#4501126 - 12/21/19 12:35 PM
Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
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F4UDash4
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Boeing can't catch a break, and maybe doesn't deserve one. Boeing crew capsule falters after launch from Cape Canaveral Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule flew into the wrong orbit soon after lifting off from Cape Canaveral on an unpiloted demonstration flight Friday morning, burning too much fuel and precluding the new commercial spaceship from docking with the International Space Station.
A 40-second burn by four of the Starliner’s orbital maneuvering and attitude control engines was planned around 31 minutes into the mission. The maneuver was programmed to raise the low point, or perigee, of the Starliner’s orbit above the atmosphere, preventing the capsule from plunging back to Earth before completing a single 90-minute lap around the planet.
But a mission clock on-board the spacecraft apparently had a wrong setting, leading the ship to mistakenly believe it was operating in a different phase of its mission.
“Once the vehicle thought it was at a different time in the mission — being autonomous, a lot of this runs on a timer — it began to do burns and attitude control,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing’s space and launch division.
According to Bridenstine, the spacecraft consumed more propellant than anticipated as it errantly fired its control thrusters. A joint team of NASA and Boeing flight controllers in Houston noticed the problem and tried to intervene, but the Starliner did not receive their manual commands to perform the orbit insertion burn in time.
“By the time we were able to get signals up to actually command it to do the orbital insertion burn, it was a bit too late,” Bridenstine said.
"In the vast library of socialist books, there’s not a single volume on how to create wealth, only how to take and “redistribute” it.” - David Horowitz
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#4501150 - 12/21/19 06:23 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: NoFlyBoy]
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JimK
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Yesterday I heard that the 737 MAX won't fly again until June. True, and they stopped production on them now to after making 400 more.
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#4501151 - 12/21/19 06:36 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Joined: Jun 2001
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coasty
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wasn't there a similar timer glitch on one of the Apollo missions?
Have you seen the Arrow? WWW
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#4501157 - 12/21/19 07:35 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Joined: Nov 2001
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oldgrognard
Administrator
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Lifer
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USA
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And on the topic of timing ... I bought a good amount of Boeing at $355 thinking that they would have the problem solved somewhat quickly. My timing was off. Should have bought it in the $322 orbit.
Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Someday your life will flash in front of your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.
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#4501306 - 12/23/19 04:22 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Arthonon
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I don't think the problem Boeing had with their Starliner is a major issue, but it certainly isn't good PR, and when you consider that they have had more money to develop it than SpaceX and are behind them in schedule and, apparently, functionality, it is even worse. Throw in the 737 MAX problems and Boeing is not having a good year. Edit: and now there's this: https://www.yahoo.com/gma/boeing-ceo-dennis-muilenburg-fired-143000499--abc-news-money.html
Last edited by Arthonon; 12/23/19 04:31 PM.
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#4501356 - 12/23/19 10:42 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Ssnake
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Germoney
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I think the fundamental problem is that Boeing and Airbus have a near total monopoly on the civilian airliner market. That's not an ideal situation by any means. I agree, but I can't help but notice that this kind of market concentration seems to be the case whenever you have an industry that is heavily regulated and at the same time extremely capital intensive. How many oil companies existed in the 1970s, how many today? How many independent car brands were there 1940, how many will still be there in 2040? If you want to preserve a manufacturer for commercial airliners with medium and long range you either need a lot of subsidies or a lot of protectionist measures, both of which are incompatible with WTO principles. But you have to be a WTO member, minimum, to be able to see such commercial airliners to, well, airlines.
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#4501358 - 12/23/19 11:22 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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NoFlyBoy
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#4501365 - 12/24/19 12:34 AM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Docjonel
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I realize I may be reading too much into this, but I remember being concerned when Boeing announced it was moving its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. Suddenly the higher ups were 1700 miles away from their aircraft production center. How could they not become somewhat isolated from what is happening so far away? They might as well be selling widgets at that point. Boeing has gone from being an aircraft company run by passionate aviation advocates to another corporation with top floor executives pushing a product manufactured in some factory thousands of miles away. Boeing execs likely spend much more time following quarterly earnings than staying informed on what the plant manager, whose first name they would have known in the past, is dealing with on a daily basis. Are most of Boeing's engineers in Chicago or Seattle? In my opinion Boeing's executive became more interested in quarterly sales margins than in the safety of the flying public. A corporate culture like that is likely to permeate many levels. The 737 fiasco exposed that corporate culture and showed the damage it can incur. Clearly they pushed sales as a priority over safety. In congressional testimony earlier this month: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/11/poli...gher-crash-risk-faa-concluded/index.html Whistleblowers at the hearing also raised concerns about the culture at Boeing and the FAA.
One of the whistleblowers, Ed Pierson, is a former Boeing employee who worked on the 737 MAX program and said he urged managers to shut down the production line because of mistakes and cut corners, but that his recommendations fell on deaf ears. He said pressure to produce planes and issues with obtaining parts meant the employees assembling the planes were overworked and at risk of making mistakes. "I formally warned Boeing leadership in writing on multiple occasions -- specifically, once before the Lion Air crash and again before the Ethiopian Airlines crash about potential airplane risk due to the unstable operating environment within the factory," he said. "Those warnings were ignored." The Air Force initially refused to accept its first Boeing KC-46A tankers: Air Force Halts Tanker Deliveries After Finding Planes Are Full of Trash The Seattle Times reported late last week the Air Force had discovered unwanted tools, bits of debris, and other garbage in various locations of KC-46A tankers. According to the Times, Air Force pilots at Boeing for training refused to fly the aircraft as a result, citing safety concerns. “This is a big deal," a Boeing memo was quoted as saying. That does not mean that the same culture exists in the Starliner program, but I would say that Boeing does not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this time. There should be no doubt.
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" -- Mark 8:36
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#4501820 - 12/28/19 09:23 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: Docjonel]
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semmern
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I realize I may be reading too much into this, but I remember being concerned when Boeing announced it was moving its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. Suddenly the higher ups were 1700 miles away from their aircraft production center. How could they not become somewhat isolated from what is happening so far away? They might as well be selling widgets at that point. Boeing has gone from being an aircraft company run by passionate aviation advocates to another corporation with top floor executives pushing a product manufactured in some factory thousands of miles away. Boeing execs likely spend much more time following quarterly earnings than staying informed on what the plant manager, whose first name they would have known in the past, is dealing with on a daily basis. Are most of Boeing's engineers in Chicago or Seattle? In my opinion Boeing's executive became more interested in quarterly sales margins than in the safety of the flying public. A corporate culture like that is likely to permeate many levels. The 737 fiasco exposed that corporate culture and showed the damage it can incur. Clearly they pushed sales as a priority over safety. In congressional testimony earlier this month: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/11/poli...gher-crash-risk-faa-concluded/index.html Whistleblowers at the hearing also raised concerns about the culture at Boeing and the FAA.
One of the whistleblowers, Ed Pierson, is a former Boeing employee who worked on the 737 MAX program and said he urged managers to shut down the production line because of mistakes and cut corners, but that his recommendations fell on deaf ears. He said pressure to produce planes and issues with obtaining parts meant the employees assembling the planes were overworked and at risk of making mistakes. "I formally warned Boeing leadership in writing on multiple occasions -- specifically, once before the Lion Air crash and again before the Ethiopian Airlines crash about potential airplane risk due to the unstable operating environment within the factory," he said. "Those warnings were ignored." The Air Force initially refused to accept its first Boeing KC-46A tankers: Air Force Halts Tanker Deliveries After Finding Planes Are Full of Trash The Seattle Times reported late last week the Air Force had discovered unwanted tools, bits of debris, and other garbage in various locations of KC-46A tankers. According to the Times, Air Force pilots at Boeing for training refused to fly the aircraft as a result, citing safety concerns. “This is a big deal," a Boeing memo was quoted as saying. That does not mean that the same culture exists in the Starliner program, but I would say that Boeing does not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this time. There should be no doubt. This. The very problem is that the admins have forgotten they are working in a security-critical business. The widgets they sell are potentially deadly for hundreds of people at a time, so they’d better work! Boeing’s company culture seems to have deteriorated gradually since the merger with McD. The last proper plane Boeing made was the 777 in the 90s, when they actually went out and asked the airlines what they wanted in a long-range twin jet. It resulted inwhat is undoubtedly the best intercontinental passenger jet on the market. And now look at Boeing. They can’t even deliver a tanker derived from a 40-year-old design of their own without severe quality control issues. Shame, really.
In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
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#4501832 - 12/29/19 12:47 AM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Haggart
I Fought Diablo
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I Fought Diablo
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The Lone Star State
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Last month I bought Lockheed Martin ...... skipped on BA all the drama kind of turned me away from it
"everything lives by a law, a central balance sustains all"
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#4501886 - 12/29/19 09:38 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Docjonel
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Here's a good article that details how the McDonnell Douglas takeover resulted in MD's execrable business practices and attitudes subverting Boeing's successful engineering focused tradition. It also points to the separation of Boeing's executives from its production line, ie. the move from Seattle to Chicago, as part of that process that led to Boeing losing its way. The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course “If in fact there’s a reverse takeover, with the McDonnell ethos permeating Boeing, then Boeing is doomed to mediocrity,” the business scholar Jim Collins told me back in 2000. “There’s one thing that made Boeing really great all the way along. They always understood that they were an engineering-driven company, not a financially driven company . If they’re no longer honoring that as their central mission, then over time they’ll just become another company.”
It’s now clear that long before the software lost track of its planes’ true bearings, Boeing lost track of its own.
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" -- Mark 8:36
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#4502068 - 12/31/19 09:31 AM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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letterboy1
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Lifer
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What's amazing is that this thread made it this far without rectal references to the thread title.
The issue is not p*ssy. The issue is monkey.
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#4502076 - 12/31/19 11:49 AM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: letterboy1]
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PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
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Pro-Consul of Florida
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What's amazing is that this thread made it this far without rectal references to the thread title. We take our Latin very seriously here on SimHQ.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
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#4506701 - 02/08/20 08:19 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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F4UDash4
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Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found At Thursday's meeting, Hill revealed the second issue related to software and thruster performance publicly for the first time.
However, as part of reporting on a story about Starliner software and thruster issues three weeks ago, a source told Ars about this particular problem. According to the source, Boeing patched a software code error just two hours before the vehicle reentered Earth's atmosphere. Had the error not been caught, the source said, proper thrusters would not open during the reentry process, and the vehicle would have been lost.
"In the vast library of socialist books, there’s not a single volume on how to create wealth, only how to take and “redistribute” it.” - David Horowitz
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#4506724 - 02/08/20 11:00 PM
Re: Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Haggart
I Fought Diablo
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I Fought Diablo
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I ain't riding no "737 MAX"
"everything lives by a law, a central balance sustains all"
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Exodus
by RedOneAlpha. 04/18/24 05:46 PM
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