U.S. Politics

[Panto_Villan]

19 hours ago, delboy54 said:

I would like to change tack, I hope this is in the correct thread. This is my take on a potential future.

I work for an American faceless corporation and all they are interested in is "the bottom line", returns for shareholders I guess. They view their competitors as the enemy and will do anything to discredit and destroy them, they view it as a war without bullets and killing people.

Now expand this model to the wider picture. The EU is a competitor to the US, what better way to remove that "competitor" by allowing it to be destroyed by a non competitor I.e. by Russia both financially and materially. This will be done by the US disengaging from NATO and then stopping the supplying of Ukraine with weapons. First Ukraine will fall then the Baltic countries will get over run, Hungary will join Russia, then Poland will be absorbed again and then the dominos will fall. In my opinion Russia will not use nukes and the EU, well what is left of it, will not want to be seen as carrying out a first nuke strike. The European countries will be subsumed by Russia. It will be a blood bath and much hand wringing by the US, but they will be quietly happy as a competitor will have been removed.

After all, the US made a lot of money by sitting on the fence in the first and second world war before being forced into taking sides.

This is just my current pessimistic take on things, especially if Trump gets in again. The US will just sit back in splendid isolation and watch while Europe gets torn apart again.

I hope others on here can put a more optimistic spin on the next 25 years. Maybe the Villa might have beaten man yoo again by then or even the FA cup......

I think there’s two reasons why this won’t happen. The first is that Russia has absolutely no chance of steamrolling anything beyond Ukraine, and probably not even all of that (there’s talk European countries would intervene to protect Western Ukraine if the East started collapsing). If they somehow tried attacking Poland then Europe would actually move to a war economy and Russia would get utterly taken apart.

The second is that the US is actually fairly generous when it comes to bankrolling and protecting allies. It’s all in their interests, of course, because their corporations benefit from a stable globalised world more than anyone else, but most American policymakers realise that they’d rather have Europe in their sphere of influence as allies rather than have us potentially working against them (or working with China to cut the US down to size etc).

[Genie]

13 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

I think I trust Blandy on this one. 

100%, nobody corner cuts on double checking door bolts on planes are tight. They are possibly the wrong spec, material, coating, length, torque. Maybe they worked loose through vibration. Maybe they corroded unexpectedly. Maybe the panels are swelled more than they thought. Maybe the locktight wasn’t enough. It’s a miss in the development for sure, no way they just wanted to save a few cents on a product that costs hundreds of millions and takes months to put together.

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

100%, nobody corner cuts on double checking door bolts on planes are tight.

It’s not 100%. Typically the sequence is like this: The build instructions tell the fitter to go get a sealed bag of parts for the job from a precise location (shelf 10, pigeon hole 15). In the bag are (say) 4 M12 nuts and 4 M12 bolts. The build instructions tell the fitter to fit the 4 nuts and bolts into the 4 holes in the door panel and to use loctite type x or to torque them to x Nm, or whatever. Then when they’re done to record that they did it in a build log.

The job of the (in this case) mechanical supervisor is to check the work of the fitter. Unless the fitter is a novice, it’s unlikely the supervisor will do more than visually check the bolts and nuts are fitted. They might watch the fitter do the job from next to them, or from slightly further away. Given the fitter might install hundreds of fasteners in a day there’s a degree of reliance on dip checking and just visually checking, rather than, for example physically checking the correct torque has been applied, or that loctite was used, or that the captive nuts are fully captive, or etc. as applicable. There won’t be 1:1 supervisor to fitter ratio. The supervisor will have several fitters to oversee.

Then there’s QC, who start with the build log for the section of the aircraft (eg left centre fuse). They check all the paperwork has been completed, no jobs left incomplete, all are signed for by fitter and supervisor, maybe they might pick a sample panel, or actuator or whatever and go and inspect that. It’s doubtful that “tightness” is or can be checked. In real life, most aircraft fasteners are not bolts that need separate nuts, they are either bolts that go into threaded holes and use thread lock, or are (generic term) rivets. Because this was basically a door that was, we’re told, bolted shut on build, as it wasn’t wanted by the customer airline, I suppose bolts might have been the means of doing that, but the only way to totally verify its correctly tightened and thread locked is to try and turn it…which could break the thread lock.

So summary, someone didn’t fit all the fasteners correctly, someone else didn’t check or didn’t spot that. Both signed to say they had done the job/they didn’t sign that they done it, but somehow QC didn’t spot an unsigned log entry in the build log and then the FAA processes which allow self regulation and certification also …

TL:DR if the culture is wrong it can happen. The process is only as good as the people following it.

The above is a bit of a simplified version.

 

[Genie]

48 minutes ago, blandy said:

It’s not 100%. Typically the sequence is like this: The build instructions tell the fitter to go get a sealed bag of parts for the job from a precise location (shelf 10, pigeon hole 15). In the bag are (say) 4 M12 nuts and 4 M12 bolts. The build instructions tell the fitter to fit the 4 nuts and bolts into the 4 holes in the door panel and to use loctite type x or to torque them to x Nm, or whatever. Then when they’re done to record that they did it in a build log.

The job of the (in this case) mechanical supervisor is to check the work of the fitter. Unless the fitter is a novice, it’s unlikely the supervisor will do more than visually check the bolts and nuts are fitted. They might watch the fitter do the job from next to them, or from slightly further away. Given the fitter might install hundreds of fasteners in a day there’s a degree of reliance on dip checking and just visually checking, rather than, for example physically checking the correct torque has been applied, or that loctite was used, or that the captive nuts are fully captive, or etc. as applicable. There won’t be 1:1 supervisor to fitter ratio. The supervisor will have several fitters to oversee.

Then there’s QC, who start with the build log for the section of the aircraft (eg left centre fuse). They check all the paperwork has been completed, no jobs left incomplete, all are signed for by fitter and supervisor, maybe they might pick a sample panel, or actuator or whatever and go and inspect that. It’s doubtful that “tightness” is or can be checked. In real life, most aircraft fasteners are not bolts that need separate nuts, they are either bolts that go into threaded holes and use thread lock, or are (generic term) rivets. Because this was basically a door that was, we’re told, bolted shut on build, as it wasn’t wanted by the customer airline, I suppose bolts might have been the means of doing that, but the only way to totally verify its correctly tightened and thread locked is to try and turn it…which could break the thread lock.

So summary, someone didn’t fit all the fasteners correctly, someone else didn’t check or didn’t spot that. Both signed to say they had done the job/they didn’t sign that they done it, but somehow QC didn’t spot an unsigned log entry in the build log and then the FAA processes which allow self regulation and certification also …

TL:DR if the culture is wrong it can happen. The process is only as good as the people following it.

The above is a bit of a simplified version.

 

This all assumes it was a process issue. I am suggesting the plane could have been built perfectly to process but the engineering was wrong. Eg, the fixing was the wrong material, or the incorrect torque was released for that type of joint.

In automotive world that joint would be classed as a critical joint. This means that the tooling used to do it up is linked up to computers which log the fixing torque, rpm, travel and saves it for years just in case there are instances where things go wrong. It will only turn red and let the car progress once the joint has been done up correctly. There will be another station about 30 minutes later where they’ll torque the joint a second time (and record any movement). I expect Boeing will have this sort of process also. I don’t it will be down to someone visually checking or occasionally putting a torque wrench on it. 

[blandy]

54 minutes ago, Genie said:

This all assumes it was a process issue. I am suggesting the plane could have been built perfectly to process but the engineering was wrong. Eg, the fixing was the wrong material, or the incorrect torque was released for that type of joint.

We're too far off topic to take this further, I think. But I would suggest it is unlikely (though not impossible) to be as you postulate. I'd be happy to say why, but it's not for here.

What is relevant to the US politics thread is the relationship between Boeing and the FAA, which over time US political decision making has been brought far too close, such that Boeing does too much self policing, rather than be regulated and overseen by a truly independent FAA. It's part of what I was getting at earlier when talking about the US Gov't sees it as a national soft tool to prioritise large US companies such as Boeing against real and potential international rivals - to use Boeing as an arm of the US state, almost, to gain influence and other benefits from Boeing having a dominant world position, and have other nations dependent upon a US large company. It's also obviously very protectionist. As a consequence of this America first type of approach, which long predates Trump's sloganeering, the US has allowed safety to be compromised and actually damaged their reputation and Boeing's. Because there are basically only (currently) 2 really large passenger aircraft manufacturers in Boeing and Airbus, and both have huge orderbooks, the commercial impact won't be as big as it perhaps deserves to be. But if China or Japan or wherever sets up a rival, then they will be in big trouble in the long term.

[LondonLax]

Boeing’s issues go much further than a door falling off. This whole article is a pretty incredible summary of their problems over the last decade. 
 

Quote

Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound to his head on the same day he was due to testify against the aircraft manufacturer.

The mysterious incident happened as the company’s stock has nosedived, fuelled by a series of incidents including a door plug which flew off a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines at 16,000 feet on Jan. 5 and a wheel falling off a 777 jet a few weeks later.

https://www.skynews.com.au/business/boeings-shocking-personnel-scandals-drug-dealing-love-triangle-and-murdersuicide/news-story/93d41c9090cb5919ce7c5f8309d6bb8d?amp&nk=5f12f38ab1f8355b495f64ccb2afbb2d-1710934838

[MakemineVanilla]

23 hours ago, delboy54 said:

I would like to change tack, I hope this is in the correct thread. This is my take on a potential future.

I work for an American faceless corporation and all they are interested in is "the bottom line", returns for shareholders I guess. They view their competitors as the enemy and will do anything to discredit and destroy them, they view it as a war without bullets and killing people.

Now expand this model to the wider picture. The EU is a competitor to the US, what better way to remove that "competitor" by allowing it to be destroyed by a non competitor I.e. by Russia both financially and materially. This will be done by the US disengaging from NATO and then stopping the supplying of Ukraine with weapons. First Ukraine will fall then the Baltic countries will get over run, Hungary will join Russia, then Poland will be absorbed again and then the dominos will fall. In my opinion Russia will not use nukes and the EU, well what is left of it, will not want to be seen as carrying out a first nuke strike. The European countries will be subsumed by Russia. It will be a blood bath and much hand wringing by the US, but they will be quietly happy as a competitor will have been removed.

After all, the US made a lot of money by sitting on the fence in the first and second world war before being forced into taking sides.

This is just my current pessimistic take on things, especially if Trump gets in again. The US will just sit back in splendid isolation and watch while Europe gets torn apart again.

I hope others on here can put a more optimistic spin on the next 25 years. Maybe the Villa might have beaten man yoo again by then or even the FA cup......

I'm presently reading a biography of Kissinger and he predicted that after the mutual nuclear threat had produced a stalemate (MAD), that offshore balancing powers (USA) would engage in proxy wars, such as Korea, the Middle East, or Ukraine.

He also suggested that European countries should increase their defense spending, not to prepare for war, but to send the right signals.

So based on that, your theory seems entirely feasible and we are left to guess at what the unspoken aims of the United States are.

[DJBOB]

20 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

I'm presently reading a biography of Kissinger and he predicted that after the mutual nuclear threat had produced a stalemate (MAD), that offshore balancing powers (USA) would engage in proxy wars, such as Korea, the Middle East, or Ukraine.

He also suggested that European countries should increase their defense spending, not to prepare for war, but to send the right signals.

So based on that, your theory seems entirely feasible and we are left to guess at what the unspoken aims of the United States are.

I mean to be clear, the spoken aims of the powers that be of the US are to maintain the EU alliance.

But the Trumps of the world have other ideas. Only about 10-15% of Americans travel outside the country per year - and a majority of that is to Mexico, Canada, or the Caribbean. Makes sense - close proximity. About 25% of Americans have been to more than 5 countries in their lifetime. Only 50% of Americans have been to 1-4 countries. And 25% of Americans have never left the country.

That's a lot of isolation that can breed some of the "not my problem" Americanisms.

[nick76]

Polls are starting to see Biden leading significantly…..ermm I mean Trump is leading significantly…..ermmmm…..we have no idea but we’ve narrowed it down to 2 candidates out of the..ermm 2 candidates

 

[VILLAMARV]

Where has this phrase 'high quality pollsters' come from? second time I've seen it in this thread. It's sales speak, not an ethical qualifier. Oxymorons.

[DJBOB]

The outliers push the average, but this would be the case in years favoring the Democrats. Again - the overall picture remains bleak but squint and you'll see it moving to the logical conclusion that it will be a very, very tight race.

[il_serpente]

6 hours ago, blandy said:

It’s not 100%. Typically the sequence is like this: The build instructions tell the fitter to go get a sealed bag of parts for the job from a precise location (shelf 10, pigeon hole 15). In the bag are (say) 4 M12 nuts and 4 M12 bolts. The build instructions tell the fitter to fit the 4 nuts and bolts into the 4 holes in the door panel and to use loctite type x or to torque them to x Nm, or whatever. Then when they’re done to record that they did it in a build log.

The job of the (in this case) mechanical supervisor is to check the work of the fitter. Unless the fitter is a novice, it’s unlikely the supervisor will do more than visually check the bolts and nuts are fitted. They might watch the fitter do the job from next to them, or from slightly further away. Given the fitter might install hundreds of fasteners in a day there’s a degree of reliance on dip checking and just visually checking, rather than, for example physically checking the correct torque has been applied, or that loctite was used, or that the captive nuts are fully captive, or etc. as applicable. There won’t be 1:1 supervisor to fitter ratio. The supervisor will have several fitters to oversee.

Then there’s QC, who start with the build log for the section of the aircraft (eg left centre fuse). They check all the paperwork has been completed, no jobs left incomplete, all are signed for by fitter and supervisor, maybe they might pick a sample panel, or actuator or whatever and go and inspect that. It’s doubtful that “tightness” is or can be checked. In real life, most aircraft fasteners are not bolts that need separate nuts, they are either bolts that go into threaded holes and use thread lock, or are (generic term) rivets. Because this was basically a door that was, we’re told, bolted shut on build, as it wasn’t wanted by the customer airline, I suppose bolts might have been the means of doing that, but the only way to totally verify its correctly tightened and thread locked is to try and turn it…which could break the thread lock.

So summary, someone didn’t fit all the fasteners correctly, someone else didn’t check or didn’t spot that. Both signed to say they had done the job/they didn’t sign that they done it, but somehow QC didn’t spot an unsigned log entry in the build log and then the FAA processes which allow self regulation and certification also …

TL:DR if the culture is wrong it can happen. The process is only as good as the people following it.

The above is a bit of a simplified version.

 

Cutting corners was probably a poor choice of phrase, as it implies intent.   There was a huge push from the top to dramatically increase production rates, and people under pressure to work a lot faster will inadvertently miss things.

The crashes were an engineering and documentation/training issue, but that’s not what people on here were citing when debating quotas for engineers.

One problem stems from business decisions and the other from the cozy relationship with the FAA.   Boeing has more than a little tweaking to do, I think.

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

 

[blandy]

59 minutes ago, il_serpente said:

There was a huge push from the top to dramatically increase production rates, and people under pressure to work a lot faster will inadvertently miss things.

It was a repair wasn’t it?  But whichever, it’s rule number one that safety is paramount. A fitter didn’t fit the bolts, an inspector didn’t check and nothing was picked up by QC. That’s an appalling process failure and human failure. I didn’t fit the bolts because I was in a rush + I didn’t check the bolts were fitted because of time pressure. It’s not excusable. Management might be awful, but there’s just no excuse.

[DJBOB]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

It was a repair wasn’t it?  But whichever, it’s rule number one that safety is paramount. A fitter didn’t fit the bolts, an inspector didn’t check and nothing was picked up by QC. That’s an appalling process failure and human failure. I didn’t fit the bolts because I was in a rush + I didn’t check the bolts were fitted because of time pressure. It’s not excusable. Management might be awful, but there’s just no excuse.

Ultimately, we won't know for a while until the investigation is complete - but doesn't that have all the hallmarks of a cascade of managerial or executive decisions? Push to increase production. Push to cut back labor. Push to reduce training or re-training so more employees can work the line. Push to not use union members.

It's the swiss cheese model of management. One thing might not be awful, but a combination of decisions precipitated the atmosphere where checks are failed in three different areas - line up all the holes and you have a recipe for disaster (insert Kenneth meme).

A failure in one area is a personnel problem. A failure in three areas is a process and management problem.

[Xann]

Quote

Boeing’s manufacturing issues don’t begin and end with the door plug

Vox

[nick76]

2 hours ago, DJBOB said:

The outliers push the average, but this would be the case in years favoring the Democrats. Again - the overall picture remains bleak but squint and you'll see it moving to the logical conclusion that it will be a very, very tight race.

That just says that they have no idea and like you say it’s a very tight race either way.  Just fascinates me they reckon any individual national poll of less than 1000 people can give an accurate guide to what 150 million will vote..

 

(I know the RCP then averages, we have leaning polls, outliers and MOE)

edit: just realised further that on the Selzer poll it’s just ~50 people said yes more to Trump than Biden and ~85 people didn’t answer.

Edited March 20 by nick76

[DJBOB]

29 minutes ago, nick76 said:

That just says that they have no idea and like you say it’s a very tight race either way.  Just fascinates me they reckon any individual national poll of less than 1000 people can give an accurate guide to what 150 million will vote..

 

(I know the RCP then averages, we have leaning polls, outliers and MOE)

edit: just realised further that on the Selzer poll it’s just ~50 people said yes more to Trump than Biden and ~85 people didn’t answer.

It's an imperfect process with a large MOE but would be foolish to discount the general picture. 

[Genie]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

It was a repair wasn’t it?  But whichever, it’s rule number one that safety is paramount. A fitter didn’t fit the bolts, an inspector didn’t check and nothing was picked up by QC. That’s an appalling process failure and human failure. I didn’t fit the bolts because I was in a rush + I didn’t check the bolts were fitted because of time pressure. It’s not excusable. Management might be awful, but there’s just no excuse.

It’s a massive failure of the engineering / manufacturing, the system should not let it progress if not done. As I mentioned previously, in automotive the process would be controlled by systems.

Basic FMEA. The effect of the failure would be a 10, so a very good control is needed to get the likelihood of it happening to a 1. If they genuinely are relying on a human doing a visual check for such critical joints I might start driving to Spain.

[il_serpente]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

It was a repair wasn’t it?  But whichever, it’s rule number one that safety is paramount. A fitter didn’t fit the bolts, an inspector didn’t check and nothing was picked up by QC. That’s an appalling process failure and human failure. I didn’t fit the bolts because I was in a rush + I didn’t check the bolts were fitted because of time pressure. It’s not excusable. Management might be awful, but there’s just no excuse.

Not a repair, but assembly.   the Alaska planes didn't need the additional exit door so fitting the plug is the standard assembly process for those planes.   I agree it's a process failure, but I think the article @Xann linked argues pretty well that the process failure arose in a culture that emphasizes cranking out planes quickly for higher profit.  I'm pretty sure I read after that article ran that inspections of some of the grounded planes had found bolts missing entirely.  Like you said, the process shouldn't allow that kind of human error (if that's what it was) go unnoticed and uncorrected.