Can Boeing start repairing its shattered reputation with one rocket launch? His Starliner capsule is now on top of the Atlas 5 rocket at a Florida site, in preparation for a flight to the International Space Station on Thursday night, as part of a test program that is already two and a half years behind schedule. NASA wants to use the Starliner as a new vehicle to send its astronauts into space as an alternative to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. But Starliner has not yet been approved as safe enough to fly with a crew due to potentially life-threatening problems with its systems. SpaceX sends astronauts, wealthy tourists and even a few happy citizens into space with regular carefree – while Boeing’s ambitions for human spaceflight are facing a moment of rising or breaking, comes 6:54 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.
Serious technical failures extend widely and deeply into Boeing’s sprawling business, from aerospace to military programs. A successful Starliner test flight would certainly help, but it would do little to counter the picture of an incomparable innovator lagging behind its competitors.
In fact, Starliner’s problems inevitably lead analysts to propose a classic case of industrial Darwinism – that Boeing itself can never be compared to the game-changing brilliance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX programs, as its engineering culture is eroded by cost-cutting and its executives have become prone to risk.
The striking difference in performance between the two space programs so far seems to confirm this conclusion. But the company’s decay began long ago, elsewhere. To understand how far Boeing has fallen and why, it is instructive to go back to the time when its reputation was built, to flashes of intuitive genius in a company that literally changed the world.
What goes up must come down
In October 1948, four of Boeing’s top engineers were called to an apartment at the Van Cleve Hotel in Dayton, Ohio, for an emergency meeting with two of the company’s top executives, Ed Wells and George Shirer. Wales is the father of the legendary World War II B-17 bomber. And at the end of the war, Shirer found and copied Nazi research documents on high-speed jets and used them to design the B-47 bomber, the world’s first major Cold War jet and weapon to give US air superiority over Soviet Russia.
The Boeing men were in Dayton to meet with senior US Air Force officials who had decided they wanted a jet bomber twice the size of the B-47, and they wanted it fast. For one weekend, Wales and Scheirer intuitively unveiled the shape of a new plane, while others predicted its performance. Schairer – using balsa wood, glue and model paint from a hobby shop – made a model of it on a scale of 1/120.
Boeing received the contract, one of the most lucrative military programs it has ever landed. But in fact, it was another four years before the bomber flew. Boeing had to wait for Pratt & Whitney to develop new jet engines powerful enough to meet its requirements. Incredibly, 70 years later, this bomber, the B-52 (also known as the BUFF – big, ugly fat fucker) is still flying with the Air Force. It is currently being upgraded with new engines and systems to be able to launch cruise missiles and still be able to fly in the 2050s.
Such stories usually turn into company legends, and legends can swell. When I first heard it, more than thirty years ago, I suspected that it may have been a bit sexual over time, but I was able to check it out with Schairer and he confirmed it in detail.
Shirer himself was a legend, often irritable with less intelligence, able to look at the outlines of a new plane and immediately identify potential flaws. (In one case, he and Wales killed a new aircraft program in one meeting.) What was striking to me was how personalized Boeing’s intellectual capital was. Almost every step they took could be attributed to the brilliance of individuals or small teams: from the way the cabin door was ingeniously sealed when closed to how a serious air traffic control problem was solved, more or less -a little overnight, by improvising with existing parts.
Victor J. Caputo, US Air Force
There are well-known explanations for why Boeing lost this culture. One is that it was extinguished by bean counters collected in McDonnell Douglas executive apartments when the companies merged. Another is that aerospace technology has become so complex that it is no longer possible for an individual genius to act.
There is no doubt that there was some fierce ego when Boeing became a byword for perfection, nor is there any doubt that some of the most brilliant engineers were not interested in the end result. But the inevitable historical fact is that Boeing’s ability to successfully manage such a collection of brain power that marks it and makes it unique. And my hunch is that today Elon Musk would have no problem managing and providing such a culture if he was lucky enough to acquire it.
However, the most catastrophic blow to Boeing’s reputation, the grounding of the 737-MAX after two fatal crashes, can be traced back to this team of engineers, although this result is not theirs. In fact, at Boeing, we see a kind of corporate cannibalism in which a creatively bankrupt culture invades the underlying treasure culture and destroys its quality in the process.
The 737 became the largest dairy cow in Boeing’s history, with more than 10,000 born, but had a troubled birth. It was the idea of Jack Steiner, a gifted engineer with a personal speed that, as they say, could “go through walls.” When Steiner advocated for a new small aircraft in 1965, Boeing chief William Allen was unconvinced and intended to veto it at a board meeting. Steiner risks being fired by walking behind him and lobbying directors. Alan, out loud, was furious and never trusted Steiner again.
Boeing 737-MAX in the air in the UK
Wikimedia Commons
His doubts seemed confirmed by the results: early versions of the 737 were plagued by problems and airlines complained that Boeing had made a mistake. A turning point came in 1981, when new engines and other changes produced an airplane that airlines suddenly loved – Southwest Airlines built the original budget airline model around it.
All the shortcomings of the 737-MAX stem from the attempt to take this aircraft, whose boundaries are determined by its origins in the 60s of last century, and to push for another modernization. And now, even though the 737-MAX has been released, these restrictions still raise serious safety concerns.
Both fatal crashes involving Indonesian Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines planes have revealed that pilots were confused by a cascade of audio and visual cockpit warnings for system failures. The pilots did not cause the crashes, they were desperately trying to answer the cause – incorrect software that allowed the plane to cancel the pilots and cause an almost vertical deadly dive. But the cockpit’s warning system on the 737 does not match the state-of-the-art systems of all other aircraft, including Boeing.
When the 737-MAX was allowed to fly again, the FAA agreed with Boeing that the existing cockpit warning system was safe enough. Airline pilots were familiar with it, and it was common in several generations of aircraft. But after investigating the crashes, lawmakers passed a bill in 2020 that would make any new aircraft certified safe by the FAA after December 27, 2022, requiring a new digital cockpit warning system.
There were two new 737-MAX models that had to be certified before this deadline: the smallest in the series, the 737-7; and the largest, 737-10. Both were important additions – Southwest needed hundreds of small planes to meet the demand for shorter routes, and the larger plane was Boeing’s only chance to compete with the Airbus A321XLR, a plane the airlines bought for transatlantic routes. .
“At Boeing, we see a kind of corporate cannibalism in which a creatively bankrupt culture invades the underlying treasure culture and destroys its quality in the process.”
It now seems that meeting this deadline for both aircraft is problematic. The FAA is much stricter in the certification regime, and the operation of the cockpit warning system is being reviewed. Speaking to analysts about profits in April, reporting a loss of $ 1.24 billion for the first quarter, Boeing CEO David Calhoun, in an underestimating master class, said that if he does not meet the deadline (or if it is not extended) , “this is a problem.”
The problem is that there is obviously no way the 737’s cockpits can be upgraded with a completely new digital warning system. This was explained to me by an expert with many years of experience in Boeing jets and the evolution of their cockpit technology: “To achieve this kind of generational change, the aircraft must have a digital backbone and digital systems and sensors. This is not possible in the current design of the 737. ”
All subsequent Boeing aircraft were designed to have this “digital backbone” that could accommodate continuous upgrades, but the 737, with its 1960s architecture, was like a house in need of re-wiring and the cost of gutting the house. it was too high, as I said: “This would require major changes to the system, a complete overhaul of the upper instrument panels in the cockpit, many different interfaces for engines and systems.”
Boeing is looking for an adjustment to the warning system that can be made within the existing architecture, but the expert doubts. “It would be like someone with a 53-year-old Chevy sticking an iPhone on the dashboard and waiting for Siri to activate anti-slip brakes, all-wheel drive and confirm that all airbags have been deactivated.” He believes Boeing should have to make more radical upgrades to the 737 in the 90s or at the latest when committed to …
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