
Boeing Backs Simulator Training for 737 Max Pilots in Reversal - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-07/boeing-reverses-itself-to-back-simulator-training-for-max-pilots
======
chmaynard
"Southwest Airlines Co., the largest 737 Max customer, said in a statement
before Boeing’s announcement that it was confident that computer-based
training would have been sufficient to supplement its existing training
program."

Translation: Safety is not our highest priority. It's up there, but
profitability is higher.

~~~
ralph84
For any airline sim time is a finite resource. They have to choose what to
focus on. They can't have every pilot experience every possible failure in the
sim.

~~~
jnwatson
Can’t tell if serious...

That’s exactly what I would hope pilots experience.

~~~
ralph84
Sure pilots experience failures in the sim. The point is they can't experience
every possible failure scenario or they'd never get out of the sim.

Southwest has had three fatalities in 48 years of operation, and in only one
of those was pilot error a contributing factor, so saying their pilot training
prioritizes profits over safety is unfounded snark.

------
Merrill
Will this test whether pilots have the upper-body strength necessary to
manually turn the cockpit trim wheels considering the size and aerodynamic
forces for this large an aircraft?

Unless there has been some change other than to MCAS, the manual trim wheels
are still the only option to correct runaway horizontal stabilizers.

~~~
michaelcampbell
Surely it is possible to provide them with a mechanism that gives enough
mechanical advantage.

I have a vision of... dissimilar sized gears, or something...

~~~
lmilcin
You mean an airplane of a different design that would need to be separately
certified?

~~~
fgonzag
It wouldn't. The trim wheel would work exactly the same from the pilot's
perspective. It would only work different internally.

~~~
CheesecakeFred
The gear ratio would change. Also I can't imagine certification is only
required for changes from a pilot's perspective, but from a functional
perspective.

------
throw7
"some failed to follow the company’s checklists"

great. that's confidence inspiring.

------
qaq
How much does it cost per pilot is it really that bad?

~~~
selectodude
It's the time and pilot logistics more than the price. Pilots can't do this
sort of stuff at their house, they need to fly somewhere and spend four hours
or more in a simulator. Not only is it a pain for everybody involved, it means
that you don't have that particular pilot for that entire day. And then
furthermore you can only use that particular pilot to fly the MAX moving
forward. The whole point of maintaining a type rating is that all of your
pilots can fly all of those planes, regardless of the particular version of
the model.

~~~
dpe82
Rather the other way around - the MAX can only be flown by the subset of 737
pilots who have had the training. In practice that will mean for Southwest to
maintain the efficiencies they achieve through standardization they'll need to
ensure all of their pilots receive the additional training.

------
LyalinDotCom
I'd reverse my decision too, if you know I made a product that I knew could
kill people due to some poor design in key systems and then it killed hundreds
of people.

~~~
tim333
And then they tried to say "it's ok really, we'll just change the software"
but were still grounded months later. It's taken a lot of prodding.

------
neonate
[https://outline.com/durb8c](https://outline.com/durb8c)

------
CodeSheikh
What difference does it make when the actual hardware is still flawed? I still
refuse to fly in 737 MAX and its variants. Boeing can convince AA and
Southwest pilots to give them vote of confidence but consumers are not stupid.

~~~
pageandrew
If pilots and pilot unions are satisfied with the results, I'm satisfied with
the results. There's no-one more safety conscious in the aviation industry
than pilots, since they're responsible for the souls on board their aircraft,
including their own.

~~~
r00fus
They should be forced to add the 3-sensor config on the plane and have that
supported by the MCAS for all planes.

A single sensor failing and causing unlimited automatic shifts in pitch is a
nightmare I will not fly on.

~~~
qaq
It's no longer unlimited

~~~
hetspookjee
Well, that's a relief.

~~~
platz
So if that software fix relieves you, wouldnt you have to admit that it was
the software the was the most direct reason for the crashes?

HN folks here seem hesitant to say this.

But without the dumb ability to do repeated activations it would've been a
much less severe problem.

~~~
hu3
The software did exactly what it was told to do.

The error was in the specification.

~~~
platz
Hah, wow

~~~
thombat
Let's suppose that the entire control logic for MCAS was now re-implemented
with vacuum tubes. Would you now argue that the aircraft crashes indicate a
hardware problem? Or would you agree that the real problem is in the system
design, since any conforming implementation of it will produce the jeopardy?

~~~
platz
If it was implemented with vacuum tubes, that would indicate a hardware
problem as well as a system design problem.

So in this situation, the claim is that braindead contractors mechanically
implemented something to spec by force of law? Sure, then whoever designed the
logic is accountable.

In 99.9% other environments, the distinction is collapsed because the
implementor typically has responsibility to design sub-component level logic
correctly, to high-level requirements, but also to overall business need and
in service to even higher level project goals, and the team that designed the
logic is also implemented by the same team.

~~~
bdavis__
nope, all of the vacum tubes would be working as designed. not a hardware
problem, a system design problem.

thus the invention of a discipline called 'systems engineering'..

i would say in 100% of engineering development, the design is done as a
system, and specific requirements are allocated to design elements (like MCAS
software). Each of these elements is tested against the requirements.

aeronautical engineering is a very specific skill. so is aircraft controls. so
is airworthiness. a software engineer is an expert in software, not these
other disciplines.

~~~
platz
At the level of specification you've laid out here, the act of 'software
development' is reduced to almost nothing, and you have re-categorized the
entire effort as systems engineering.

~~~
zaroth
Having a specification for how a system should behave in response to various
input signals is not at all the same as actually having the functioning
software for achieving that system.

In fact, achieving a functional and fully correct piece of software based on
such a specification is not at all a trivial task, as experienced software
engineers will well appreciate.

Because while the specification may describe a certain sequence of inputs that
should result in a certain sequence of outputs, it probably does not prescribe
the exact data structures, memory layout, logic flow, and computational steps
required to guarantee the correct output is always produced from a given set
of inputs.

And the people being paid to create the necessary data structures, algorithms,
calculations and control logic in order to implement the design
specification... those developers are specifically _not_ in a position to make
systems design engineering changes to the underlying specification itself.

~~~
isityouyesitsme
Software engineering as a field has accomplished so much in terms of quick
iterations and low-friction paths to products that I think it has become lost
that there are established ways to establish a safety case in a technical
manner. Modern software engineers have achieve this speed, largely, by
choosing not to apply the level of rigor in process that you describe. This is
usually ok, because most software projects do not require that level of rigor
(until the costs are too high not to, like AWS, which formally specified
critical parts of their infra in TLA+ before software and IT people
implemented it).

I think the parent post is an example of this problem taking on flesh. It has
been so long since we realized the folly of over-specification in most
projects that we have lost memory of there being cases where having a body of
people engineering the system and specifications distinctly from the people
who implement them actually does matter a great deal.

As a software engineer and not a systems engineer, I thank you for your
comment. It has great clarity.

------
dboreham
Another attempt to put the genie back in the bottle..

------
GiorgioG
Toooooo...late!

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

------
PaulHoule
Had Boeing done this six months ago the MAX might be in the air right now.

~~~
nsxwolf
Had they done it even before that a lot of people might still be alive.

