Another 737 MAX-8 down

a reply to: DaMac

From Ethiopian Airlines website...

Full Flight Simulators

Ethiopian Airlines Aviation Academy, located at Bole International Airport, avails range of full flight simulator training on B787, B777, B737NG, and Q-400 as well as on simulators that we pioneered, B737, B757 and B767. Our A350 has joined our training offer. ...

And this...

Simulator Training

The Ethiopian Aviation Academy provides simulator trainings on the following Full Flight aircraft simulators:

Q400
B737/B737 NG,
B757,
B767
B777
B787
Airbus A350 simulator

EA website

Notice there is nothing about 737-MAX...only 737-NG.

Note- I cannot explain the inconsistent reports. However, I watched the video you linked a picture of, and it does indeed say EA has a MAX simulator. However, the video also goes on to state the same simulator (and manuals) make no mention of MCAS and/or it's functionality.

Maybe we're both right, or both wrong, I don't know. I was wrong about there being "none", so I will acknowledge that. There is at least one. Beyond this there seems to be a great deal of confusion.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

The simulators were scheduled to be installed this year at multiple locations. Southwest was scheduled to get theirs in October. It appears that at least a couple were installed last year, but thr majority of them were set for this year.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I completely agree with you, except for one point about which I am not positive--the pitch stability of the aircraft.

I have read at least one good article by a fellow more knowledgeable than I that the aircraft is NOT stable in pitch, at least stable enough to have passed standards for certification of transport category aircraft. After all, the only aircraft to require a maneuvering characteristics augmentation system was the MAX. The 737 did not require one until the MAX. That strongly suggests that the maneuvering characteristics was determined to be deficient by engineering calculations, and so MCAS was added.

I have a friend who flies one for a major airline, he is an F-16 jock too, and he says that under certain light loading conditions, just a relatively small number of pax, they must load the aircraft in a special manner to comply with CG limitations, and that implies a very touchy pitch stability situation.

Your point about nobody else having a simulator except Boeing speaks volumes.

a reply to: Salander

Well, I don't fly one so I can't speak from personal experience, but my understanding is the biggest driving force behind the MCAS was to keep the MAX in the '737' type family. A new type would have required a new type rating and all the re-certification and training of crews which would go along with it. Like I've been saying all along, this whole problem boils down to one thing...corporate greed. They sold the airplane on the premise that the much of the airlines existing infrastructure for the 737 (including simulators) would be compatible with the MAX.

Boeing needed to fill the 757 gap, and Airbus was eating their lunch in that segment (especially with the A321's), so they tried to do it with the MAX and stay within the 737 envelope. But Boeing cut too many corners in their development and rollout.

"We need to bring the guys in India to the US. That way we can say it is outsourced but not "to India". We'll just use lower paid Indian guys here."

Maybe a case of "You get what you pay for". Complex software isn't easy, or at least it used to not be.

a reply to: roadgravel

They already did that. Did you read the article I posted above?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I was stating that would be the logic used when it started, not after the fact. I wasn't saying they did it after the crashes.

I was mostly joking but it really is probably true.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Yes, corporate greed resulting in loss of professionalism and essentially criminal behavior by the company.

Compounded by a culture in this country of not holding offenders responsible for their criminal ways.

qz.com...

737 Max incidents have cost Boeing 9.2 billion and counting

news.sky.com...

Losses and commercial planes boss fired

So huge losses on Boeings part and by the looks of it a sacrificial lamb.

EASA plans test flights in December with an eye to a January return to service date.

Reuters

www.nytimes.com...

2016 Test pilot reports problems, Boeing saying messages have been misinterpreted

www.flightglobal.com...

First FAA certification flight test run.

Lion Air crash summary released to relatives

edition.cnn.com...

The report summary said that faulty "assumptions" were made during the design and certification of the 737 Max about how pilots would respond to malfunctions by the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), according to the presentation seen by CNN.

The AOA sensor on the doomed Lion Air plane had been miscalibrated during a repair, according to investigators. But the airline's maintenance crews and pilots couldn't identify the problem because one of the aircraft's safety features — the AOA Disagree alert — was not "correctly enabled during Boeing 737-8 (Max) development," they said.

ASRS contains 4 reported incidents regarding the MAX. The Atlantic covered it: www.theatlantic.com...

Boeing cheated in the certification process, and MCAS was the band-aid to cover the cheat.

a reply to: Salander

The engines for the 737 max are located a little further forward to enhance fuel economy by 14%.
So the plane does not have a natural pitch balance and needs fly by wire over ride to prevent pitch up and stalling.
The elevators are trimmed up to 2.5 degrees down during banking which is a little difficult to detect until you level out and see it on the artificial horizon.
In this case it sounds like the automatic trim system failed which happens sometimes on military aircraft that often require computerized automatic trim.
The latest simulator complaint sounded more like a pilot not used to the trimming during banking maneuvers, so the 737 max must fly weird enough that pilots will need simulator hours.

a reply to: Slichter

Yes, and all that and more clearly illustrates that the MAX is very much NOT a 737 according to the original and amended type certificates.

It does not handle like a 737 because it is a 737 in name only.

It is a different airplane in many ways, and honest leadership at Boeing would have called it that way.

They didn't, for the sake of cost and profit considerations. It was essentially an experimental aircraft, complete with human crash test dummies.

Chesley Sullenberger was not impressed by William Langewiesche's disparaging remarks about the pilots.

 “Pilot training and insufficient pilot experience are problems worldwide, but they do not excuse the fatally flawed design of the MCAS that was a death trap... As one of the few pilots who have lived to tell about being in the left seat of an airliner when things went horribly wrong, with seconds to react, I know a thing or two about overcoming an unimagined crisis. I am also one of the few who have flown a Boeing 737 MAX Level D full motion simulator, replicating both accident flights multiple times. I know firsthand the challenges the pilots on the doomed accident flights faced, and how wrong it is to blame them for not being able to compensate for such a pernicious and deadly design.

My Letter to the Editor of New York Times Magazine

a reply to: EvilAxis

Langewiesche' is a dirt bag

Always looking for some angle to slam someone and jazz up his story

During Sept 11 accused FDNY members of looting at WTC

www.wtclivinghistory.org/langewiesches-wtc-looting-charges-fact-checked/

Damn, resurrecting an old thread with a title like this ....
If you were a Boeing exec, you might jump out a window...