You Know What?

Fuck this. If it is Boeing (any of it), I am not going. Period. 

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a directive earlier this year warning that a defect in Boeing’s 777 airplanes could cause “fire or explosion” if unaddressed. It is unclear whether the plane’s operators have addressed the issue. The directive was issued in March, while the FAA solicited comments until earlier this month. Amid a series of safety incidents involving Boeing aircraft, the Daily Mail reported on the publicly-viewable document on Wednesday. According to the FAA, a metal plate attached to a fuel tank vent on the wings of the 777 was installed without an electrical bond, meaning it could potentially accumulate static electricity and cause a “fire or explosion” in the jet’s fuel tanks. Some 292 777s registered in the US could be at risk, the directive warned. All variants of the 777, from the base model 777-200 to the long-range 777-300ER, are affected.

Only Airbus from now on.

You Know What?

Fuck it. I am not flying Boeing products other than 747 and 757 anymore. I had it. As much as I view Europe with contempt, at least Airbus makes good planes. For now. 

A Boeing quality engineer went public Tuesday with damaging allegations that the jet-maker took manufacturing shortcuts to increase production rates that leave potentially serious structural flaws on its 787 and 777 widebody planes. The Boeing engineer, Sam Salehpour, alleged that almost 1,000 787s and about 400 777s currently flying are at risk of premature fatigue damage and structural failure. On Jan. 19, lawyers for Salehpour wrote a letter detailing his allegations to Mike Whitaker, head of the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency said Tuesday it is investigating the claims. “We thoroughly investigate all safety reports,” FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor said. Salehpour will speak next week at a Senate hearing convened by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., “to examine Boeing’s broken safety culture, focusing on firsthand accounts.” Boeing said it is in discussions and will cooperate with Blumenthal’s committee and has “offered to provide documents, testimony, and technical briefings.”

This is from Seattle Times. The US literally begins to cease as a functional society, Europe is already there. Will they suicide this guy too? This is what financial economy--meaning "capitalization" fraud and BS taught in economics programs--does to society. Luddites fought "technology", will we live to see stock brokers and "financial advisers" be subjected to the same fate? Remember this, though?

A metallurgist in the US state of Washington has pleaded guilty to fraud after she spent decades faking the results of strength tests on steel that was being used to make Navy submarines.

The country literally sinks, or comes apart at the seams--whatever one prefers. In related news--the guy certainly is not a dummy and knows where the future is:

A German billionaire who vanished under mysterious circumstances under Switzerland's iconic Matterhorn peak six years ago is suspected to be living with a Russian mistress in Moscow, an investigation has claimed. German-American retail tycoon Karl-Erivan Haub, then 58, was training for a ski mountaineering race when he disappeared in April 2018 in Zermatt, Switzerland.The billionaire businessman was last seen heading up the mountain in a lift one morning alone - something his trainer said was strange for a man who was typically very safety conscious and well-prepared - and never returned to his hotel. 

For those who are interested--search the term "Limita" (Лимита), Russians are having a field day with this one, LOL))). And why not?  Plus, Moscow smells with good food, nice perfumes and flowers. It is safe and clean. Beats any European or US city. Yeah, sure, we all know that every attractive Russian woman is a spy but read the article--it is fun. A good fodder for brainwashed UK public loving their tabloids. I will abstain from repeating a good ol' joke why Brits were good sailors... something about their food and wives;))

For White Board MBAs.

Get this: 

(Reuters) - Boeing Co has abandoned a key automation system used to make fuselage sections for its 777 jetliners amid reports of reliability issues, and will instead partially switch back to mechanics, the planemaker said on Thursday. The company began to build 777 fuselages in 2015 in an upright orientation, with robots drilling holes and installing fasteners, an initiative known as fuselage automated upright build (FAUB). The world's biggest planemaker said it had stopped using the system which, according to industry sources, caused problems with reliability and rework issues. Boeing had faced delays last year when the FAUB machine was tried out on existing versions of the 777. Instead, the company will switch to "flex tracks" - an automated method to drill the holes along the circumference of the airplane that are then fastened manually.

Believe me, there is more to it than meets the eye. By far, I underscore it, by far not all things could be done by manipulators (aka industrial robots) and especially so in the aerospace industry where only humans can provide for a foreseeable future required input and actual quality control. Training, qualifications, education become a decisive factor. I will not disclose any secret that many companies in aerospace prefer human layup of aircraft composite parts to any "machine laying", granted that machines can do only few and less complex parts anyway. And then comes the issue of Quality Control. Yes, there are machines involved in it, many machines, some of them very sophisticated, but in the end it comes down to human supervision and decision making process that define if the aircraft flies or it fails. It is good news that Boeing made this decision--in the end, it is Quality Inspector who answers for the aircraft, not some machine which can do only so much. 

This brings a larger issue to the fore--naked numbers on "robotization" which all kinds of white board trained MBAs love to operate with, in no way defines the "strength" or otherwise of economy. Robots are useful and they will continue to be deployed but they are merely tools and sometimes can be harmful due to bad engineering and design. Boeing provided today an excellent example of that. It is one thing to drill a substandard hole in a car on the conveyor, totally another--to do so on a commercial or military aircraft. Lives of people who fly it, including those on the ground, depend on that and no amount of bookkeeping and abstract economic data can ever substitute ethical and professional attitude of people making planes. This is a real hi-tech I am talking about, not assembly of iPhones or CGI. Only designers, engineers and, in the end, production floor manufacturing specialists can have a decisive input on the production issues.