800 MAX?

[N201MKTurbo]

I rode on one on Monday and I’m still alive!

oops, I just checked, it was a B738, l missed the bullet on that one....

Edited March 14, 2019 by N201MKTurbo

[apenney]

1 hour ago, gsxrpilot said:

I have experience with Ethiopian Airlines going back to 1976 and my family has ties to Ethiopian Airlines going back to when it was still on the drawing board in the 1940's.*  I've flown Ethiopian Airlines several times every year for the last few years. On a recent flight I was seated next to the Boeing VP from Seattle who covers Africa. He said they were Boeing's best customer in Africa and second place wasn't even close. They also fly one of the most modern fleets anywhere in the world. I've flown lots of airlines around the world and around Africa. And Ethiopian Airlines is the premier Airline in Africa and actually a very nice airline to fly anywhere in the world. They are almost a 100% Boeing fleet, and is the largest airline in Africa. 

I've also done quite a bit of business with their Parent Corp, Ethiopia Group, which includes their training arm. While GA is virtually non-existent in this and many parts of the world, Ethiopian runs a very large and well respected Aviation Academy. I would not believe the reports you're seeing in the media of low hours and low experience. When I visited their training academy, I was shocked at how modern and extensive it was. They have huge classes that start every year and most are weeded out early leaving only the best and most talented. They also train pilots from all over Africa as well as Asia. 

There are also a very large number of female pilots flying for Ethiopian Airlines. Notably on the first Dreamliner flight from Addis (the capital) to Riyadh (capital of Saudi Arabia), Ethiopian Airlines sent it with an entire female crew. Captain, FO, Purser, and all flight attendants were female, just to make a point. Classes at the aviation academy are almost 50% female.

It's still Africa, but Ethiopian Airlines is not some third world operation. But rather a proper modern airline with standards that would be considered rigorous anywhere in the world.

*My grandfather, Dr. Claude Steen Jr. an American missionary, was the very first Chief Medical Officer and Flight Surgeon for Ethiopian Airlines and the first AME in Ethiopia. In 1945, Emperor Haile Selassie sent my Grandfather back to the US to interview HH Holloway to be the first GM of Ethiopian Airlines.

--and now you know the rest of the story.

Very interesting life story...You've probably already read this but just in case: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/citizen-times/obituary.aspx?n=claude-steen&pid=175505172

[DonMuncy]

Come on Paul. Interjecting actual knowledge into the discussion? It is a lot easier, and more entertaining to get a mental picture of a kid sitting in front of a mud hut one week and be piloting for Ethiopian Airlines the next.

[toto]

3 hours ago, ArtVandelay said:

My only comment is autopilot should have 2 modes: ON or OFF.

If OFF, No auto throttle or auto trim. Pilot controls all.
If ON, it handles trim, throttles, etc



Tom

Possibly worth noting that the new digital autopilots available for our birds inject automation where it didn't previously exist. 

The envelope protection stuff (available both on the Garmin and TruTrak APs) is a bit unnerving at first. On the GFC500, with the AP off, if the aircraft exceeds its safe envelope (predetermined thresholds for pitch, bank, and speed), the AP servos engage to push the AC back into compliance.

If you want to do flight training (think slow flight or unusual attitudes), you have to disable the envelope protection or you'll be fighting it. (Again, note this is with the AP switched off.)

[bill98]

3 hours ago, tigers2007 said:

Touche!

How angry would you be if you couldn’t log the hour you had to pay for while renting a plane at KADS just hoping for a window to be able to take off. 

 

Overall I am happy we grounded them. The seats suck. Although that has nothing to do with the flight characteristics. Lion Air I didn’t bat an eye because they like to destroy nice new things. Ethiopian Airlines prides themselves in safety and runs an amazing airline. Their maintenance program is top notch as is their pilot training. It is with them [Ethiopian] that it makes me wonder WTF is happening here. 

At first I was more keen on the “wait and see” approach but once the flight profiles started to show to be eerily similar, it became increasingly difficult to rationalize NOT keeping them on the ground. Grounding them because two crashed for totally unrelated reasons would be absolutely awful and then make all the agencies look like idiots for crying wolf. Not grounding them and another accident happening would cause a couple suicides, some criminal jail time and also termination of employment. No decision is truly the right one. 

[Marcopolo]

3 hours ago, Hyett6420 said:

So technically you COULD start the engine, move to holding area, do study with engine running and return to park, but with no flight time.  It does not say "and ends when the aircraft comes to,rest after landing OF SAID FLIGHT". Yep i know perdantic, nut then isn't legalese always that way?

Technically yes....and no!  If you taxied out expecting to go flying and something changes that expectation then yes, the time is log-able, but taxiing out just to study the wildlife at the end of the runway, I'm guessing that's a no.  But you knew that!

 

Ron

[tigers2007]

4 hours ago, Hyett6420 said:

So technically you COULD start the engine, move to holding area, do study with engine running and return to park, but with no flight time.  It does not say "and ends when the aircraft comes to,rest after landing OF SAID FLIGHT". Yep i know perdantic, nut then isn't legalese always that way?

Or taxi to ramp, idle it for an hour to "study" (or watch YouTub), taxi to runway, go airborne for a few seconds, land, taxi back to ramp, idle, repeat. I think we just found a use for severely corroded airframes and bold hour-hungry students. Just imagine the multiengine time someone could rack up with this unorthodox practice. Run out twins can be had for as low as $15k. Get a dirty A&P to pencil whip the books for the annual as it won't be in the air very long per "flight". Wow I should forward this idea to the hundreds of BS diploma-mill's in the USA. ATP would probably try to patent the practice. CB Time Building LLC

[peevee]

8 hours ago, toto said:

Possibly worth noting that the new digital autopilots available for our birds inject automation where it didn't previously exist. 

The envelope protection stuff (available both on the Garmin and TruTrak APs) is a bit unnerving at first. On the GFC500, with the AP off, if the aircraft exceeds its safe envelope (predetermined thresholds for pitch, bank, and speed), the AP servos engage to push the AC back into compliance.

If you want to do flight training (think slow flight or unusual attitudes), you have to disable the envelope protection or you'll be fighting it. (Again, note this is with the AP switched off.)

The Garmin esp works very well. It's a nice safety feature to have.

[toto]

1 hour ago, peevee said:

The Garmin esp works very well. It's a nice safety feature to have.

Agreed. I have a grand total of about five hours now with the GFC500, and still getting to know it. But the envelope protection seems worth the price of admission - particularly in an "incapacitated pilot" scenario where it will help to buy valuable time. 

Still, in the context of this thread, we *are* talking about ceding some responsibilities to automation, and we'll have to get comfortable with that. 

The scary automation narrative is the one that may end up being at issue with the max-8: The aircraft is doing something you don't expect, and don't want to continue, but you're not sure how to shut it off. 

(I'll grant that there are plenty of situations where the automation is actually doing the right thing, and the pilot is mistaken - but knowing the aircraft systems allows a more informed decision in any case.)

[peevee]

46 minutes ago, toto said:

Agreed. I have a grand total of about five hours now with the GFC500, and still getting to know it. But the envelope protection seems worth the price of admission - particularly in an "incapacitated pilot" scenario where it will help to buy valuable time. 

Still, in the context of this thread, we *are* talking about ceding some responsibilities to automation, and we'll have to get comfortable with that. 

The scary automation narrative is the one that may end up being at issue with the max-8: The aircraft is doing something you don't expect, and don't want to continue, but you're not sure how to shut it off. 

(I'll grant that there are plenty of situations where the automation is actually doing the right thing, and the pilot is mistaken - but knowing the aircraft systems allows a more informed decision in any case.)

the LVL button is nice for pax or a SDO pilot, too.

it takes 10 seconds or so but it will recover. I brief it so they know where it is and what it does.

[mike_elliott]

14 hours ago, tigers2007 said:

Hah, but replicated for dozens if not hundreds of flights? You catch my drift. Besides, logging flight time is supposed to be the time in the air.

And 14 CFR 1.1 says (emphasis mine):

Flight time means:

(1) Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing

[toto]

32 minutes ago, peevee said:

the LVL button is nice for pax or a SDO pilot, too.

it takes 10 seconds or so but it will recover. I brief it so they know where it is and what it does.

Yep. 

The AP head is in a crummy place in the Piper - right by the pilot's left knee. So it's very inconvenient for a passenger to reach, especially with an incapacitated pilot in the way. But still. 

[aviatoreb]

As I understand it (and not being an airline pilot trained in ANY of the big iron airplanes) the modern large airplanes and their autopilot systems have almost nothing in common with our airplanes and autopilots, not even our autopilots like the GFC500 have anything in common.

These are big fly by wire airplanes and if I am understanding there is a tremendous amount of software and computation in-between the pilot inputs and the airplane control surfaces, even if "hand flying".  In the case of Max8 I was reading that they have a different set of engines than the previous 737 and that changed the weight and responsiveness of the airplanes. So they made the airplane behave and feel like a previous generation 737 by making the software mimic the aerodynamics of the old weight envelopes so that the pilots would feel as if they were flying the older 737's they were used to.  Why - because that saves money - it is very expensive to train and check out and keep current professional pilots.  So a platform that is seamless between airframes that requires no extra training is a price saver and a selling point for those airlines already invested in 737.

Are there any airline pilots on the board today - did I interpret that correctly?  So if I read this right, in these software driven fly by wire airplanes, there may well never be such a thing as "disconnect the autopilot and fly by hand" as we are not talking push rod or cable controls like in a Mooney or a little Cessna.  There is always a computer between the yoke, the wires to the servos, to the flight controls.

In a Mooney if your autopilot goes haywire you can always pull the breaker if all else fails.  Did everyone mark the breaker with a special colored plastic marker - I did. SO disconnected, then you are manipulating the control surfaces by rods, just like they did in WWI.  

Not so with fly by wire.

I read there are several million lines of code in the flight control systems in a Max8.  It may well be that there is a computer bug - not saying there is - but it may well be - and get the scenario to a certain situation and those bad lines of code result in the bug expressing itself, but perhaps usually doesn't - like in most of the 8000 flights per week.  But that isn't good enough.  If it is a bug, then it may well be that there is nothing the pilots can do to arrest the impending crash.  It may be simply impossible. Or it may be very non intuitive and beyond the ability training to guess.  I strongly doubt it would be something simply like pulling a breaker and "hand flying". I give these pilots in Indonesia and in Ethiopia more credit than that.

If there is a bug, it must be fixed.  It is not good enough to say it usually doesn't crash.  It seems as if it is quite the right thing to ground the fleet until this is fixed or the cause is determined definitely.

I am guessing we are looking at several weeks to several months of a grounded fleet.

You can bet there are ALOT of engineers at Boeing who have been told to drop what they are doing and work asap to solve this NOW.  Some debugging software.  Some considering writing new code from scratch.  Some looking for all sorts of other causes such as wiring, engine factors, human factors, whatever.  I bet they are in full on panic mode up there in Washington State since the companies revenue, reputation, and future is suddenly at risk.

[bonal]

They don't know what caused the latest crash and if it was the same issue as the first. Might end up being a wild goose chase for a non existing issue. I guess better safe than sorry 

[peevee]

1 hour ago, toto said:

Yep. 

The AP head is in a crummy place in the Piper - right by the pilot's left knee. So it's very inconvenient for a passenger to reach, especially with an incapacitated pilot in the way. But still. 

Mines right in the middle stack above the keyboard. Real easy and bright blue. Hard to miss. I brief hit the lvl button, kill the engine, hit the chute

[Ned Gravel]

I think folks are touting a "new set of data" that was acquired by the FAA and our own Transport Canada. 

If you ask this ol' programmer, there are a couple of lines of code that are not doing what the programmer thinks they are doing.  Just my opinion because I have been there before while wearing a uniform and deploying new IT solutions to our modern battlefield at some astronomical dollar value with the Brits and 8 times that amount for the US Army way back when.

[jetdriven]

16 hours ago, Andy95W said:

The problem is that computers fly the airplanes.  The pilot or autopilot directs the computers.  

If the computers get conflicting information, or worse, the wrong information, they will react in unexpected ways.

Boeing design philosophy is not the same as airbus. The 737 NG and Max are very much cable and pulley airplanes. They have manual reversion for those and the trim as well.  There is a standby hydraulic rudder system as well. 

The Max does have the LAM, MCAS, and, I suspect, some active spoiler action going on for gusts and turbulence.  But it’s a cable and pulley airplane, hydraulically assisted, and there is some FBW spoiler and assisted trim going on. 

[EricJ]

18 minutes ago, Ned Gravel said:

I think folks are touting a "new set of data" that was acquired by the FAA and our own Transport Canada. 

If you ask this ol' programmer, there are a couple of lines of code that are not doing what the programmer thinks they are doing.  Just my opinion because I have been there before while wearing a uniform and deploying new IT solutions to our modern battlefield at some astronomical dollar value with the Brits and 8 times that amount for the US Army way back when.

I worked for a while in the early 90s on the comm module in the AIMS cabinet in the Honeywell avionics in the B777.   I designed the circuit hardware for much of the comm box, including one of the first ACARS modems that got any significant broad use, and I also did a lot of HDL and some software for the modem.   It was a good experience for me as we got a LOT of training in formal verification methods for hardware and software, because the certification process for air transport is thorough.

Basically, at least in those days, every line of code is formally tested, every condition of every branch is tested,  every path of every conditional is tested, every case of a case statement, every state of every input condition is tested, etc., etc.   The test plan has to show how each of these things gets accomplished.    I found it excellent training as it's actually not that hard or egregious to do, and it's extremely effective at finding bugs.  It also makes your write more efficient code.  I've used those methods throughout my career very effectively and was always glad for the experience.

So when I hear of an expensive bug found because of an untested condition or code that didn't get exercised or a table entry that never got sampled (like the Pentium bug, if you remember that), I always think of this stuff and that it was a preventable error.   There's a reason very few software bugs turn up in airliners compared to almost anywhere else.   The testing and verification methods are very good.   They're expensive and take effort, but they're good.

[DXB]

I suspect every 737 MAX crew on earth is aware of the potential for MCAS malfunction and how to regain control if the system commands the plane to do something nonsensical.  It seems like pretty detailed information was already available on what happened in the Lion Air crash and how the pilots might have regained control, so I suspect the Ethiopian crew would have reacted quickly and appropriately if something similar happened to them.  Two general hypotheses come to mind:

- Something totally different happened to the Ethiopian plane, in which case it's a huge shame that all these planes got grounded without further information.

- The MCAS system isn't all that easy to override  in all possible situations before losing complete control of the aircraft, in which case grounding all these planes is entirely appropriate despite putting Boeing in dire straits.  

Edited March 14, 2019 by DXB

[aviatoreb]

12 minutes ago, DXB said:

I suspect every 737 MAX crew on earth is aware of the potential for MCAS malfunction and how to regain control if the system commands the plane to do something nonsensical.  It seems like pretty detailed information was already available on what happened in the Lion Air crash and how the pilots might have regained control, so I suspect the Ethiopian crew would have reacted quickly and appropriately if something similar happened to them.  Two general hypotheses come to mind:

- Something totally different happened to the Ethiopian plane, in which case it's a huge shame that all these planes got grounded without further information.

- The MCAS system isn't all that easy to override  in all possible situations before losing complete control of the aircraft, in which case grounding all these planes is entirely appropriate despite putting Boeing in dire straits.  

I think it is plausible there is a real computer bug and that it may literally be impossible to recover control as intended if there is a crazy mistake in the 2 million lines of code.

[aviatoreb]

43 minutes ago, Ned Gravel said:

I think folks are touting a "new set of data" that was acquired by the FAA and our own Transport Canada. 

If you ask this ol' programmer, there are a couple of lines of code that are not doing what the programmer thinks they are doing.  Just my opinion because I have been there before while wearing a uniform and deploying new IT solutions to our modern battlefield at some astronomical dollar value with the Brits and 8 times that amount for the US Army way back when.

...that's what I tried to say - but wordy me - lost in translation.  Anyway yeah - I read that there are 2 million lines of code.   If I write 5 lines of code then there may be a bug to debug before I can proceed.

[EricJ]

If it's a code bug I'll be very interested to see how verification missed it.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

And here I sit in a clean room, in a bunny suit debugging code on a semiconductor production tool.....

I think I write pretty good code. Would I trust someones life to it? Hell no!

The only people who can write perfect code are millennials fresh out of school. Just ask them, they will tell you. The same millennials that are probably writing the code for Boeing!

[N201MKTurbo]

8 minutes ago, EricJ said:

If it's a code bug I'll be very interested to see how verification missed it.

 

V&V only finds bugs that are covered in the test plan. Did their test plan cover AOA sensors going haywire? Don't know. I would like to see the FMEA they used to develop the requirements.

Edited March 14, 2019 by N201MKTurbo

[EricJ]

31 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

V&V only finds bugs that are covered in the test plan. Did their test plan cover AOA sensors going haywire? Don't know. I would like to see the FMEA they used to develop the requirements.

Yeah, usually the system requirements (which drive the requirements for everything else) have this sort of analysis thoroughly gone through.

A faulty sensor isn't a software problem, but mitigation should come from the system design and requirements.   Usually that stuff is gone over sixteen ways from Sunday.

I'll be interested to see what shakes out.