Boeing's 737 family and its future

[John H Watson]

 

And 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.... 

[Hardy Heinlin]

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.


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[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

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

[Dirk Schepmann]

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

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

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

[Dirk Schepmann]

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

[IefCooreman]

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...

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

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

[United744]

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.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

(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

[IefCooreman]

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.

[Pipsara]

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.....

[cagarini]

https://komonews.com/news/local/boeing-may-halt-737-max-production-if-grounding-continues-reports-say

[United744]

I think Boeing know they've taken things too far and can't fix it without a fundamental re-design.