Posts by anothercynic

Re: And anyone is surprised?

And if that's not available, you look on iFixit for a manual. Replaced the swollen battery of a 2013 MacBook Pro (the one that had the glued-down batteries) without a problem. Bought the battery off iFixit, followed the great little guide in the package, and hey presto!

That's one thing iFixit is *really* good at...

Re: Fuel Prices in 10 to 20 years?

That's why the engines are being teased to within an inch of their life (well, thousands of an inch, really) to wring the most power out of the least amount of fuel. That's also why newer planes (like the Boeing 777-X series now in testing) get bigger, more aerodynamic wings and both Boeing and Airbus constantly test new things like boundary layer flow, sustainable aviation fuels, electric aviation and the like. The more aerodynamic the planes can be and the more power you can get out of little amounts of fuel, the more efficient a plane is and the less it costs to operate.

I suggest that when you're ever in Hamburg in Germany or in Toulouse in France, that you book yourself (weeks ahead in advance) on a works tour. It will blow. your. mind.

Even as someone who is not particularly impressed by much these days (having been spoilt with factory tours by proxy at Boeing and others), Airbus's tour (in person) was impressive. Their FAL and then the completion building (standing at cockpit level with an A380 and seeing an A320 almost under the wing of the A380 just to indicate size) were impressive. Of course, no photos exist because Airbus has a strictly 'no photographs please' policy (and even despite that someone in our group tried and promptly caused a security incident).

I believe Boeing does similar tours in limited numbers. Don't ever turn one down. Ever.

Sorry, what is the Boeing 777 Max? There is no such aircraft.

If you refer to the Boeing 737 Max, that's a wholly different kettle of fish to the Boeing 777. The one design is nearly 50 years old, the other 20 and arguably the safest plane ever built by Boeing (and also one of the safest so far on the planet).

So... which plane are you referring to, please?

Re: handling layoffs

No, it wasn't 'landsharks smelling money'. It was the lack of proper information disseminated, the fact that staff saw themselves locked out of accounts and comms channels (I have no problem with that), their company-issued devices wiped remotely (that's a bit disturbing when it happens without warning), etc. The staff in question assumed the worst, i.e. that they were out on their asses immediately.

Now, there's communicating, and there's *communicating*. It seems Muskrat & Co went for the former option, telling people very little. It could've been done better, but then again, it appears that they simply went for the "everyone'll get treated the same" concept, regardless of what the legislation says, in terms of work access, etc.

Since then of course those who "remain" will have been told, those who "separated" will have been given more detailed instructions based on the jurisdictions that apply to them. Apparently UK staff were told on Friday evening that they had until Tuesday to nominate someone in their group (kinda hard to know who all the people were who were laid off in the UK when you have no access to staff comms channels anymore) to represent them in the 'consultation process' as mandated by the UK employment legislation. California and New York staff will also have been told that everything statutory will be complied with but not an inch more than that (so if you're officially on 'garden leave' to say you still work there legally but aren't allowed access to anything, including your email, that's compliant with WARN Act legislation)... Other staff in the 'right to work' states all got booted.

The lawsuits are there to make sure Twitter and Muskrat don't make mistakes in this because those staff are *pissed*. They're upset and maybe rightly so... they want to make sure he and his goons don't get away with *anything* they're not allowed to get away with. It's fair enough.

Re: Meanwhile in another part of the forest

This was some of the feedback the Qantas pilots gave Airbus after the A380-grenading-an-engine-in-Singapore case... They said that way too many messages were being displayed by the FMC and most messages being less than applicable to the actual situation at hand.

Airbus took that seriously and has apparently done something about it. But since I'm not a pilot, and there hasn't been a repeat of the incident since, I have no idea whether things have improved. But at least the scenario did make it into the flight sims too.

Funny you should mention the Greenies in Germany. They *do* squawk in protest, but they have also pointed out that nuclear power does not resolve the problem people have right now - heat, which many coal/gas-fired stations provide through district heating systems. The German nuclear power stations are not connected to district heating at all.

The Greens are pragmatic right now, pointing out that the nuclear industry in Europe now represents a different risk profile than before. Previously it was more about what happens when a nuclear power station goes pop (i.e. Chernobyl/Fukushima). While this risk, especially with the Russian war against Ukraine, still exists, they now also point out that Europe mostly gets its uranium from... Russia (via Rosatom) and Kazakhstan (under Russian influence), which they believe to be a problem similar to the current gas supply. They also point to France as an example of where the nuclear policy presents a problem (mostly in summer) in so far as that higher summer temperatures (and associated drought) lead to low river water levels and stations have to then reduce production (although, as pointed out elsewhere, we know also that EDF schedules maintenance during summer to service their aging nuclear estate).

The problems they raise are relevant, but I agree that burning lignite is not the correct answer either (they know it, we know it, everyone knows it). Short of a magic bullet that makes heat easy to produce out of nothing, we're stuck with what we have - burning stuff, whether gas, coal, or uranium. Wind and PV won't fix that problem.

Re: "not trained on the kit"

One reason why instructions have to be explicit and precise. Something documentation writers can get right, and most engineers simply fail at because they have the view that "surely they know this".

Always write instructions in a way that a complete dumbass who can read can read them and follow the instructions to make something happen.

Back in the days where lettered qualifications behind names actually had some weight...

Re: That's what you get when you play the "We're the *safe* pair of hands" card

Not Manchester University, is it? ;-)

Re: Boeing takes it in the shorts

They cut corners to make it work for their customers. They knew MCAS was needed. They should've gone back to Southwest, American and the others and said "sorry folks, but without MCAS it doesn't fly the way the old ones did, so you *will* have to do some more training to make your pilots aware of the system and how to fix things if they go wrong".

They didn't. They continued to lie. They even deceived their customers about it all because they tried to hide MCAS and not mention it at all to anyone.

Re: Normal misleading

Oh no, no no... They misled people. They are fully aware of what they were doing. They tried to cut corners to catch up to Airbus. They compromised safety. They knew it. They hid it. It backfired and bit them in the ass.

And now they're paying piddly amounts to make it go away.

Re: "Reimbursing investors"

Tupolevs and Ilyushins are not being flown (or manufactured) by any company under the SEC's purview.

And the SEC is not the agency responsible for prosecuting the company for that either. If anything, that's the US government's job. They've failed so far to do it.

Re: Let me get this straight

IR35 is *not* being revoked. The rule changes applicable in April 2022, and the ones before that in 2017, are.

So... IR35 is effectively being rolled back 2 revisions to the changes before the 2017 ones.

Re: Or

Yes, I switched to Consent-o-Matic after this IDCAC-being-sold-to-Avast news became known (not via El Reg).

I think CoM looks a lot more appropriate :-)

Re: Russian market?

Every single jet flown on European, US, or Far East registers will have been checked to yazoo.

That's why some airlines are banned from European and US airspace, because they either have lax maintenance records (or none at all), or their organisation is not being very forthcoming (or compliant) with ICAO and IATA standards.

Re: Russian market?

Lessors like BOC Aviation have already written off or written down most of their lease inventory that was based in or around Russia. They won't even want the planes back, they're a loss.

Re: That's how Airbus started

No. Boeing got started building mail planes in the early 20th century, and then bombers for the US Air Force for the second World War. *THAT* was their bread and butter, not passenger traffic. They then took some of their bombers, and just like the Brits converted them to passenger use. Their first clean sheet design for a passenger jet came from something they designed for the USAF (model 367).

They built other jets, but they were for military use (the B-47 Stratojet being one of the first).

Airbus on the other hand started with a wide-body twin-aisle because that's what airlines said they were looking for... things that were better than the 707 (narrowbody, single-aisle, four engines), DC-8 (same), or their later contemporaries (like the DC-10 and the L-1011). It was a growing market, so it made sense for Airbus to start there.

COMAC knows that the short-haul single-aisle regional market is where most of the pressure is right now (see waiting lists for Airbus A32x and Boeing 737 aircraft - they're *huge*), so stepping in with a domestic model for the domestic airlines makes sense. The Sukhoi Superjet was for a similar market, and it'll get refined with American parts designed out because of anti-Russian sanctions. And the MC-21 is also heading for commercial service, sooo...

Re: GDPR teeth

Ireland just has - They've fined Instagram (part of the FB collective known as Meta) 400 million smackers (can't remember now if it was EU or US currency) for mishandling the data of minors.