Any questions about results of an engineering company run by bean counters?

[Burning Petard]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/prob ... 38282.html

Check the history of Boeing management since the merger with McDonald. All the individuals with practical experience with engineering have been removed from the Board of Directors.

snailgate.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I hear the engineers bolted

[Big RR]

BP--while I understand your position, I do think Boards of Directors have remits that are far broader than engineering concerns. That being said, I do think they need qualified advice from engineers and/or scientists at time and there should be advisory groups to proivide this. I have served on the scientific advisory boards or many companies (both employers and clients) and these boards provided the necessary technical expertise to advise the board on the likely outcomes and consequences of their decisions; of course, they may choose not to take the advice, but that is a different thing.

[BoSoxGal]

“I would absolutely not fly a Max airplane,” Ed Pierson, a former senior manager on Boeing’s 737 program, told the LA Times. “I’ve worked in the factory where they were built, and I saw the pressure employees were under to rush the planes out the door. I tried to get them to shut down before the first crash.”
Pierson, who left Boeing in 2018 and is now executive director at the Foundation for Aviation Safety, expressed concern about the way in which regulators permitted the Max 9 to return to service last week.
He told ABC7 San Francisco: “If you had a new car that had a part fall off of it and you had to pull over to the side of the road, and then you went to the shop, and the mechanic said, ‘Hey, I’m finding some other things wrong with it, but here you go, ready to go get out on the road,’ you would probably have some questions about [whether] anything else [has] been missed. So that’s a concern that we’ve had.”

“I would tell my family to avoid the Max,” Joe Jacobsen, an engineer who worked at Boeing for a decade until 1995, also told the LA Times. “I would tell everyone, really.”
Jacobsen later worked at the Federal Aviation Administration, and is now an advocate for aviation safety.

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/20 ... er-737-max

I’m grateful that flying is not something I care to do or am required to do for work. Beyond the insanity of passenger behavior, I no longer trust the safety of the fleet.

[Big RR]

I used to fly a lot, still do some and, FWIW, I'm more worried about being wiped out by a truck on the highway than dying in a plane crash. As for passenger behavior, you are correct, but it builds upon itself and I have come across some of the most surly (and, for that matter, some of the nicest) airline employees (flight attendants, gate agents, and ticket counter people). But flying is much different now (as is the world) and there is no longer any pretense of service--you're lucky if they get you from A to B within a few hours of the scheduled time. I just lower my expectations and read my book, treating a flight as a bus ride.

[MGMcAnick]

I remember some guys who travelled on Boeing business when I worked there used to have bumper stickers, some on their cars, and some on briefcases, that read '' IF IT'S NOT BOEING, I'M NOT GOING" . Those were the days. Boeing ran its own travel office, like an inhouse travel agency, that booked all the flights for anyone going anywhere. I made a few trips to Eglin AFB in Florida as a courier of secret info for a project that the company was doing for the USAF on B-52s. It must have worked. They are still flying planes that are over 50 years old. I never got a bumper sticker. Calling attention was out of the question.

They supposedly had a hangup about NOT using the transportation that they supplied to the world. I was surprised to find that they also owned at least three Cessna Citation jets. It was somewhat of a secret.

[Big RR]

i recall that slogan--not in bumper stickers; it must have been used in ads.

FWIW, when I first started flying, my favorite wide body was the DC 10 (and we see what happened to that, and the 727 for narrow body (it later changed to the 757--I never liked the DC 9/MD 80 or the 737). I also recall the 747s with piano bars aboard (upstairs as I recall)--now they have to cram that area with more seats, and remember some with buffet appetizers (in chafing dishes over sterno) before dinner (now you're lucky to get a bag of pretzels and that buffet area is also crammed with seats).

[BoSoxGal]

The first time I flew was in 1977 on one of the wide body two story jets from Logan to LAX. My brother and I got to go in the cockpit with the pilots and thanks to the flight being underbooked we stretched out on the middle seats to take naps. I was allowed to peek upstairs at the adults in the lounge, we ordered our meals from a menu (not in first class) and the food came on real plates.

It’s been all downhill from there.

[Big RR]

Irecall when my kids were young (in the 90s), they offered kids meals when you flew (they had to be ordered in advance; they were like Happy Meals with a burger and fruit and a toy. Not the healthiest meal, but they ate it and the toy kept them occupied for a while. The Flight attendants used to give out wings to the kids as well, and they could go into the cockpit after landing. Little by little they whittled away every possible semblance of any service; the usual excuse is that they need to do that to keep prices down, but, depending where you fly, it doesn't seem all that cheap (maybe on the discount airlines, but not on the so-called full service ones (I only fly them because my years of flying got me well over a million miles flown), and a permanent elite status with priority seats and free bag checks and a few other perks, but nothing great). If I can, I'd rather drive.

[BoSoxGal]

Oh yes the wings! We got those and I kept them for many years in my jewelry box. Ditched them around the same time I ditched my autographed letter from President Reagan, which he wrote me in response to my congratulatory letter than I sent him after his first presidential win.

Times certainly do change.

[Scooter]

BSG supported Ronald Reagan? Next you'll be telling me that Abbie Hoffman voted for Goldwater.

[BoSoxGal]

BSG supported Ronald Reagan? Next you'll be telling me that Abbie Hoffman voted for Goldwater.

In fairness I was only 9 years old, and while I secretly loved the sweater wearing peanut farmer, saying so out loud would have earned me both physical and psychological beatings from my ‘dad’ - writing the letter was a lonely child’s attempt to earn some love from a narcissist who only ever loved himself. The grown woman was all too happy to throw away the response.

I did vote for Olympia Snowe once or twice as a college student, but she was a very different kind of Republican - pro choice and pro gay rights, she could never be elected today. I voted for her because I felt strongly about having a woman senator, but I never voted for Susan Collins because she is a sleaze.

[Scooter]

Got it, context is everything.

If Ronald Reagan were alive today, he'd be run out of what has become of the Republican Party on a rail.

[Big RR]

The grown woman was all too happy to throw away the response.

I know the feeling; I have an autographed copy of "The America We Deserve" I got in a corporate function at Mar a Lago. It is personalized to me by my first name and hand signed by Trump, it's on a shelf and I have never opened it beyond the inscription as I have no interest in reading a book on which he had any input (I won't say "wrote" as I do not think he posses the intelligence to write a greeting card, let alone a book); while I generally have no interest in burning books, after he became president I said I will burn the book the day he dies or is removed from office--I have now broaden it to include the day he goes to jail or is elected again.

[Sue U]

I have an autographed copy of "The America We Deserve" I got in a corporate function at Mar a Lago. It is personalized to me by my first name and hand signed by Trump,

Yes, but do you have a Bible autographed by Trump? You could be making bank.

Seriously, I wonder how much your corporate sponsor was required to pay for Mango Mussolini's obvious grift.

[Big RR]

I really don't know; he was just a jerk then--nothing in politics (as in running for office). A few people just tossed then in the trash before they left, but I didn't know who actually ordered them so I brought it back with me and stuck it on a shelf. I forgot about it until he ran for president.

As for the Bible, I don't have a Trump signed one, but one from the 1400s with an original autograph of Steve Guttenberg (I didn't even know that was his first name)--a real collector's item, banned by the Vatican

[Burning Petard]

I have a copy of the Odyssey, nicely bound in buckram and signed by Homer.

snailgate.

[Joe Guy]

I have a copy of the Odyssey, nicely bound in buckram and signed by Homer.

You're a few years older than I thought you were. Did you get it at a book signing?

That book is probably worth something, even without the autograph.

[Big RR]

Homer Simpson?

[Burning Petard]

Yes, the book is worth something. Like most of my extensive library, about ten cents a pound. I just check Buckram in wikipedia. About a hundred years ago it was frequently made with cotton fabric soaked in nitrocellulose. What an interesting way to disguise a bomb.

snailgate.