Boeing 737 MAX Shocking Steep takeoff almost vertical Farnborough air show
- Thread starter Zaibetter
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Just because a plane can do a near vertical take off does not mean they do it all the time. It is only done when necessary because it uses up a tremendous amount of fuel. British Royal Air Force Harriers can take off vertically but it is rarely done.
I will also add, actual angle is 40 degrees not 90. The plane would've also been empty (no passengers or baggage) and a light fuel load.
+1 It has nice size engines, bet it can fly with one engine.
Terb members on ignore: oagre
This is the Boeing 787 video with soundtrack of their 2014 Farnborough rehearsal.
(At least this one doesn't warn you that test pilots are flying the aircraft)
This by the way was the show that Farnborough had a cow about. (starting about 1:49)
The 737 is a 52 year old airframe.
This is really just a legacy airplane. It's like buying a 67 Mustang and ripping out the original engine and putting in a new drive train and thinking it can keep up with a new state of the art 5 series BMW. It just can't.
This airplane is nothing new, nothing exciting. It's simply an update. Though I will be the first to admit (as will Boeing) that the 737 sells well. It just hit the sweet spot in its size for today's airline needs (which require planes to leave full of people and fly on 2 engines.) The future is here and it's not big monsters like the A380 or the 747.
But as far as modern goes. The 736 aint it.
This is really just a legacy airplane. It's like buying a 67 Mustang and ripping out the original engine and putting in a new drive train and thinking it can keep up with a new state of the art 5 series BMW. It just can't.
This airplane is nothing new, nothing exciting. It's simply an update. Though I will be the first to admit (as will Boeing) that the 737 sells well. It just hit the sweet spot in its size for today's airline needs (which require planes to leave full of people and fly on 2 engines.) The future is here and it's not big monsters like the A380 or the 747.
But as far as modern goes. The 736 aint it.
Seems the 737 Max has a few deadly bugs to work out of its design. Apparently there have been several incidents lately of the plane's autopilot system wanting to crash the plane. Faulty sensors being blamed, maybe faulty software, maybe this, or maybe that. In either case, Lion Air flight JT610 crashed on October 29, 2018 killing all 189 people on board minutes after take off.
The plane was brand new having just entered service on August 13, 2018. Makes you wonder what they hell they are making at Boeing.
You might be able to chalk this up as a freak accident, but apparently there have been multiple reports of Boeing 737 Max airplanes going HAL 9000 on their flight crews. In the case of Lion Air, apparently the pilots tried over 2 dozen times to disengage the autopilot to no avail. The plane just literally dove itself into the ocean.
Lion Air
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46121127
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/28/asia/lion-air-preliminary-report-intl/index.html
The plane was brand new having just entered service on August 13, 2018. Makes you wonder what they hell they are making at Boeing.
You might be able to chalk this up as a freak accident, but apparently there have been multiple reports of Boeing 737 Max airplanes going HAL 9000 on their flight crews. In the case of Lion Air, apparently the pilots tried over 2 dozen times to disengage the autopilot to no avail. The plane just literally dove itself into the ocean.
Lion Air
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46121127
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/28/asia/lion-air-preliminary-report-intl/index.html
Boeing apparently didn't disclose previous failures and concerns about this problem and only released a bulletin after the Lion Air crash.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/lion-air-crash-boeing-withheld-information-on737-max-planes-wsj-says.html
For crazy short take of and landing - check out the late 1980 rushed attempt to convert the C-130 into a STOL aircraft - to be tasked with the Iranian Hostage rescue (Operation "Credible Sport"). In four months the plane was modified with rockets to help it take off and land within the space of a soccer stadium. It worked, but the project was scrapped after an accident when the test pilots fired the retro-rockets before the wheels had touched - causing the plane to crash. Miraculously the entire test crew escaped the crash unharmed. Test pilots are definitely a different breed.
As a side note - Operation Credible Sport was launched after the failed first rescue attempt. After Carter lost the election, the project was abandoned - negotiations started and the hostages released on Reagan's inauguration day. So Reagan got full credit for the hostage release and President Peanut was left a one term President - a great example of how politics just isn't fair sometimes. As another side note - the failure of the rescues led to the creation of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR).
Here you go.
Whoops, it seems this plane has a bit of problem just taking off.
After 11 minutes, well, it flew itself right into the ocean. They say hitting the water is like hitting concrete.
What's really interesting when you look at that curve in green, you can actually see every time the pilots tried to over-ride the auto pilot by counting the inflection points in the curve, but HAL 9000 just decided to crash the plane anyway.
From what was reported today it seems like an airline maintenance and training issue.
The flight crew the day before reported the problem, the maintenance crew certified that the aircraft was fit for flight (which it most certainly was not). The flight crew the day before knew to throw the switches shutting off the faulty system, the flight crew on the day of the crash never did so.
Faulty Angle of Attack sensor. Was signaling to the Auto Flight System that the aircraft was in a stall when it was not. So it was driving the horizontal stabilizer to trim down. Since the crew was counteracting by pulling back, it kept on trimming down, to the point of them losing control in a dive with the stab trim at 0. Boeing issued an emergency airworthiness directive, mandating inspection of the AOA sensors and on the pilot side, treating it as a runaway stabilizer, so in that event, moving the pitch trim cut-off switches to cut-off.
The 737 Max is the latest iteration of the 737-100 , who's airframe design is 50 years old. It's got a flight management system that is close to the 737 NG, but with the addition of big screens in the cockpit like the ones in the 787. Other than that, it's almost the same electro-mechanical and hydraulic sytems, with their manual switches on the overhead panel.
It is not an easy aircraft to fly manually, including on instruments, and doesn't have the protective systems of Airbus that prevent neophyte blunders, like rolling it upside down, of Alpha-Floor and Alpha Protect, that prevents Airbus from stalling. The latter, however, are a liability in themselves when the safety systems fail or are degraded, and the warnings become overwhelming to understand (AF447).
Up til now, pilots in North America have no problem with it, given their previous experience in military aviation or general aviation flying more basic airplanes. However, there is now a pilot shortage, and airlines are hiring from a diminishing pool of experienced pilots. Overseas, pilots are hired from the street, sent to the company academy, get their basic licenses, then given a course on a big jet. they sit in the right seat for a number of years before qualifying in the left seat, but do not have the breath of experience others who have faced poor facilities and poor equipment in shitty weather in far less capable aircraft. In this situation when things start going wrong, the 737 can become a handful to pilots who's most flying time has been with the autopilot on.
Why was a 2 month old plane is such a state of disrepair that it crashed?
The crash, like most others, was caused by a series of events, not just one.
But it all started with faulty sensors on a brand new air craft.
Then it cascades to the plane NOT disengaging from autopilot when the pilot simply pushes on the yolk, which is a commonly accepted procedure for disengaging autopilot
Then it cascades to Boeing NOT telling the airlines that the system has changed.
Then it cascades to the pilots not being properly trained on simulators for the new plane.
But there is a question I have......
I get how if the plane senses (incorrectly) that it is going to stall due to a lack of airspeed, that it wants to dive the plane to increase airspeed, but at what point does the plane not understand that it is running out of sky and is in imminent danger of diving right into the ground? Why in god's green earth does it not just automatically release control to the pilot based on the assumption that the pilot has the necessary brains and skill to fly the damn plane?
Boeing’s latest airliners lack a common override feature that, in some dangerous circumstances, allows pilots to reliably pull planes out of nosedives and avert crashes such as last month’s fatal plunge by Lion Air Flight 610, aeronautics experts and pilot groups say.
The state-of-the-art 737 MAX 8 airplanes do not have this feature, yet the company failed to prominently warn pilots of the change even as airlines worldwide began taking delivery of the new jets last year, pilots say.
“We were completely in the dark,” said Dennis Tajer, a 737 pilot and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, representing American Airlines pilots.
Questions surrounding the crash have turned a harsh spotlight on Boeing’s latest update to its workhorse 737 line, the world’s most popular commercial airliner.
Previous iterations of 737s would have switched off key automatic control features when the pilot first pulled back the control column, a standard manual override feature in generations of airplanes. Investigators found that the final yank on the control column of Flight 610 registered almost 100 pounds of pressure, suggesting desperation in the cockpit as the plane plummeted.
Pilots expressed concern about the changing nature of the controls and Boeing’s delayed disclosure of the change. The company sent out its public alert more than a week after the Lion Air crash. Tajer and others said they were aware of no earlier notice of the change in how 737 MAX planes operate compared with their predecessors.
That end came after a battle between its flight crew and a computerized control system that repeatedly tilted the plane downward because of a malfunctioning sensor, according to the report.
Correcting the path of the plane would have required a multistep process, something that pilots and other aeronautics experts said may have been difficult to remember and execute during a life-threatening emergency.
Members of the Lion Air flight crew repeatedly attempted to manually arrest the plane’s dive, but the system reasserted itself each time. The crew lost control of the jet, which struck the water at 450 miles per hour, the report found.
LINK:
Interesting article in the Washington Post.
The above two posts certainly add additional information. I still, however, see it as mostly Lion Air. However, Boeing seemingly made some stupid decisions the rational for which I don't truly grasp.
