The past 10 months have not been good for Boeing for all sorts of reasons—capped off in December by the failure of the company’s Starliner commercial crew vehicle to achieve the right orbit in its uncrewed debut. But the biggest of the company’s problems remains the 737 MAX, grounded since …
Read More »What Boeing’s 737 MAX Has to Do With Cars: Software
Software eating the world may sound good to tech mavens. But the now eight-year-old maxim has its serious downsides. Software defects have been blamed for Boeing 737-MAX 8 crashes in October and March, which killed 346 people. The aircraft has been grounded worldwide for three months, as investigators from Indonesia …
Read More »Boeing’s 737 Crash, Tesla’s Model Y, and More News This Week
Here at WIRED Transportation, we get to write about all sorts of stuff. Self-driving cars. Hyperloops. Bike lane design. Subway maps. The occasional man dressed up as a car seat for an apparently legitimate purpose. You get the idea. So it’s rare when a mere one or two topics dominate …
Read More »Boeing’s Grounded 737s Won’t Cause Massive Flight Delays
On Wednesday, America’s Federal Aviation Administration joined the rest of the world and grounded the Boeing 737 MAX 8, the airplane involved in a deadly crash in Ethiopia on Sunday, and another in Indonesia five months ago. New data and evidence led the agency to reverse course, the FAA said …
Read More »How the FAA Decides When to Ground a Jet Like Boeing’s 737 M…
When an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa on Sunday morning, killing all 157 people aboard, observers quickly noted that the circumstances resembled those of another flight. In October, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 181 passengers …
Read More »Boeing’s Flying Taxi Prototype Takes to the Air (Briefly)
Take the body of a small plane with stubby wings. Replace the wheels with heavy-duty helicopter skids, add four buzzing dronelike electric fans to each one, and you’ll have something like Boeing’s prototype flying taxi. It’s a slightly ungainly-looking setup for a flying machine, which are usually sleek and streamlined, …
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