The 737 MAX Should Not Fly Again
by John Lawrence, April10, 2019
This plane was not aerodynamically designed. They put two larger engines on the Boeing 737 rather than design the whole plane from scratch with the two larger engines onboard. One of the purposes of an aerodynamically designed plane is to prevent a stall. Instead the kluge that resulted from putting two larger engines on the 737 produced what amounted to an unrecoverable stall. Normally, a stall is not that hard to recover from. Every pilot learns how to do it shortly after commencing pilot training.
However, Boeing's management wanted to produce this plane at the lowest possible price point so they took shortcuts. They didn't require pilot simulator training for one thing because that would have increased the cost of the plane to the customers. Secondly, they made some safety features optional including features which might have prevented the two crashes. They relied too much on software and not enough on designing a plane that could be flown with well trained pilot skills. The MCAS system was put on board to prevent a stall. Instead it took control out of the pilots' hands and precipitated two crashes.
Ralph Nader said it best:
In 2011, Boeing executives wanted to start a “clean sheet” new narrow body air passenger plane to replace its old 737 design from the nineteen sixties. Shortly thereafter, Boeing’s bosses panicked when American Airlines put in a large order for the competitive Airbus A320neo. Boeing shelved the new design and rushed to put out the 737 Max that, in Business Week’s words, was “pushing an ageing design past its limits.” The company raised the 737 Max landing gear and attached larger, slightly more fuel efficient engines angled higher and more forward on the wings. Such a configuration changed the aerodynamics and made the plane more prone to stall (see attached article: https://www.aviationcv.com/aviation-blog/2019/boeing-canceling-737-max). ...
This time, however, the outrageous corner-cutting and suppression of engineering dissent, within both Boeing and the FAA (there were reported “heated discussions”) produced a worst case scenario. So, Boeing is working overtime with its legions of Washington lobbyists, its New York P.R. firm, its continued campaign contributions to some 330 Members of Congress. The airlines and pilots’ union chiefs (but not some angry pilots) are staying mum, scared into silence due to contracts and jobs, waiting for the Boeing 737 Max planes to fly again.
BUT THE BOEING 737 MAX MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO FLY AGAIN. Pushing new software that will allow Boeing to blame the pilots is a dangerous maneuver. Saying that U.S. pilots, many of whom are ex-Air Force, are more experienced in reacting to a sudden wildly gyrating aircraft (consider the F-16 diving and swooping) than many foreign airline pilots only trained by civil aviation, opens a can of worms from cancellation of 737 Max orders to indignation from foreign airlines and pilots. It also displays an aversion to human-factors engineering with a vast number of avoidable failure modes not properly envisioned by Boeing’s software patches.
The overriding problem is the basic unstable design of the 737 Max. An aircraft has to be stall proof not stall prone. An aircraft manufacturer like Boeing, notwithstanding its past safety record, is not entitled to more aircraft disasters that are preventable by following long-established aeronautical engineering practices and standards.
It's worth saying again: AN AIRCRAFT HAS TO BE STALL PROOF NOT STALL PRONE
