Grounding the Boeing 737

[Mafesto]

Our great President Trump called for grounding the 737 aircraft until cause of recent crashes is determined and corrective action is taken.

Good move?
What extent will this affect flight schedules?
Does this have a more severe impact on one airline over another? Do all airlines run similar percentage of 737's in their fleets?
Does this create potential unintended safety concerns from relying more heavily on the rest of the existing aircraft?

 

[Mafesto]

Just finished watching an "expert" proclaim that the 737 has a cg that is too far rearward creating a higher than ideal degree of incline required in some instances.

This got me wondering, do planes have load cells on landing gear to aid in proper weight distribution when loading aircraft?

 

[Mafesto]

I have to admit that I am not in favor of our president having the power to make a decision like this. I feel that is over stepping his authority.

Imagine that the next time we have a leftist president, after a handful of snowmobile/avalanche deaths he declares no more riding in "avalanche prone" areas.
Then who determines just where the boundaries will be?

We could speculate about many potential misuses of this kind of power in industries and recreation.

 

[Idcatman3]

Our great President Trump called for grounding the 737 aircraft until cause of recent crashes is determined and corrective action is taken.

Good move?
What extent will this affect flight schedules?

It will likely have a fairly limited effect, because there are only about 375 737 MAX planes in service globally, nearly 100 of those in China.

Does this have a more severe impact on one airline over another? Do all airlines run similar percentage of 737's in their fleets?

The biggest carriers affected in the US will be Southwest Airlines (31 planes) and American Airlines (24 planes). Air Canada has 23, United has 14.

Does this create potential unintended safety concerns from relying more heavily on the rest of the existing aircraft?

Shouldn't really. Even with these crashes, air travel is far safer per person-mile traveled than any other form of transportation.

Just finished watching an "expert" proclaim that the 737 has a cg that is too far rearward creating a higher than ideal degree of incline required in some instances.

This got me wondering, do planes have load cells on landing gear to aid in proper weight distribution when loading aircraft?

Very few. This is a pretty manual process still, apparently.

 

[turboless terry]

I have to admit that I am not in favor of our president having the power to make a decision like this. I feel that is over stepping his authority.

Imagine that the next time we have a leftist president, after a handful of snowmobile/avalanche deaths he declares no more riding in "avalanche prone" areas.
Then who determines just where the boundaries will be?

We could speculate about many potential misuses of this kind of power in industries and recreation.

Should be the FAA. I'm guessing it was the FAA. The president just spilled the beans.

 

[slyrydr]

way too early to conclude anything about these two crashes, although the takeoff profiles of both jets lends itself to a higher level of scrutiny....the 737 has been loaded according to manual load tables for 50 years or so, so many tens of thousands of times as to make it an unlikely problem, and in any case easily discovered and overcome by the cockpit crews....it will be interesting to see what information is recovered from the data recorders....both aircraft pilots reported some flight control difficulties after just a few minutes of flight, which is about the time most flight crews are engaging the auto-pilots....the ryan air 737 flight crew had written up that aircraft at least twice for problems with control issues and both times the mechanics had been unable to duplicate the problem on the ground and had signed off the discrepancies, big red flag to have multiple discrepancies written off as unable to duplicate or minor tweaks that mean nothing of importance to the problem...to my mind this seems to be an interface problem between aircrew and operating systems of a relatively new aspect of the aircraft...also my experience that foreign aircrews are not as rigorously trained as most U.S. aircrew are, not to mention that foreign mechanics don't have the technical training nor equipment to diagnose complex problems...these are general observations, but no less valid....time will tell, and just as a point of reference i flew the 737 for 32 years...:face-icon-small-sho

 

[snowracer21]

I have to admit that I am not in favor of our president having the power to make a decision like this. I feel that is over stepping his authority.

Imagine that the next time we have a leftist president, after a handful of snowmobile/avalanche deaths he declares no more riding in "avalanche prone" areas.
Then who determines just where the boundaries will be?

We could speculate about many potential misuses of this kind of power in industries and recreation.

The POTUS is the head of the US Executive branch. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal agency tasked with regulating civil air transportation. The Constitution specifically outlines the Federal government's authority (Article 1, Section 8 "the commerce clause") in regulating interstate commerce.

POTUS ground 737s is the epitome of the executive branch exercising their powers under the Constitution.

I know you're just stating your personal opinion, but in this case, POTUS is 100% correct.

 

[Mafesto]

in this case, POTUS is 100% correct.

There is an agency in place that is far more knowledgeable regarding all of the aspects of this situation and all of the repercussions of that decision.
I'm not saying the decision was correct or incorrect. I'm saying the FAA can handle this without our great President Trump sticking his nose into it.

 

[goridedoo]

If it were all 737s and not just MAX's it would be a MESS... but still probably screws things up for the few carriers that have more than a few.

I do agree that the FAA should be the one to make the call to ground... but we all know good and darn well whos fault it would be if one went down on US soil. Hint- No Boeing, Not the FAA. LOL

Flew United this last week, lots of delays. Didn't seem to be weather related so who knows. They over booked a few of the flights... started an "auction" for a voucher for one "lucky" guest on one of them, got up to $3,000 before telling us we all had to get off the plane till someone took it. CHIT SHOW. Sat at the gate for an extra 45 minutes.

 

[snowracer21]

There is an agency in place that is far more knowledgeable regarding all of the aspects of this situation and all of the repercussions of that decision.
I'm not saying the decision was correct or incorrect. I'm saying the FAA can handle this without our great President Trump sticking his nose into it.

The FAA did order the grounding...

 

[Slick]

There is an agency in place that is far more knowledgeable regarding all of the aspects of this situation and all of the repercussions of that decision.
I'm not saying the decision was correct or incorrect. I'm saying the FAA can handle this without our great President Trump sticking his nose into it.

Or you !!!

 

[Mafesto]

The FAA did order the grounding...

I think you are correct.
The way it originally came out, it came across as if he were the one that made the decision.
But again, I think that you are correct.

 

[Mafesto]

Or you !!!

Do you have any idea how boring this hive would be without my constant poking?

 

[bholmlate]

I am sure now that Trump just named his Chief nominee to fill the vacant seat at the Head of the FAA. A seat that has been vacant since January 2018 They will get to the bottom of this crisis in no time. Since he only hires the best people to work for him Flynn, Mansfort, Cohan, etc....

 

[slyrydr]

the FAA doesn't have a lot of technically oriented people, they mostly check paper work etc.....as far as being able to analyze complex systems, they mostly rely on the manufacturers integrity and engineering...but as far as discovering design errors etc, not their specialty...not throwing stones at FAA, it's what the complex system of aviation has evolved into...there has to be a balance and understanding between the different factions....it takes a lot of understanding of the complexities in a complex world, and sometimes mistakes are made....it's just that in aviation the mistakes are sometimes catastrophic...:face-icon-small-sad

 

[turboless terry]

I am sure now that Trump just named his Chief nominee to fill the vacant seat at the Head of the FAA. A seat that has been vacant since January 2018 They will get to the bottom of this crisis in no time. Since he only hires the best people to work for him Flynn, Mansfort, Cohan, etc....

If Obama would have grounded the plane I wouldn't have thought anything about it and I hated Obama. I guess that is the difference between the right and the left. I am not going to waste my whole life hating someone. I went about my life. You libs really need help. Didn't like Obama's supreme court picks but I got on with my life instead of all this talk of changing court. Same with the election. Because your candidate doesn't get elected you want to change the rules to suit you and do away with the electoral college. That is why the everything was set up by the founders the way it is. To protect us from crappy people. My daughter always tries to change the rules so it always works in her favor but she is 8. The left is really sad. Just another chapter in the pussification of America. Book is getting big. If you don't believe me just look at Beto. Perfect example of participation trophies.

 

[slyrydr]

^^^^oh yeah!!!! second that....i notice that news today said that a jumpseat rider from the previous ryan air flight had told the previous crew how to handle the exact same situation, or it would have crashed sooner....having the stabilizer trim go nuts and drive the nose down has been part of pilots training for 50 years, that a new angle of attack input can give erroneous inputs is nothing but a variation of that problem, and easily corrected if identified properly, and it's not hard to figure out....an experienced crew should take about 2-3 seconds..but again, many aircrew around the world receive insufficient training which is fault of the companies trying skimp on training costs, both of the aircrews and the mechanics fixing problems (or not)...reports that the captain was trying to look up the problem in the flight manual is a serious dereliction of priorities...trying to look up something in a manual when the aircraft is rolling upside down validates the lack of situational awareness that is typical of someone who is a novice and incompetent as a professional....now we'll see the song and dance of the blame game in action as different agencies try to shuffle the blame from one to the other...some things never change, and government agencies are expert and experienced at it...:face-icon-small-dis