[Themaintainers] 737 design maintenance

[PHILIP SCRANTON]

This is a stunning, yet wholly sensible, thread. When I was researching the
development of early US military jet engines, over a decade ago,
engineering studies and project histories showed that any substantial
technical change ramified through the whole device in unanticipated ways.
Such vectors took years, if not decades, to bring under control, one
element in which was project discipline in handling/accepting proffered
design change requests, in part because repeated changes created
maintenance and spare parts miseries. Cold War era jet engines did
stabilize after multiple redesigns, though few lasted anywhere near 50
years, except perhaps in the B52 propulsion systems. It makes sense that
airframes experienced comparable upgrades, with ambiguous implications.
   Best regards, Phil Scranton

On Sunday, March 17, 2019, Nathan Schneider <Nathan.Schneider at colorado.edu>
wrote:

> Really interesting discussion here on whether and why the 737 has been in
> continuous development for 50 years, including regulatory and market
> dynamics:
>
> A 50-year-old design came back to haunt Boeing with its troubled 737 Max
> jet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19414164
>
> This discussion also touches on other such cases, like the Soyuz and NYC
> subway and firearms and unix.
>
>
> ###
> Nathan Schneider
> Assistant Professor, Media Studies
> University of Colorado Boulder
>


-- 
Philip Scranton, Emeritus Board of Governors Professor, History of Industry
& Technology,
Rutgers University;
Author, Enterprise, Organization and Technology in China: A Socialist
Experiment, 1950-1971
Palgrave Macmillan (2019).  BOOK LINK:
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783030003975?wt_mc=ThirdParty.SpringerLink.3.EPR653.About_eBook#aboutBook
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