As I got to the end of the article, something popped out at me. FAA Administrator Steve Dickson wondered why Boeing didn't simply ask the FAA for a waiver similar to the situation between the flight characteristics between the 757 and 767. The article said that with those two planes, one handles like an "overpowered hotrod" and the other handles like a "whale". My thought was that Boeing would first have to spell out in detail the handling differences between the 737 NG and the MAX with the result being the possible denial of the waiver. Boeing never wanted to take that chance, and decided to move forward with the secretive MCAS. Then, the FAA weighed in after the article's publication and stated that the handling characteristics of the non-MCAS MAX would not have been compliant. My question is this: Is the handling difference between the 737 NG and the MCAS disabled 373 MAX more pronounced than the handling characteristic differences between the 757 and 767? Is the FAA throwing a

(Written on 15/01/2021)(Permalink)

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong but I have heard that on military aircraft, the pilot, or Captain of the vessel, becomes the single highest authority on the aircraft even if he or she is out-ranked by passengers on the plane. For instance, If a passenger on the plane holding the rank of General is on a C-130 and tells the pilot holding the rank of Major to fly 600 feet over his kid's high school football game, the Major is well within his rights to refuse. These kinds of rules flow through to the civilian aircraft world too, do they not?

(Written on 15/01/2021)(Permalink)

Casinos in Vegas share security info in the case of known card counters (card counting is legal), violent drunks and gaming cheaters (illegal). It's called the right to refuse business.

(Written on 15/01/2021)(Permalink)

I think it's fair if another passenger on the plane asks questions. My wife was playing slots in a casino once and some lady came in and sat down nearby with her "service" dog. The dog was barking at people and actually nipped the pant leg of one if the casino employees. My wife was irritated from the beginning and asked, "Why the F___ do need to bring your dog in here?" The lady then resorted to her dime store legalese and said. "You're not allowed to ask me that." My wife replied, "I can ask you any F___ing thing I want. I don't F___ing work here. Now go put your F___ing pet dog in the car."

(Written on 04/12/2020)(Permalink)

I think there's more to it than poorly trained pilots. The two planes that crashed were sold with a minimum of upgrades. For whatever reason, Boeing let those planes out of the factory with minimal redundant systems that fed data to the MCAS. Couple a bad AOA sensor with undertrained pilots who never knew there was an MCAS system and we see the results. American carriers purchased fully upgraded equipment with several redundant systems feeding data to the MCAS leading to far fewer MCAS problems. American carriers pilots with many more hours of training and experience were also able to overcome MCAS deficiencies when problems arose. Still, Boeing not telling pilots about the MCAS is, at best, questionable. At worst, criminal.

(Written on 20/11/2020)(Permalink)

Regretted the decision? Ya think? The NY subway doesn't stop at LaGuardia. It does stop at JFK. Maybe next time, approach the decision from a passenger point of view rather than an accountant's point of view.

(Written on 13/11/2020)(Permalink)

I would fly in a Max if operated by one of the big US airlines. From what I have read, the problem stems from Boeing being run more by accountants and finance folks rather than engineers and production folks these days. According to William Langewiesche in the New York Times (9/18/20), the Lion Air and Ethiopian Air 373 Max's were stripped down versions of the plane. The two airlines involved are bare-bones operations. Ground maintenance is horrible for those guys. The stripped down planes lacked redundant sensors and other data points that the MCAS system uses to stay pointed in the right direction. No one likes to blame pilots but this Times article states that these airlines will employ a pilot with as little as 250 flight hours. Boeing shouldn't have sold a plane without redundant sensors used by somewhat hidden software. At least the airlines in the US pay to have all the safety equipment installed, maintained and correctly piloted.

(Written on 18/09/2020)(Permalink)

DJI is the big dog in the consumer drone market. I'm pretty sure all of their drones have robust GPS abilities. The firmware has several lockouts that prevent many types of illegal flights. For instance, the geofencing parameters in the software prevent the drone from takeoff if it is within 5 miles of an FAA registered airport. That being said, some of these safeguards can be disabled in the device settings. For instance, out of the box, the drone cannot fly higher than 400 feet above takeoff altitude. I have this feature disabled on my drone due to the fact that I fly the drone up a 1000 foot tall hill. I make sure the drone never flies higher than 400 feet above the ground it is flying over. That way, I can fly it to the top of the hill. It would be better if the software could work with the GPS topography and recognize the altitude of the land it is flying over and retain a hard upper limit so that idiots like me don't turn off the limits and fly to 8000 feet. It might be complica

(Written on 28/08/2020)(Permalink)

A buddy of mine was an overnight aircraft repair guy for United. Back in the days of smoking, if the flight engineer reported a slow pressure leak, it was likely a door seal. All they had to do was inspect all door seals and look for the "tar" stripe and replace that seal. Now that passengers don't smoke on flights, it's a lot harder to find the seal leak.

(Written on 05/06/2020)(Permalink)

I am not involved in the aircraft industry so there are others here who can likely provide a better answer, but in my observations of press reports and blog entries, here is my takeaway (so I might be off a bit): 1. Lion Air (Indonesia) and Ethiopian Airlines do not require as much pilot training as American carriers. 2. Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines purchased a rather stripped down version of the 737Max8. It was surprising to me that Boeing allowed a product out the door that depends on one or two Angle of Attack sensors without redundant systems. American carriers purchase a more robust avionics package with more redundancies and thus the MCAS programming has better data to work from. In my opinion, safety equipment should be standard rather than optional.

(Written on 21/02/2020)(Permalink)