Boeing new issue with 777X engine support

[Randy]

And will repeat, test flights subject the aircraft to extreme conditions which would (normally) never be encountered during a regular flight (with passengers).

As most likely the only person here who has a few thousand hours in test flight (rotary & fixed wing) this is an absolutely true statement. Many of the flight test requirements we did were to try and not cause failure but to go to the extreme edge outside of normal parameters. Sometimes everything worked well and sometimes they worked less than well.

 

[Bev D]

@Sidney Vianna so…what is your point exactly about the fracture? I am not asking about possible human chain of events but the actual physical crack of the link found in 3 planes. (Reportedly 3 but definitely 1 plane). One could interpret your responses to mean that you think the failure is an isolate one time failure that will never happen in real life and that maybe Boing should just ignore it?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

@Sidney Vianna so…what is your point exactly about the fracture? I am not asking about possible human chain of events but the actual physical crack of the link found in 3 planes. (Reportedly 3 but definitely 1 plane). One could interpret your responses to mean that you think the failure is an isolate one time failure that will never happen in real life and that maybe Boing should just ignore it?

I have no idea why you reached this “interpretation”. Where did I mention anything about isolated case?

I made my point very clear on my first post in this thread. Because Boeing is under fire for multiple fiascos in other programs, people are trying to make this thrust link failure ANOTHER example of Boeing’s ineptitude, to what I vehemently disagree. I consider the subject of this thread just an example of what a new aircraft model development is supposed to look like. Especially in a design of this complexity and magnitude. Criticism is appropriate when it is fair and balanced.

 

[Miner]

My take from Sidney and Randy, is that this is the aerospace equivalent to HALT testing. Not exact since it isn't (hopefully) stress to failure, but stressed way beyond what is expected then find and fix any failures like you would do in HALT testing.

 

[Bev D]

Sure I get that and as I’ve said I’m a big proponent of it. But there has been a lot of counter points about Boing not messing up and very little about the physics of the crack. Since detecting this type of failure is the point of stress testing of any product including aircraft, the next step to take is to understand the cause and then correct it.

Too often in my experience this “it happened under high stress” is a precursor to the rationale that it need not be corrected because it won’t happen under normal use.

If our defense of Boing at this time is to have any credibility we must also be crystal clear that the failure must be understood and corrected.

Remember that Boing did in fact know that the 737 max MCAS software would ‘over react’ to a single sensor that routinely fails adn they did nothing about it until hundreds of people died. Also the starliner was known to have a leak but obviously the investigation was shallow and did not catch let alone correct the failures before launching people into space. (And I will poke the bear by reminding everyone that the party line right now is that the leaks were OK because it was a test flight…).

Boing’s laser focus should be on determining the cause and fixing the problem. And sorry, but fair and balanced includes the fact that Boing has a recent history of several quality problems that they basically ignored. If we are going to be balanced then we need to say that the failure needs to be fixed as often as we defend Boing’s intentions and actions.

 

[Ed Panek]

I had a boss tell me once "Dont make your bosses spend too much political capitol defending you" I assumed it was for something I said in a meeting about a decision I disagreed with.

Only so much capital can be spent defending you before the arrows start pointing at the ones doing the defending. Boeing is having a public image crisis right now. Some of it is earned and some not earned but in a crisis that doesn't matter.

If I have to defend an employee to my boss for being late to work 3X last week when my boss sees him arrive to work late again the next week there isn't a good excuse I can use to defend him. Even if there is a very rational reason for him to be late, that's all perspective.