FAA overruled engineers, let Boeing Max keep flying
The underlying problems here run much deeper in that the root cause of the issues has more to do with the shenanigans Boeing and any other aircraft manufacturers end up having to do in order to avoid having to certify a whole new aircraft and especially to avoid needing to obtain a new type certification.<p>Both cases are absurdly expensive and time consuming to the point that any new aircraft designs are basically experimental or dead on paper in terms of being able to sell the plane at a price people or even companies can actually pay.<p>In this case, my understanding is that, the new engines are a bit bigger which necessitated a change in mounting position relative to the main body in order to maintain ground clearance on takeoff and landing, this should have meant larger landing gear sitting a bit higher and&#x2F;or a slightly different wing shape and mounting position on the body.<p>However, any of those kind of changes would have moved the Max8 into a new type certificate which would then require all pilots flying it to certify on that type in addition to additional flight testing and manufacturing certifications. All of that would move the cost of the plane well above the point where the efficiency gains would make it worth buying and delay production to the point where there would no longer be a market for it. So there would simply be no Max8.<p>And one could say, &quot;well that&#x27;s business, Airbus beat you to it, Boeing should lose then&quot;. And that would be fine as long as we&#x27;re willing to accept a world where the US produces no commercial aircraft at all and airline ticket prices and accommodations continue to get even worse. Are we good with making travel by air something only the rich can afford?<p>So Boeing went with extending the engines forward and slightly upward which necessitated more down force from the horizontal stabilizers to balance the increased weight forward of the center of lift and introduced a potential disruption of airflow over the wings in a high pitch up situation.<p>Changing the size, shape, or position of the horizontal stabilizers or anything else that would address the airflow issues would also run into certification cost issues. Therefore Boeing settled on an active control solution which they integrated into the existing flight control software (poorly) and found creative ways to convince regulators that nothing much had changed in the software such that the whole design could be built at a price point and time to market that would actually make the project worth doing at all.<p>This kind of creative engineering of what you can get past the regulators is the dark side of any over-regulated industry and continues even in the re-certification process for the Max8 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;18&#x2F;22189609&#x2F;faa-boeing-737-max-senate-report-coverup-tests-whistleblowers" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;18&#x2F;22189609&#x2F;faa-boeing-737-...</a><p>The reasons for it are pretty straight forward and can be seen as bad actors being bad or simply the result you are bound to get when you regulate without accounting for the reality of how people and businesses work. You can&#x27;t just say &quot;safety is our top priority&quot; and continue to add layers of regulation until it&#x27;s impossible to do anything without manipulating or bypassing those regulations. Doing so will counter-productively NOT get you safer designs.<p>What it will reliably get you is a shift in the focus of efforts from engineering the safest and most efficient aircraft possible to getting ever more creative about designing things you can get past the regulators. You don&#x27;t want smart people dedicating large amounts of time, energy, and money to efforts to manipulate regulators.<p>We the public would be much better served by an FAA that regulates with safety as the top priority AND an eye for making it possible and profitable to actually introduce new designs and new ways to manufacture things.<p>Right now it is simply impossible to start a company with the goal of introducing a new aircraft or aircraft engine to the US market. It costs astronomical amounts to get to the point where you can sell your first plane and separately astronomical amounts to get to where you can sell your first engine. Even for single engine, fixed gear, small and light, GA planes.<p>This is why almost no normal US citizen can afford to fly personally, even just occasionally for fun. It is also why GA planes still use leaded gasoline and burn around 10 gallons per hour. It is also why &quot;new&quot; aircraft are all actually &gt;95% similar to existing designs (even if that makes them inefficient), always use existing decades old engines, and still cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, making them priced out for all but the wealthiest potential customers.<p>The only possible route for any innovation in flight has been Experimental airworthiness certificates. And you can sell a few planes that way; but once you have a known good and tested design, you are still stuck in the Experimental category indefinitely because you will never sell enough planes to afford a standard category certificate.<p>Best of luck to the flying car startups but no pilot in the US expects them to have a snowball&#x27;s chance in hell of making it to the point where they are profitably selling a genuinely new type of aircraft.