They already did that, it’s called the 757 and nobody bought it. Maybe we’ll get a 757 MAX with MCAS to make it type compatible with the 737.

Is the MAX really using a 286 CPU? Why would they pick that for a plane launched in 2014. I get that it's based on the 737 Next Gen, but they just opted to not update the electronics?

Cancelled?

> There's a phenomena that ofter occurs with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets.

To add to this & the Jobs interview - an oil industry proverb: a healthy oil company has a geologist in charge, a mature one has an engineer in charge, a declining one has an accountant in charge, and a dying one has a lawyer in charge.

> with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets

It's not just building a product end-to-end. Tim Cook is a supply-chain guy. He knows how to build a product. What he doesn't know how is how to design a new one. This is the reason that all of the "new" stuff that has come out of Apple since Cook took over is actually just riffs on old degrees of freedom: thinner phones. New colors. Different UI skins. The only thing I can think of that Apple has done in the Cook era that was actually new was the Apple Vision Pro. That was really cool, but it was a commercial disaster, the modern equivalent of the Lisa or the NeXT.

Jobs took Lisa and NeXT failures and turned them into the Mac and OS/X. There is no hint that Apple intends to do anything with the Vision Pro, and they've already been scooped by Meta.

This is eerily similar to the comment on the thread about LLMs that says software teams have to maintain a "theory" or model about how the software works and when they cant, they can no longer function beyond limited forms of maintenance. And in that comment the idea was that LLMs are accelerating this dynamic.

I dont want to stretch the analogy too thin but in this case instead of LLMs being a catalyst, perhaps its a monopoly.

I worked on the 787 but far from the engineering team.

Boeing vowed to never build a plane like that again. They gave the wing design away to Mitsubishi for fucks sake. You never do that.

They were neck deep in the McDonnell Douglas metastasis at the time, and doing an impression of Captain Ahab in trying to union bust in Seattle by fucking off to South Carolina. Boeing customers would figure out which plane numbers were produced in SC and avoid purchasing them.

The thing about Boeing though is if you think the 737 team learns anything from the 747 team you’d be mostly wrong. Each airplane design builds up a new company inside Boeing to design that plane. They have their own meetings with each other and vendors. You’ll get some staff migration between the projects but if I saw any I didn’t notice. Toward the end during ramp down I’m sure some people moved onto the various -8 and -9 projects that were trying to stick composite wings onto existing lines.

I was asked if I was interested in porting my software to the C-17, after they figured out how to turn it into a bomber. I said fuck no, and that was the last I heard about it. Not that our code was particularly opaque. Some of the cleanest code I’ve ever done (knowing it would be maintained by someone else for as much as 30 years).

Boeing in particular has been about "maximizing shareholder value" to detrimental levels for decades now. Absolutely pushing out its most experienced (and expensive) employees in favor of less skilled and experienced staff often with an ageist bent. Beyond this has been a cultural shift and ever expanding increase to woke HR policies and practices to levels that are more harmful than good.

I should note that I'm entirely in favor of diversity of background and thought, not to mention various educational backgrounds. That said, actually having "unofficial" policies against promoting people of a certain race and gender combination (no white men hired or advancing in management, especially old white men) is as problematic as any other racial/gender/ageist bigotry.

I don't work for Boeing as I don't have a formal education that prevents me from ever being considered. I do know several people that do. Opinions are my own and not that of my employer or anyone else.

>> There's a phenomena that ofter occurs with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets.

A coworker from China once told me (and I can see it) everything in China is considered ephemeral. Companies in the US want to invest capital to generate ROI and recurring revenue (or monetize/enshittify everything) or one could say be lazy. Even big manufacturers want to invest in a plant and then enjoy the profits from ongoing production (Boeing doesn't even want to do production). This is why China has been booming, everything is temporary so everyone scrambles and is willing to take on smaller more short term production because nothing is forever. Well, that and they have the capacity since we gave it up.

The biggest tell will be just how over budget the development process becomes. Another issue in large companies trying to build something new is the scope creep which leads to committees and then decision by committee.

If the folks leading this effort in Boeing are smart, they will keep the size of the team as small as possible. Maybe they will even hire some people back to lead this effort... assuming they can find them.

My bet is that they will produce something not unlike what they already have in their lineup. It won't be boldly different in any way as technology that has worked elsewhere will just be cargo-culted forward into the "new" design. The biggest thing that will change are the handling characteristics since they won't have to match that of a previous aircraft.

Given that outcome, I (from the peanuts gallery) would design the aircraft to handle in some ideal way using MCAS-like automation to fix any deviation from that ideal, from the beginning. Of course, that's starting to head down the road of a more-Airbus-like design.

Also, passengers are probably going to start waking up to the realities of just how bad the air-travel experience in the US has become compared to so many foreign counterparts. If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines.

This feels apt to my years at $large_cloud_provider, where the current cohort of folks manage some of the largest web services, but would not be able to develop them from the ground up today. The brain drain from these orgs, the shift to maintenance / KTLO, and the focus on sales/AI "features" rather makes this feel spot on.

The A220 is an absolute treat. Can't put exactly my finger on why, but it just feels right in size, noise, the little screens at the top.

Flown it once or twice with AirBaltic, and would love to take it again.

The "Neo series" are re-engined A320 series (neo = New Engine Option) and has nothing to do with the A220.

Replacing the 737 MAX with a competitor to the A220? Something does not make sense.

The A220 series' maximum capacity is basically the 737 MAX series' minimum capacity.

It'd be a new airframe and not an elongation of an elongation of an existing one... So we might be lucky this time.

I read "Airframe" by Michael Crichton probably twenty years ago, and it was around ten years old at that time. I remember that that book talked about how the planes were unstable by design and required software to maintain proper flight characteristics, and that this was so because it was more efficient. The book is fiction, but I doubt it was far off the mark at the time. I suspect that there is no going back from this state of things, and so if there must be software, it should be good software.

The 737 is a clusterfuck because the giant engines throw off the physics of the plane both inertially and aerodynamically.

It’s easier to make a turbofan more efficient by making it bigger. But power density also tends to go up with new models, so there’s at least a chance that there’s a smaller, lighter engine with the same thrust and fuel economy out there, allowing them to improve (restore) the physics of the aircraft.

737 MAX Ultra Plus Alpha?

Looking forward to what AI-generated flight control software can do!

The article just mentions "Boeing plane" with no details. Will it fly?

You're absolutely right! Unfortunately, the MAX replacement will have strict weekly limits on how many hours it can be flown fully loaded - and most airlines will hit the weekly limit after just a couple flights.

Boeing 737 MAX+ Boeing 737 MAX+ Xtreme ... Profit!