Comment by s1artibartfast
11 hours ago
yes and no. Like you said, automotive and aviation industries are bound by a lot regulatory and path dependent constraints.
Elon's strength is his willingness to pull the plug and transition away from suboptimal solutions. This is bolstered by his willingness to double down.
Imagine if Boeing said "screw all this recertification technical debt for the 737 MAX airframe, we will start fresh. Customers can take it or leave it"
According to a version I heard, Boeing engineering did say more or less just that, at which point Southwest, the near-monopoly in some regions, said something like, "Oh yeah? Then we'll plan to leave it."
And Boeing upper management overruled the engineers.
Color me skeptical.
There was nothing wrong with the MCAS concept. The implementation of it, however, wasn't very good.
Unfortunately, two of the 3 crews did not understand the runaway stabilizer trim procedure. The 3rd crew did, and landed safely, and the media never reports on that.
The runaway stab trim procedure is a "memory item", meaning pilots shouldn't need a checklist to deal with it.
> The runaway stab trim procedure…
But doesn’t apply to MCAS because the symptoms and recovery procedures are distinct.
The MCAS system wasn’t documented, pilots weren’t trained on it, it didn’t indicate anything distinct in the cockpit, and it could rapidly put the plane into an unrecoverable attitude where pilots no longer had the physical strength to overcome the forces involved.
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This is exactly correct in the context of the decision as it played out, but stretches and re-engines are very common in commercial airlines. Changing that decision without reinforcing the safety culture probably would have ended in the same place.
Wasn't the whole point of the MAX that they had reached the limit of what their existing design had, but due to the demands of the airlines, as well as their current position in the market, they felt it was an easier idea to extend the lifespan of their already tired design by using software to overcome the physical limitations of the aircraft? I do understand that the airplane would have flown fine without the MCAS system, but then it would not have satisfied all their requirements.
Taking a step back, I think it's more than that. It's just the company structure. It remains to be seen if SpaceX and Tesla survive long term. But if they do, a lot will be attributed to the company structure that Elon designed. When you have a company that does stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1InUlHXv718
Compared to Airbus: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KS9Xt6hmbTU
You just think to yourself, even if the airplane was completely safe, and they are incredibly safe, this is just not a great look. Both doors accomplish the task but little thought was put into the operator of the door. The little things matter and I notice them more and more everywhere I go with a lot of legacy American companies.
My point was more too highlight his approach to problems, not make the argument that this would have been successful or profitable for Boeing.
In fact, I would say there's probably a very narrow set of circumstances where his back to the drawing board approach can be deployed successfuly.
That said, the 787 Dreamliner remains statistically one of the safest widebody long-haul aircraft in commercial aviation history, which I think is a Counterpoint. It achieves this despite any more globally diverse supply chain, and moving production out of unionized Boeing manufacturing plants.
Safety by Design and design for manufacturability can help eliminate the possibility of quality issues during production.
> very narrow
He applied it to Tesla and SpaceX, which are very very different.
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The decision to re-engine the 737 rather than design a new airframe saved the airlines a vast amount of money.