, then he can cautiously start gaining altitude, trading his increased speed for height.
But, never give control of the craft to a demonstrably faulty computer system!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Monday August 05 2019, @04:56AM (9 children)
I'm not sure if you know the whole reason for MCAS- it was just supposed to compensate for the MAX's different handling, so regular 737 pilots could fly the MAX with no retraining. Pilots generally weren't even told it existed.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 05 2019, @05:25AM (8 children)
Yeah, I've followed along since the second crash occurred. And, the "no retraining" bit was something like 10,000% bullshit. I'm no pilot, but my seagoing experience is adequate to understand how much things change when the center of gravity is moved up, or down, forward or aft, port or starboard. Moving a couple thousand gallons of fuel from one tank to another could potentially cause a craft to capsize. Moving the engines up? Yeah, ditto. So, the Navy ensures that the Oil King benefits from ongoing training, but Boeing doesn't think it's worthwhile to give aircraft pilots additional training on a new craft.
The MAX may or may not be a good, airworthy design, but management turned it into a cluster fuck by trying to save money.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 05 2019, @05:39AM (1 child)
I think it was a combination- Boeing wanted to make the MAX more attractive, keep the costs down, and it worked- they sold many, so the penny-pinching customers are partly to blame. I mostly blame FAA or NTSB or whoever approved the thing.
I've been in small planes a fair bit, and have 1.5 hrs. in my FAA pilot training log. Didn't have the $ for a plane so I didn't see the point in continuing. But in the 1.5 hrs. I did some fairly advanced maneuvering, so I have a little feel for it. When flying, job # 1 is "keep it level". That's what you do. The main problem with the MAX plane, from everything I've read including pilots, is that the plane would pitch up if you throttle up. Okay, that's something to know about, but if your main job is to keep it level, that's what you do anyway. Pilots are pretty smart cookies. Let them handle the plane.
It's been argued that a machine can be faster and more precise than a human, but a machine can't really think, isn't self-aware, doesn't have self-preservation instincts, and if something goes wrong with the machine, the human needs to be allowed to take over.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday August 05 2019, @12:11PM
But there are now many aircraft flying that are so unstable that the humans can't control them if the machine breaks, so that the only "taking over" is using the seat's ejection feature...
For a 200 seat 737 Max at $180-360k (AU) per Martin-Baker seat [martin-baker.com] that's... going to make civil aviation expensive.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @06:03AM (5 children)
It wasn't moving the engines up that was the problem. To make them fit they moved them forward, but they were still bigger too. That put the point of thrust lower down and forward of the wings. If the pilot increased thrust, there was a natural tendency to rotate (nose up) around the wing, putting the plane in a stall position. Their solution was to abuse the pitch control to counteract the bad design. The software was supposed to be transparent to the pilot, but there is no way to compensate for the fact that the bad design also reduced the flight envelope.
In a plane with the line of thrust through the wings to avoid stalling you can increase thrust and push the nose down, in the MAX increasing thrust increased the rotational effect and made you more likely to stall.
It is a shit design and everybody who signed off on it should be charged.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Monday August 05 2019, @12:26PM (4 children)
Bingo. Another way of saying this is that when the center of lift and center of gravity are apart from one another, you need elevator control input to keep the nose where it needs to be for level flight. Usually this is done with a trim wheel (at least in the light singles I used to fly many moons ago), but also keep in mind holding a control input away from neutral to maintain level flight adds drag and thus hurts fuel economy, etc. This is widely known. Even private pilots have to understand the concept of “weight and balance” because it appears on the written exam as well as aircraft pilot’s manuals. It’s unbelievable that Boeing was effectively trying to hide this info from airline personnel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @03:11PM
so for airlines that care for their hardware, pilots, crew and passengers not turning into mush mixed with soil, there will be the old 787max available but WITH mandatory pilot retraining and NO homicidal computer? call it the 787maxlife.lessprofit?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday August 06 2019, @03:50AM
Wouldn't the MCAS be doing this? AFAIK, it mostly controls the electric trim.
Thank you, exactly what I've been saying all along.
As a pilot, do you agree with me that any airline pilot would be able to keep a MAX level under acceleration if the MCAS had to be disabled? IE, a 100% normal function during flying is to keep a plane level, just as driving a car you hopefully keep it within the lane. Admittedly it's not an ideal way to handle a plane, but I feel strongly that _any_ automation can fail, and a human should have the right to take over and try to save him/herself and everyone else on board.
In fact flight data from both crashed MAXes showed the pilots fought and fought, but the MCAS was literally more powerful, and seems to have had far more pitch control than I think it should have. It would be really good to have some hard data on the MAX plane's flight characteristics, for instance, how much yoke / elevator input is needed to compensate for thrust pitch-up at full throttle?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 06 2019, @06:20AM (1 child)
For level economical flight, as you say things must balance. I would put money on the center of lift and the center of gravity being in the same vertical plane. The center of thrust and center of drag will be in the same horizontal plane. So cruising at altitude all controls would be at neutral, for high economy.
The problems come about under acceleration or climbing. The direction of thrust does NOT line up with the center of gravity so accelerating imparts rotational force. If it is not controlled aggressively enough the plane will stall. If it is controlled too aggressively the plane will dive into the ground. Walking that tightrope depended on one sensor and when it fails "planes fall, everybody dies".
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Tuesday August 06 2019, @01:59PM
You’re right, of course, that there’s a balance of forces to consider that act in the horizontal plane as well, and if they are not aligned, the plane will want to rotate nose up or nose down in the absence of control inputs. Light single pilots never worry about this because the location of these net forces never move around: they are fixed as a function of airframe design and power plant location, and I guess the perception at Boeing is that they only matter to designers, but it’s something that pilots DEFINITELY should know about.
Just as an aside, center of gravity can move around depending on how the plane is loaded. Light single pilots have gotten killed by loading too much weight in the back that can result in too much “nose up” force on takeoff when airspeeds and altitude are low, so it’s easier to stall and there’s no time to recover. Obviously airliners have to manage this issue as well, but I have no idea what the margins are like.
I have zero experience with big iron, so I dont know how much force a pilot might have to exert on the controls in an out-of-balance situation. I guess I don’t understand why you can’t design the hydraulics to give the pilot more gain into the controls than the control system. In a Cessna, all the control surfaces are connected to the wheel by steel cables, and the forces you need to hold the attitude of the plane tells you something about the flight status of the plane. I can tell you that if you don’t spin that trim wheel down when you make the transition from climb to level flight, you have to push surprisingly hard on that yoke to keep it level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @04:05PM
Flight engineers. They used to have these guys doing the computer's job to the tune of 160k/year. Probably less than 180k/yr after benefits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @12:14PM
No, no, what they're saying is they've only done theoretical simulations. Because in practice, running a simulation is much too expensive. Some 300-odd deaths are much cheaper to the manufacturer, because they're insured for that kind of damage. But simulations, that's out-of-pocket costs and directly impacts the bottom line.
Won't somebody think of the shareholders?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @05:33AM
2 computers times $9/hr per computer = 18 dollars! that's more than $15/hr, maga!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kazzie on Monday August 05 2019, @05:46AM (4 children)
Previous reports centred on the fact that the MCAS system made its decisions based on ther input of only one Angle of Attack sensor. It's no use having multiple computers all relying on the same (potentially faulty) sensor.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Monday August 05 2019, @12:15PM (3 children)
This is also my recollection of a story (I thought) I was following closely. A few months ago, it was the lack of redundant sensing that was implicated in the crashes.
Now we have a second redundant computer (if you read TFA closely), and new software. The use of a second sensor is isn’t mentioned until the second to last paragraph. What’s going on?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday August 05 2019, @01:20PM
Last I heard, the proposed software fixes thus far were found to potentially overload the '80s-spec CPU in the flight computer. I'm wondering if the second computer referred to in the Yahoo article is actually meant to offload some of the work rather than being entirely redundant.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday August 05 2019, @02:29PM
My 2 cents worth is that everyone in this thread is correct to a greater or lesser degree. The problem was caused partly by a single sensor which could provide erroneous data. So lets provide another sensor. Ok, but if both sensors are feeding the same computer then there is still a single point of failure - the problem hasn't been fixed, it's been moved. So, we install a second computer. Fine, until the two computers provide different information.... Which one do we believe? The MCAS system, even with the proposed changes, is flawed.
Whoa, let's back up a bit. Why is MCAS required? It is because the thrust is provided below the central axis of the aircraft therefore changes in thrust result in changes of pitch. Now this is quite manageable - within certain limits - by the pilots provided that they know about it. But Boeing were trying to save money and were claiming that no extra training was required for the 737 MAX. So confident were they that, in many cases, the pilots were not told about the MCAS system or its purpose. They want to have a computer do the work because airlines want to be able to use existing 737 pilots and being unable to do so means that those airlines might consider alternative manufacturer's airframes in future purchases.
The accidents were initially caused by Boeing making a false claim about training requirements in an effort to cut costs and remain competitive, and exacerbated by not publishing the appropriate documentation to all 737 MAX pilots, and subsequently searching for a technical solution to a management and budgetary problem. Rather than redesign the wing and undercarriage to cope with the larger engines (no, no, no, think of the costs!) they made some bad decisions which, ultimately, mean they are liable. Any procedures to avoid bad decisions being made were negated by having Boeing staff doing FAA work rather than an independent set of experts reviewing the development process. They are now trying to limit their liability by making everyone believe that this was a technical problem that could not be foreseen, and by providing a technical solution so that they can get the airframes back in the air.
Now, this isn't an anti-Boeing stance. Airbus have had their own share of mistakes along the way. What is different here is that Boeing seem, to me at least, reluctant to accept that they well and truly made a mess of this and instituted procedures that were intentionally designed to avoid having their decisions questioned. I know what the CEO said but he didn't say it all. This was brought about by greed. How many people have lost their jobs because of this (excluding the aircrew and passengers in the 2 lost aircraft)? How many are facing legal sanctions? How many of the top people have resigned? Nope, it was greed, pure and simple, and what they are doing now is trying to limit the losses.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday August 06 2019, @03:52AM
My hunch is that the AoA sensor froze over, and my fear is that having many sensors could mean many frozen sensors.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @01:34PM (1 child)
How to dig a hole:
Break ground by choosing an evolutionary business plan.
Incrementally evolve the design with lower and lower engines putting the thrust more and more out of line with the drag.
Add a really strong jacking system to give the elevator enough authority to force the thing to fly level.
Remove switches to let the pilot take manual control of the jacks, instead providing a manual hand wheel requiring super human strength.
Ice the cake with a less well thought out computer control system to control the electric jack.
Provide a pilot's manual, not really informing the pilot of the above situation.
Bypass the written in blood regulatory safeguards which should prevent this situation from flying.
After major problems, stick with the business plan and attempt to fix the mess with a software update.
The first rule when you are in a hole like this is to stop digging.
Enough with the just a software update stuff.
At the very least, the pilot needs a clear understanding of what is what and the ability to manually control the plane.
First, see if this is possible with a clear review of the dynamics and redundancies in the critical systems.
Then changes to the manual, rewiring the switches, fixing the simulator, and hopefully a better manual jacking system.
Given the thrust vector imbalance, it's not clear if such a process could/should ever get past the review step.
It should be noted that the design has a lot of safe flight hours, and so there is hope.
If this aviation business remembers that one has to stay focused on aviation first then business to stay in business.
Or, they could just keep digging.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 05 2019, @02:23PM
Rule for CEOs. It sounds like this: When you're an a-hole, stop digging!
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Monday August 05 2019, @02:26PM
The Boeing 737 Max has become the Pinto of the aircraft industry. This latest news makes me even less inclined to ever fly in one.