Plane Engines and the 737 MAX 8 Accidents

[sabad66]

A Southwest Boeing 737 Max on its way to being grounded, had to make an emergency landing back at the Orlando airport it took off from

http://www.fox35orlando.com/news/loc...tional-airport

[rage2]

Fucking headlines. Unrelated to the MCAS problems. No details on severity of engine problems. But max 8 headlines haha.

[Tik-Tok]

They're already "grounded" . Headline should be "Max 8 on its flight to long term storage in Victorville..."

[benyl]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Fucking headlines. Unrelated to the MCAS problems. No details on severity of engine problems. But max 8 headlines haha.

Fox news is garbage. They said the last plane crashed in Nairobi... It was on it way to Nairobi. Quality news reporting and editing.

President Trump previously ordered that all Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircrafts be grounded after one crashed in Nairobi, killing 157 people.

[Misterman]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Fucking headlines. Unrelated to the MCAS problems. No details on severity of engine problems. But max 8 headlines haha.

And que another trigger point to buy more stock!!

[Xtrema]

Regardless fake news or not, China is using this as part of ongoing trade talk with US. Just like it keep finding bugs in our Canola.

[Mitsu3000gt]

The headlines are so inflammatory it's getting ridiculous, though nothing really unusual there I guess. I have read major outlets refer to the 737 MAX as Boeing's "Crash Plane" in the headlines - WTF?

[nzwasp]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Regardless fake news or not, China is using this as part of ongoing trade talk with US. Just like it keep finding bugs in our Canola.

Do you think China will end up relenting on the canola thing or will we just have to give that girl back to them from huawei

[Xtrema]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Do you think China will end up relenting on the canola thing or will we just have to give that girl back to them from huawei

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't. May as well let the courts play it out. Chinese are mad because they lost face and using us as an example for rest of the world.

No. They don't have to buy it from us, much like Airbus is reaping reward of Boeing and US trade war, Brazil is reaping reward of Canada is now out of play. Expect more forest to be cleared in Brazil to meet demand from China.

[Misterman]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Do you think China will end up relenting on the canola thing or will we just have to give that girl back to them from huawei

I thought I saw she was being handed over to the U.S.?

[Tik-Tok]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I thought I saw she was being handed over to the U.S.?

She is. China is still trying to bully us to go against our agreement with the US, and not extradite her.

[Xtrema]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I thought I saw she was being handed over to the U.S.?

Stuck in our courts.

If US/China trade talk goes thru and favor US, Trump then pull a Keystone XL on CFO's extradition, expect the only one punished for this whole episode to be Canada and possibility for decades to come.

Billions of Canola is only round 1.

[phreezee]

Says the pilots followed the right steps.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ethiopi...em-11554263276

[Mitsu3000gt]

I was reading about MCAS and how it affects the jack screw/stabilizer, etc. but it was in relation to a normal 737. My question is can you not manually cut power to the jack screw and manually trim the stabilizer back to 'normal' in a MAX like you can an older 737? Is that all fly-by-wire and not possible on the MAX? In the 737 you could even manually jam the spinning stabilizer trim in the cockpit and prevent it from moving, there seemed to be a least a few things you could do to stop it.

The reason I was thinking about this is even if a pilot had no clue what MCAS was or how it worked, they would still be able to see their stabilizer was out of whack and take appropriate measures to manually correct it, as well as prevent it from automatically adjusting. Can you not do that in a MAX?


I also read the Lion Air sensor has been traced back to a repair facility in Florida and was likely faulty before it was even installed. Just a news article though. The problem seems to be the sensors, MCAS is working as it should but was being fed bad data.

[Tik-Tok]

It's not fly-by-wire, they still have the drum and cable to the back, and they definitely see it moving. It is possible to disable the MCAS altogether along with the horizontal stab motor, but then they would have to manually turn the crank get the stab back to proper position. Turning that crank is not an easy task, it takes a LOT of movement. Add to that the elevator feel computer which increases the amount of force required to move the elevators, and with both the stab in a very extreme nose down position, might take both pilots to pull back on the stick to keep it from completely nose-diving, at which point there's no hands available to turn the crank. Even if the captain were able to hold it himself, the first officer would be using his weak left arm (90% chance of him being right handed) to try and spin it.

[Mitsu3000gt]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

It's not fly-by-wire, they still have the drum and cable to the back, and they definitely see it moving. It is possible to disable the MCAS altogether along with the horizontal stab motor, but then they would have to manually turn the crank get the stab back to proper position. Turning that crank is not an easy task, it takes a LOT of movement. Add to that the elevator feel computer which increases the amount of force required to move the elevators, and with both the stab in a very extreme nose down position, might take both pilots to pull back on the stick to keep it from completely nose-diving, at which point there's no hands available to turn the crank. Even if the captain were able to hold it himself, the first officer would be using his weak left arm (99% chance of him being right handed) to try and spin it.

Interesting, so do we know if Lion Air / Ethoipian pilots even tried these steps? I watched it being done in a simulator in a 737 (again I am assuming it is roughly the same on a MAX variant) and it looked very doable for experienced pilots. They waited until they could not get the nose up no matter how hard they pulled on the controls, killed the stab power, then manually cranked the trim back which definitely looked difficult (one guy could do it but with 2 it was way faster). You can also apparently jam the spinning crank levers to stop it. The troubleshooting steps seemed to be 1) Try correct by pulling back on controls, 2) disengage autopilot/autotrim, 3) Cut stab power, 4) manually crank, 5) Jam the crank.

Easy for me to say from my chair, but it seemed to me like experienced pilots should have been able to recognize what was happening and stop it regardless of their knowledge/training on MCAS because they would be able to see that the stabilizer position was the issue. If it was physically to difficult for them, could they not call in a flight attendant or something? And don't international flights have a third person in the cockpit? I'm very curious to see how it all plays out, and no doubt every single passenger family from both planes has a law suit ready for Boeing. By the sounds of it fingers are being pointed at the Florida repair shop now.

I also read a 747 has such big elevators that they can actually counteract the stabilizer if necessary and this would never happen on that aircraft. Makes me wonder why every plane doesn't just have bigger elevators regardless, seems like it would be better.

[Tik-Tok]

There's no definitive word on that yet, todays reports say the MCAS was re-activated 4 times (no clarity as to whether the pilots purposefully did it, or it turned itself back on), so that would lead me to believe they didn't cut out the electric motors at all, at least not until after the 4th re-activation anyways.

[Mitsu3000gt]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

There's no definitive word on that yet, todays reports say the MCAS was re-activated 4 times (no clarity as to whether the pilots purposefully did it, or it turned itself back on), so that would lead me to believe they didn't cut out the electric motors at all, at least not until after the 4th re-activation anyways.

Interesting, I did not know it reactivated so many times or was allowed to reactivate so many times. If true, that sounds like ammo for Boeing if their defense plan is to claim pilot error, for better or worse.

I read the new system update will make MCAS more dependent on 2 AoA sensors, not engage for more than a short period of time if it engages, not engage multiple times, and it won't interfere such that it can't be overpowered by the controls. I think it will have a dedicated kill switch too.

The AoA cockpit gauges don't seem overly necessary, apparently they aren't really used much anyway on the planes that have them (difficult to interpret) and are more popular with military pilots.

[OTown]

I really dont understand how an airplane of that size and price has only a single AOA sensor. Planes are full of failsafes but something that important is just simply overlooked?

[95EagleAWD]

So with stall warnings, and stick shakers, and all that... why is MCAS even necessary? No other version has it, so why don't they just delete the software and rely on pilots?