Pure speculative thread, not about politics or lives, but about commercial and technical things.
Suppose, Boeing has overreached the technical abilities of the 737 airframe from 1969 and finally is forced to come up with a new design, call it the 7N7 for this thread. A new, single-aisle, 6-abreast, 120-230 capable family design like the A320 family that can and will range from just above Embraer to just below 787.
This of course would hurt immensely, maybe even more so than Airbus' A380 adventure. The 737, after all, is Boeing's cash cow.
But, suppose Boeing is going to do it. From scratch, with 787 and 777X tech readily available, and an agressive programme to beat the A320 family where it hurts.
What would you expect Boeing would come up with?
Hoppie
Wasn't the 797 supposed to be just that?
The 797 was intended to be just above the 737, replacing the 757/767. But now see it with a potential sudden death of the 737 MAX (and by extension NG) lines. Boeing needs a design that starts at 120 seats, not 225.
Seeing how long it took to develop the Dreamliner and seeing that the MAX is kind of the cashcow, I wonder how they can fill the financial gap between the decision of developing a new plane and the first orders.
The Dreamliner is an amazing plane, I could enjoy a flight last year, so Boeing for sure is capable of building great and amazing planes, but I wonder how you fund such a development.
The 787-9 has suffered from huge engine reliability issues. N.B. fuel efficiency and therefore engine manufacturers are a major part of such a modern new design.
Flying e-bikes!
Quotehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os&t=74s
I wonder if the findings in this doc are starting to manifest themselves. You get what you pay for!
Beyond just more fuel efficient engines, better lightweight but durable structural materials, and improved ease of maintenance, I don't have any ideas.
The really neat things -- like a cockpit with a truly enhanced user experience - wouldn't earn them any extra money, so we'll never see it.
My new car has a completely digital dashboard. No speedometer with a mechanical needle anymore, it's just a TV screen. The innovation is really nice, and the driver experience is much, much better than even a 787 (in terms of ergonomic and UX design, that is, not necessarily in terms of gravitas and fun). So an updated cockpit user experience would be greatly appreciated. But... not going to happen.
Quote from: beat578 on Thu, 14 Mar 2019 14:28
The Dreamliner is an amazing plane, I could enjoy a flight last year, so Boeing for sure is capable of building great and amazing planes, but I wonder how you fund such a development.
Traditionally, large aeronautical companies fund this by military contracts for other stuff. Boeing is so big, their commercial aircraft division does not need to remain profitable at all times, they can afford gaps. Will investors like it? Some investors will. Others won't. Business as usual.
Hoppie
I believe this is more a discussion for the financial institutes. Boeing wanted to start from 0 but changed minds on request of customers because it would take too much time and financially the risk was too big (with all the investments in the "from scratch"-787)
I wouldn't be surprised if both Boeing and Airbus would announce this project around the same time.
If you want to know what it will look like, from a systems point of view it would be more interesting to look at the 787 developments (fly-by-wire, more electrical power based, integrated systems... so yes, flying e-bikes is not that far off :-))
Quote from: Will on Thu, 14 Mar 2019 19:46My new car has a completely digital dashboard. No speedometer with a mechanical needle anymore, it's just a TV screen. The innovation is really nice, and the driver experience is much, much better than even a 787 (in terms of ergonomic and UX design, that is, not necessarily in terms of gravitas and fun).
My car has a digital dashboard too - the interesting thing I found was that I had to change the presentation from the default (which had a large tachometer surrounding a digital speed readout) to a more traditional representation of a round dial speedo with a needle - I found the digital speed readout almost hypnotic and very difficult to 'scan' quickly as one had to
read the numbers - not only that, but to get any sensense of rate information your eyes had to linger on the digits even longer. The result was I found myself staring at the speedo almost more than I was looking out at the road, which clearly was not a good thing!
The 'traditional' needle presentation, by contrast, allows a lot more information to be taken in with a quick sweep of the eyes. Interesting and relevant to the way in which information is presented in aircraft glass cockpits as well - whilst clearly glass provides advantages in many areas, I can see how the 'traditional' presentations can have benefits too!
Trends are also shown in glass cockpits: The compass disc turns, the speed and altitude tapes scroll. The glass instruments are way more ergonomic than those in cars, I think.
In addition to the moving tapes, the digital indications also scroll -- and that with a resolution of at least 0.1 knot.
Within the scrolling system of the airspeed digits there's another well-designed ergonomic detail: The 10-knot digits have greater spatial intervals than the 1-knot digits.
E.g. when the speed is 139.5, the digits within the "current speed" window will not be positioned like this:
14
9
13
... but rather like this:
14
0
9
13
I cannot show it exactly here in text form. The "14" should be half a line height lower, and the "13" half a line height higher.
In the first example, it is not clear whether the "9" belongs to the "13" or to the "14". It may temporarily look like 149 instead of 139.
So the instrument designers added some space between the 10-knot increments. This additional space only becomes visible when the 1-knot digits scroll between 0 and 9 or vice versa.
This digital readout window actually resembles a zoom lense that enlarges the smaller digits that are on the tape.
The designers also put a lot of thoughts into the motion rates of the indications. If the instrument range is too small, (A) you cannot plan, and (B) the indication will move too fast. Vice versa, if the range is too large, you can hardly see any trends. -- Their final design is perfectly balanced (in my opinion). The typical motion rate of the airspeed tape is nearly equal to that of the altitude tape. E.g. when you decelerate at 1 kt per sec during idle descent while the sinkrate is 500 fpm as per ATC minimum, the tapes left and right will nicely scroll at almost the same rate, and so you can anticipate the target points at 240 KIAS and 10000 feet on the left and right tapes, with the attitude indicator's horizon line almost at the height of the tape windows.
I'm not a car expert, but such details are not included in the design of car instruments, I think. Not yet. Maybe later. I guess they put more weight on the aesthetical aspect of the car's displays. In my car the instruments are red which is good at night (telescope users know what I mean). And the text display on my radio in the center console is also red -- by default. For aesthetical consistency. But I have changed the text display to green (with a hidden switch) because that red text distracts me; it looks like a red alert. So, all in all, my car cockpit looks ugly, but the color mix is more ergonomic for me.
Cheers,
|-|ardy
My car has options to select on the dashboard for the speed readout, but all of the options have the speed presented as a number in the middle of a graduated ring that shows trends. It's pretty intuitive.
The GPS also knows the speed limit of the road you're on, so the speed limit is marked with a red line on the ring. That's pretty cool.
I agree with the value of trend information, so I enjoy the fact that the ring is there. The car has a heads up display as well, but that only has the number for the speed and no trend information is available other than just how fast the number is changing. Not optimal.
By the way does somebody know in reasonable detail why the Airbus 320 family seems not to have these issues with slinging new engines under? More space? Already full FBW so easier to correct?
Of course, I don't "know" but there are plenty of references in literature (e.g. in Joe Sutter's book; he was one of the key persons in the defining the 737 layout) that one of the initial design goals of the original 737-100 was to allow loading directly by the ground handling personnel without any extra ground handling equipment.
This dictated that the fuselage was close to the ground (comparable to regional jets) and thus a rather short gear. The original engines (long and thin) fitted under the wing, but already back then Sutter had to move the original engines up into the wing root.
The drawback of the initial design with short gear is a limitation regarding larger engines (already the 737 "classic" had non-circular inlets) and fuselage stretching.
Apparently, the A320 - probably already planned with the A321 stretch on the drawing boards - sits higher of the ground and does not have this limitation.
Markus
Reviving this thread with all recent developments.
MAX is in more trouble than expected. Software not at fault, despite extensive outsourcing, but system design and safety analysis flawed at best. Possibly some criminally punishable neglect here and there. Additional inspections revealed potentially unsuitable hardware for the real safety criticality of MCAS. The deeper they dig, the more they find.
787 cert process is now under investigation, too. Systemic failures in the safety analysis are slowly appearing. Despite the FAA's extensive rules on outsourcing, people are unhappy in hindsight. Rumours about Boeing having fired many, if not too many experienced senior engineers to cut costs.
What's next?
Hoppie
I hope not the 747-8...
I got to fly a couple of times with the MAX before they got grounded. I fully trusted its the best 737 version ever. Kind of frightening to know about such serious flaws and possible neglect afterwards...
Well, The 777 and the 787 have been the last planes developped from scratch. And I trust in the 787, I read a lot about and have been flying in one already. I geuss, that plane really really is as good as it's been told. So why not take best parts from both planes and put them into a new smaller concept?
They should learn from Airbus: If they take the cockpit out of the 787, shrink it (but still make it alike) they could get the airlines that already orderes those 1400 dreamliners. they could use the same crew with minimum additional training sessions.
So i would try to build a "baby dreamliner"...
Same plane tech, possibly. Same crew, I am not so sure. Not only would the differences be too big to bridge (the aircraft are really of a different size category), but also since long-haul and short-haul schedules and careers don't match. However just as I think (presume, guess) that cross-training from a 757 to a 777 is less of a step than from a 757 to a 330, keeping a common flight deck definitely does have its advantages.
If Boeing bangs its head against the wall a few times and then decides to actually do a 737 size new plane using latest tech around (5-8 years and 10 billion dollars), Airbus will have to move. The neo series won't be able to beat that. But will Boeing dare? Are they practically forced to jump into the deep end anyway?
Hoppie
QuoteAnd I trust in the 787, I read a lot about and have been flying in one already.
I guess you haven't heard about the battery fires, the ceiling fires, the dual engine failures....
Regarding the future: In my opinion, Boeing and Airbus should support the development of hydrogen engines by stimulating the competition between PW, GE, RR etc. There is obviously no future in the oil industry. In this respect, too, there should be more competition between Boeing and Airbus. I think future passengers will not only prefer cheaper flights but also cleaner flights.
|-|
I seriously doubt that cleaner will make a dent in customership.
If anything has been proven beyond reasonable doubt by now, it is that cheaper always wins in the end. Everything else can and will be sacrificed when the buck hits the table. Safety, for example, is only this good because of regulation. Airlines live basically on the edge of what they can get away with, and regulations force enough safety headroom to produce a safe system (safety is statistics).
Now, not everything is lost, as oil-based fuels will simply get more expensive over time, and tech evolves for non-oil fuels, leading to cheaper starting to drive fuel change. On the ground this has already happened with electricity. In the air it will take a bit longer due to technical challenges but it will happen.
Regulators can help here by tax increases on oil-based fuels. It's a question of who dares to start with this, with the international aspect of aviation. But if for example the USA or China would impose oil-based fuel taxes for domestic flights, they definitely would force short-haul to move a bit. Same for EU in the EU zone. But all three these examples are so remote given the current political climate (pardon my pun) that I don't see them happening.
Hoppie
Sometimes I'm wondering myself if all the technology which has been introduced into the new planes has gone to far.
At least the folks here in this forum know that flying an airliner is a complex task. Pilots have to deal with poor weather conditions, crowdy skies, confusing ATC instructions, delays, problems in the cabin and aircraft dispatched under MMEL conditions just to name a few. The last thing a pilot needs in a complex environment is a confusing flight deck with tons of information distributed over screens which are as big as a TV screen at home.
Although modern cockpits are actually designed to relieve the pilot, they appear to be more distracting than the conventional flight deck design which has been successfully used for decades. At least that's my impression as a non-professional flight simulator enthusiast.
The combination of pilots relying on automation, a complex flight environment and a complex flight deck are already the main ingredients for the recipe of the "cake of accident", I think. Now add an aircraft with a poor design and you have the cream top for the cake.
In my opinion the 747-400 represents an almost perfect aircraft. Highly reliable, lots of many modern features implemented in the flight deck but still more or less conventional in terms of cockpit design and layout. The PFD, ND and EICAS are clear and not distractive. And even more important: if you disconnect A/P and A/T pilots have full manual control without some "hidden Heinzelmännchen" interfering (except of features like speed trim perhaps).
And I'm afraid that we'll see an increasing number of car accidents in the future because exactly the same thing is happening there. More and more control is transferred to the car electronics and at the same time the displays in the car are filled with features from smartphones. I think it's only a matter of time until people crash into each other because they only trust their car and not their own driving skills. The famous VNAV sentence "What the hell is it doing now?" will be often heard in modern cars in the seconds before a crash, I think.
Just my 2 cents,
Dirk
Quote from: Dirk Schepmann on Sat, 13 Jul 2019 13:37
The famous VNAV sentence "What the hell is it doing now?" will be often heard in modern cars in the seconds before a crash, I think.
I doubt that. Again, because of
statistics. Driving a car is about the opposite of flying an aircraft. Accidents predominantly happen because a driver does not pay attention; that can be you looking at your iPhone or your fellow road users looking at their Android. Planes rarely collide; cars collide all the time. Automation will
decrease this kind of avoidable accident significantly. And most accidents are not of the kind "what is IT doing now?" but of the kind "WFT IS THAT IDIOT DOING NOW?" ...
Yesterday on the way home I saw a few near-accidents that most definitely would have not even been possible with automation at the wheel instead of... well, this is Miami.
Hoppie
I fully agree that automation in cars will reduce the risk of accidents in many conditions.
But I am convinced that the number of car drivers who are distracted or even fully trust the automatics of their car will constantly increase and at some point the automatics will be no longer able to compensate the level of distracted car drivers.
I cannot speak for Miami, though... *grin*
Best regards,
Dirk
There are situations where pilots love to do it themselves, but fuck up, and automation would have done a far better job.
There are situations where automation "glitches", and pilots pick up and temporarily help out to go back to automation as much as possible.
The first type of situations happen far more often than pilots would like to admit, and you can't revert to some kind of emergency because "pan pan, pilot fuck up" does not exist (or ends up in "unstable" being the closest call).
The latter type of situations happen far less, and if all goes wrong "pan pan, technical issue" is always an option and will help a lot as well.
The video "children of the magenta" is a bit outdated and modern, a result of a black-white training environment where pilots are trained to neglect any kind of automation because they simply don't understand. Maybe they weren't trained properly. Outdated because of philosophy (when all goes wrong, we are the astronauts who should be able to handle the situation). It is modern however as it does show how important user interface is for automated systems. Easy clear interfaces allow easy comprehension and use of the system.
Best exemple: go-around. Fly manual, fly automated, compare. You don't do go-arounds every day. Compare with technical issues. Would you like to use automation as much as possible in these cases? Or do you like a pilot to fly around manually with the technical issue on top?
So the future of the 737 - technical - is up to Boeing to decide. The end result for pilots will be a very common interface with 787. Very much automated which isn't bad. The rest is up to the operator to allow some freedom in "CAVOK" conditions to abandon automation and use some "disconnect and fly" training.
And I can't forget the 777... a "giant" step in the right direction. Never forget the initial 737-300 had many dual engine failures as well...
Quote from: Dirk Schepmann on Sat, 13 Jul 2019 13:56
But I am convinced that the number of car drivers who are distracted or even fully trust the automatics of their car will constantly increase and at some point the automatics will be no longer able to compensate the level of distracted car drivers.
Yet this is exactly what I mean. If those distracted people are truly reduced to passengers, they are no longer distracted, as the automation pays all the attention... The more people switch to autopilot, the better!
What will always remain is "stupid" accidents, where people shake their head about the "stupid" computer. But those will be a small fraction of what happens today out in the streets. Basically the same as with automated aircraft. The number of "stupid" accidents is very low, but they really cause big ripples when they happen. The number of "normal" accidents has dropped a gigantic amount.
Hoppie
I think Airbus took the A380 cockpit too far. From videos I've seen, to do anything involves a track-pad and keyboard. They are most certainly systems managers.
I think the 757/767 or 747 is about as close to ideal as it gets, IMHO. Not too much, but enough automation, and just the basics of what you need to get the job done.
The A380 looks like a nightmare. Same for the 787, at least as far as amount of data. I don't like it.
(real question, not a statement:)
How much of a modern airplane pilot's task is administration for the airline on top of flying the machine? I have that faint impression that to fly a 380 or 787, you don't need so much extra work than on a 7old7, but to keep the bean counters happy, you run a full extra job.
Hoppie
It works in both ways. In general I don't think this is an aircraft technology problem, it's a typical "bean counters" problem imposed upon us. Basically the modern aircraft is big brother maximized. And for that only reason, the ground people want to know. Everything. And we have to provide.
Pro's:
There is a lot of info transferred automatically from the aircraft to the ground. On a classic - non acars - 737 we would land, inform maintenance, write down in a techlog, etc... On the 777 we would try to communicate problems through ACARS up front, getting the reply "yes, we know". Wind data on the flightplan is nice, but it's updated. Flightplans are sent to us. Pretty fun, especially in CPDLC when you see a frequency popping up and the aircraft will tell you if you set the right frequency... yes, pilots monitor the aircraft, but the aircraft now monitors you as well. I like that.
Also long term, this certainly has safety effects. There is a lot more long term monitoring going on and that is fantastic from a safety point of view. Even pilot issues: "fleetwise we notice pilots are having problems with x or y" and this is transferred to training. You are not blamed personally, a group of people is monitored. But then again, this depends on the airline...
As far as administration goes, the "administration" question is a matter of authority requirements as well. Because "big brother" is watching, administration also wants to know a lot more than what was considered "pilot's job" back in the day. Back in the day, on short flights, we would focus on flying and administration was the last of all concerns. It was a ground task.
That feeling has gone away. The answer "didn't have the time" doesn't really stand anymore. And THAT is a major problem.
It's a question of liability in case of. And that's what aviation is evolving into. Who's to blame? And that question is answered by lawyers on the ground. The more is known, the bigger the question "who's to blame". And those are still naive will say "because we want to learn", pilots will say "because they need to blame someone". The Sullenberg movie is a real testament to that and from that perspective probably one of the most realistic movies that answers the question "What is a pilot's job?" The answer: "The first and the last one to be blamed."
Ok I will stop this rant :-). Still a fun job though. And I did love my 777 more than anything else.
Just a whimsical thought....I wonder what sort of aircraft the 747-400 would be if fitted with the new Trent engines?
Long range, more efficient and quieter.....
https://komonews.com/news/local/boeing-may-halt-737-max-production-if-grounding-continues-reports-say
I think Boeing know they've taken things too far and can't fix it without a fundamental re-design.