'Designed by clowns': Boeing employees ridicule 737 MAX, regulators in internal messages

[Fishrrman]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/designed-by-clowns-boeing-employees-ridicule-737-max-regulators-in-internal-messages-idUSKBN1Z902N

'Designed by clowns': Boeing employees ridicule 737 MAX, regulators in internal messages

David Shepardson
BUSINESS NEWSJANUARY 10, 2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co has released hundreds of internal messages that contained harshly critical comments about the development of the 737 MAX, including one that said the plane was “designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys”.

The messages, disclosed on Thursday, show attempts to duck regulatory scrutiny with employees disparaging the plane, the company, the Federal Aviation Administration and foreign aviation regulators.

In an instant messaging exchange on Feb. 8, 2018 - when the plane was in the air and eight months before the first of two fatal crashes, an employee asks another: “Would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t”.

The second employee responds: “No”.

More at URL above...

[Fishrrman]

A Fishrrman almost-fearless prediction:
Boeing will file for bankruptcy within 5 years.
The 737Max disaster is gonna kill 'em.

[Applewood]

Unfortunately, "designed by clowns" seems to be the way almost everything is made today.  Look at appliances and electronics/tech stuff.  Other mundane things too.   I tried to open a new carton of almond milk this morning.   The carton said "New Design."   I swear someone welded the cap on.  Who was the stupid twit who thought it would be a good idea to make a carton of almond milk childproof? 

Of course, the difference is that this kind of idiocy in most of the products we buy won't lead to our deaths.  Unlike the Boeing 737 Max. 

So if Boeing goes under, where will the airlines get their planes?  Airbus?  Personally, I liked the Airbuses I flew on, but I understand they have safety issues too.

[SZonian]

ON COMPANY CULTURE

- “We put ourselves in an impossible position by picking the lowest cost supplier and signing up to impossible schedules,” an unnamed employee said in a June 2018 email with reference to the (insert program/project name here).

In the same email, the employee also said: “I don’t know how to fix these things...it’s systemic. It’s culture. It’s the fact we have a senior leadership team that understand very little about the business and yet are driving us to certain objectives”.

If anyone here is under the illusion that this is a Boeing problem only, it's not. 

There is no such thing as "leadership" within aerospace, only managers anointed as such looking to make their next move.

[txradioguy]

Boeing bought up all the remaining competitors and Lockheed Martin called it a day on commercial airliners after they stopped producing the L-1011.

That would leave if memory serves...the Airbus consortium...Embraer and Bombadier in the west...the Russians are building planes that have been certified to fly in the states and the Chinese are working on a plane about the size of the A320.

But if Boeing goes away the U.S. is out of the commercial airliner business for the near future.

[txradioguy]

If anyone here is under the illusion that this is a Boeing problem only, it's not.

@SZonian very true.  Look at the issues L-M is having with the F-35.

[Absalom]

When clowns and monkeys are in charge, the next phase is Chapter 11!

[truth_seeker]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_11,_Title_11,_United_States_Code


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas

Douglas had been chief engineer at Martin before leaving to establish Davis-Douglas Company in early 1920 in Los Angeles. He bought out his backer and renamed the firm the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1921.[4] McDonnell founded J.S. McDonnell & Associates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1926.

WWII Douglas was a major builder of warplanes.


Later McDonnell Douglas was a builder of civiilian planes, and an aerospace firm involved with Moonshots, etc.

They acquired Rockwell and other such firms, and eventually were merged with Boeing.

I am certain that Defense Dept (DCAA) "procurement Regs" guided them to wind up designing this plane with engines to heavy, to be flown, wwwithout computor intervention.

[SZonian]

@SZonian very true.  Look at the issues L-M is having with the F-35.

@txradioguy

It's the "culture". 

LM's problem with the F35 is that it's being run/managed by people who had absolutely no clue how to run a flight test program, which in turn, caused much of the problems now seen in production.

In their rush to meet milestones during flight test, they ignored many of the flaws discovered as "irrelevant to the goals" and ignored repeated requests to improve and correct items discovered. Now they're getting beat up by the customers and deservedly so, but it's those in the trenches who pay the price for their ineptitude.

This is a result of piss poor management and non-existent leadership.

NGC is not immune either, they're working their people like mules and almost killed 3 of them a few weeks ago...still, even after that, nothing has changed within the culture.

[dfwgator]

Unfortunately, "designed by clowns" seems to be the way almost everything is made today.  Look at appliances and electronics/tech stuff.  Other mundane things too.   I tried to open a new carton of almond milk this morning.   The carton said "New Design."   I swear someone welded the cap on.  Who was the stupid twit who thought it would be a good idea to make a carton of almond milk childproof? 

Of course, the difference is that this kind of idiocy in most of the products we buy won't lead to our deaths.  Unlike the Boeing 737 Max. 

So if Boeing goes under, where will the airlines get their planes?  Airbus?  Personally, I liked the Airbuses I flew on, but I understand they have safety issues too.

I wonder how many "Diversity Officers" Boeing hired over the years.