Is Boeing a Buy Here?

[NW-Bound]

An expert says not all B-737 MAX planes can fly until July or August 2019.

That's because although the software fix can be uploaded by an engineer from a laptop to an aircraft in one hour, not every foreign aviation agency will follow the lead of the FAA to approve the fix, and will want to conduct their own review.

See: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...x-easy-to-upload-harder-to-approve/ar-BBVgitT.

 

[NW-Bound]

... If the crew of either accident aircraft had taken the steps above, there would have been no crashes. These are procedures that competent crews are required to know cold--no looking in a manual.

Now, if the trim runs away long enough and the airspeed is high enough, there comes a point where it is >very< difficult to trim using the wheels (i.e. two brawny crewmembers pulling on the wheels with all their might can't move the stab to the right position). This never becomes an issue if the stab is returned to the proper spot using the switches on the yoke (which is always possible whatever MCAS is commanding), then turned off.

Recent report on the Ethiopian crash: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47553174.

Pilots did switch off the electric drive to the stabilizer drive, but then were not able to move the stabilizer using manual wheels.

The article has a time history plot of the readings from the two alpha vanes. The left sensor used by the MCAS went hardover to 60 deg after take-off. The MCAS software took this ridiculous reading at face value!

 

[samclem]

Pilots did switch off the electric drive to the stabilizer drive, but then were not able to move the stabilizer using manual wheels.

Yes, but from the timeline they fought the trim ( control input opposite the trim) for about 3 minutes. That is an incredibly long time. During this time the electric trim should have been turned off and they could have been trimming using the wheel. The pressures on the jackscrew and trim system built up as speed increased. This would not happen if the plane was kept in trim (using either the wheel or through repeated use of the switches). As I mentioned, there comes a point where neither the manual wheel nor the trim motors are effective. This isn't a design failure.

 

[NW-Bound]

I dunno.

I am not sure that even an expensive fancy motion base simulator would have some hardware to simulate how the stabilizer manual wheels behave under different speeds.

How did Boeing turn a supposedly benign MCAS into something so critical with their design?

If they insisted that their design was right, they would have stood steadfast and not changed the software to now require two sensors in agreement. They could just issue more bulletins to tell pilots what to do.

 

[samclem]

It is a bit disingenuous for officials/press reports to say that the crews followed procedures and the procedures didn't work. They (apparently) only attempted to use the procedures after it was far too late. An extreme analogy would be if they got a fire indication for the number one engine and watched it blink for 3 minutes before cutting the fuel and discharging the extinguisher. Did they follow the procedure? I guess, eventually. Do we blame Boeing if the fire burns through the wing spar ? (Bad design to put that spar so close to the engine nacelle, and all that fuel stored right above an engine--why would they do that!!?)
Boeing is going to make the software better, along with the crew training. It can all certainly be improved.

 

[Oz investor]

Originally Posted by stepford View Post
... My question is, how large do you allow a single equity position to get before you rebalance?

my largest holding is over 10% ( but under 15% ) ( the second largest 5% )

at one stage it was closer to 25% but i reduced the large holding because the company was making a series of bad decisions ( but i was still in healthy profit ) not solely because the holding was so large

if a small holding had of made a similar run of bad decisions i would have exited it completely ( take the money and run )

regarding Boeing , i would probably wait a little longer , some impacted airlines might sue for losses or reduce the number of planes ordered

 

[NW-Bound]

This thread started out as a stock-picking idea, then evolved into some technical discussions. We ran out of things to talk about, and the thread died.

I am still curious about this subject, so still follow the story on the news. What I thought should be a simple fix turned out to be a long delay. So, there is apparently more to the story, and we will not know the technical details for a while.

Just now, saw an article on Bloomberg which I cannot read without a subscription. The introduction is tantalizing:

Delays in Boeing Max Return Began With Near-Crash in Simulator

Boeing Co. engineers were nearly done redesigning software on the grounded 737 Max in June when some pilots hopped into a simulator to test a few things.

It didn’t go well...

And then,

You have reached your free article limit

Hmmm... Do they track readers' computers by IP address or by cookies? Should I fire up my desktop to see if I can read above article?

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, here's the same article, but found on another Web site.

It sounded like Boeing has been addressing other issues more complex, and not directly related to the alpha vane failure and the MCAS.

https://www.heraldnet.com/business/delays-in-boeing-max-return-began-with-simulator-near-crash/