October 2019
Are people being trained on aft CG location as a factor due to both low stick force per G during entry, and then stability effects post-stall? I got some training relevant to that, and could clearly feel a big difference between a 150 with the seats way back vs. the usual two-guys-in-the-front-of-a-172. This also figures into what you (Paul) observed about light sports with low stick forces about a month or two ago.
Lately in Diamonds and my Comanche… with two guys in front, they basically had stick-shakers. Any backstory on the Diamond wreck shown there?
I have never done an aft-CG flaps-full-down-and-trimmed full-power go-around in any of these and suspect that the stick force to stall there is way lower than stick force to stall in a normal training scenario.
October 2019
Stall awareness training?
Show every student the picture at the top of this article, point to it, and tell them “Don’t Stall”!
Done.
Anyone who inadvertently stalls a plane after seeing what can happen actually deserves whatever fate (and physics) dishes out to them. I’ve never had a surprise stall in 45 years of flying and quite frankly can’t imagine people who let a plane get so out-of-control as to let a perfectly goo plane kill them.
October 2019
Why does everybody seem to think the wreck in the picture is a Diamond? The parachute lines alone indicate Cirrus to me.
June 2022
“ ‘It akes a lot of learning, the number of tests you can run virtually on the design and performance the airplane, the manufacturability and service. But we have to develop and mature the tools,’ he [Boeing CEO David Calhoun] said."
Translation: “We have to learn how to design and manufacture airplanes.”
How comforting.
June 2022
No word about changing their management style to put more power back into the hands of the actual engineers, and less in the beancounters that ruined the company in the first place?
June 2022
At first I thought your headline meant a reformed company. 
June 2022
In the meantime, you’d better place your order now with Airbus to get aircraft in the next 3 or 4 years (cha-ching). Bill Boeing must be rolling over in his grave after all the recent debacles and inept leadership. Good thing the government is keeping them afloat…
June 2022
And the Europeans are not keeping Airbus afloat?
June 2022
Here’s an idea: Take the 757-300 and redesign the wing (make it a composite), hang updated engines on the new wing, and update the avionics and EFIS to state-of-the-art and, violá! You now have a Boeing 797. And it won’t take 10 years to make it happen.
2 replies
June 2022
▶ system
With today’s Boeing and today’s FAA, it probably would take MORE THAN 10 years.
June 2022
What would kill the company would trying to kick off a full development cycle prematurely and having that bog down and further destroy capital and credibility. They are doing the right thing by not kicking that off until technologies that would make the product a big enough leap to justify scrapping or overhauling the 737 manufacturing infrastructure. This is the “innovator’s dilemma.” The problem appears to this outsider to be that the previous mgmt did not leverage the cheap capital environment of the preceding decade to build an engineering org well positioned to develop those technologies. So they are playing catch-up and it will take time and capital that is now more expensive. Calhoun is managing expectations in a way that is in the long term interest of the company rather than trying to promise something now to help short term share price.
June 2022
Aircraft advancements have followed power plant advancements. Boeing knows this. So what is Boeing to do?
I’d go all in for a geared turbofan. Sure, a lot of gears and stuff. Better than the rest.
June 2022
▶ system
Some customers just wanted re-engining of 757.
Boeing is aiming for much lower cost of fabrication.