Contributors

Monday, April 15, 2019

Death, Destruction and Picking Winners and Losers in the Aircraft Market

The following is a story of greed, technical incompetence and political malfeasance that will only backfire and hurt the American economy. Oh, and it will kill people too.

Boeing's 737 Max 8 passenger jet has been grounded after two deadly crashes. The FAA grounded the Max 8 only after every other civilized country in the world did so.

Boeing is trying to sell this as a "software glitch," but the fact is that Boeing radically changed the flight characteristics of the aircraft by installing bigger engines in order to compete with Airbus's A320neo, which was based on the A320. This video explains the technical details.

Basically, the A320neo engine upgrade improved engine efficiency by 15%, which would save the airlines billions of dollars in fuel costs. Because the engine could be slipped onto the wing with no other changes, it didn't require much extra training for pilots qualified on the A320.

Boeing wanted to do the same thing, but the 737's 50-year-old design is lower to the ground, which means the bigger engine can't fit under the wing. So a Boeing exec had a brilliant idea: move the engine up so it's partially above the wing.

This drastically changed the flight characteristics of the aircraft, causing its nose to pull up during full thrust, potentially causing a stall during takeoff. Boeing "fixed" the problem by adding a software system (MCAS) that forced the nose down when it detected a potential stall.

This meant that the plane did not behave like its predecessor, and pilots should have received significant training and simulator time on the aircraft. But Boeing lied, and said it was the same as the old plane and just offered an iPad course to train pilots on the new plane.

Because the MCAS system depends on sensors to force the nose down, the plane will crash if the sensors aren't operating properly. If the pilots weren't aware of these details, which Boeing didn't go out of their way to tell anyone about, they wouldn't know that MCAS is what's forcing the nose down. Boeing also made optional some of the safety features that alert the pilots when something bad is happening. Some airlines don't want to pay extra for these warning systems, so the pilots aren't alerted when these problems occur.

After the second crash, most countries in the world grounded the Max 8 almost immediately. But the FAA and the Trump administration diddled around for a couple of weeks before doing the right thing.

Of course, this could spell economic doom for Boeing, which makes a lot of money selling these flawed planes.

So, last week, Trump announced this:
“The World Trade Organization finds that the European Union subsidies to Airbus has adversely impacted the United States, which will now put Tariffs on $11 Billion of E.U. products!” President Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday morning. “The E.U. has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop!”
Yes, you got that right. Just after he grounded Boeing's Max 8 fleet for being unsafe, Trump imposed tariffs on Airbus's safe airplanes.

Because the engine is placed too high on the Max 8, it is never going to be as safe as the A320neo. It is inherently unstable under full thrust and requires a software hack to avoid stalling. But Trump wants to stop US airlines from buying Airbus and buy Boeing instead. He wants to force Americans to fly in unsafe aircraft.

Trump doesn't care if you die. He's got Airforce One and a personal 757.

Trump claims that Airbus receives unfair subsidies from European governments. But Boeing also receives subsidies in the form of tax breaks from South Carolina and Washington state. It isn't news that everyone coddles big companies that promise lots of high-paying jobs.

As with every trade war, the EU will retaliate with its own set of tariffs on American products, which will hurt American companies, in particular, Boeing and the rest of the US aircraft industry, which is already hurting because of the Max 8 fiasco. Nobody wins a trade war.

Boeing simply has an inferior and unsafe product. One that has killed hundreds of people. It makes no sense to punish Airbus for having a better airplane. People won't want to fly on Max 8s no matter how many software kludges they issue. The Max 8 design is literally fatally flawed.

Why is the president of the United States using tariffs to interfere with the market to force Americans to fly in planes that have a major design flaw? I thought Republicans thought government should let the market decide, rather than have government pick winners and losers.

But Trump isn't a real president. He's a stupid, senile old man who should be out cheating on the golf course instead of running the world's economy into the ground with his childish showboating.

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