Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 179: The Boeing 777X

Starting point is 00:00:00 We're going, we're going, it's um, you know, the workflow is happening. It's a podcast. We're casting the pod, folks. Like a big, like a fisherman casting a net. Fishers of men. Yeah, casters of pod. Casters of pod, fishers of men. Oh, you casters of pod.

Starting point is 00:00:21 Um, hello, and welcome to Well There's Your Problem. It's a podcast about engineering disasters. With slides. I'm Justin Rosniak, I'm the person who's talking right now. My pronouns are he and him. Okay, go. I'm November Kelly, I'm the person who's talking now. My pronouns are she and her.

Starting point is 00:00:38 Yay Liam. Yay Liam, hi, I'm Liam McAnerson, my pronouns are he and him. And we have a guest! Uh, hello. Uh, my name is Maya Ventura, my pronouns are he and him, and we have a guest! Hello. My name is Maya Ventura, my pronouns are it and she. Cis people be a little easy about the it, but that's just how it goes. You probably know me from nothing, because I am somebody who has parlayed a parasocial relationship into appearing on a podcast, and it's quite cool. ALICE Very successfully, because it was a strong

Starting point is 00:01:06 pitch of... SEAN I've written the slides already. ALICE Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had to do less work, which is to say almost none, and we had a very clickbaity title, which is, we could put like a really YouTube-bait thumbnail up here with all of us making the Mr. Beast face, and going, you going, why this plane means that America can't build planes anymore. JUSTIN Also, the second Maya to have been on this podcast to use it pronouns.

Starting point is 00:01:36 How are you keeping track of this? ALICE I also do this, actually. JUSTIN Yeah, well, only, I'm pretty sure only Mayas have used it pronouns on this actually. Yeah. No. Well, only I'm pretty sure only Maya's have used it. Pronouns on this podcast. We're studying this here. There's a correlation. You know, I got a big spreadsheet of all the pronouns. Master pronoun shoot. You can write that to the podcast ideas. Masterless.

Starting point is 00:02:00 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm tracking the trends. We're going to see what gender's doing in this country. We'll be tracking it very closely. I accidentally came from the wrong spreadsheet and we do a four hour episode on the pronouns they and them. Oh god. Oh no. I assume we'd be in favour, like.

Starting point is 00:02:19 Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, but we're gonna- But I do like the idea of four hours on just pronouns. No, the discourse will get confusing. Afterwards, I would assume. I'm drowning.

Starting point is 00:02:30 I was- Yeah, exactly. We as a country are on like our several million of pronoun discourse, so like, a podcast wouldn't really be that hard of a sell. That's a good point. I say we as a country, but also the UK, so everybody. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:02:44 What if we did a podcast about gender? Whoa. Wow. Wow. Or there's your gender. Yeah, we just assign it to you. At random. There you go!

Starting point is 00:02:57 Somehow it's always right. I have a predictive model that says this is your gender. This is actually the same predictive model that determines which mare to do next on No Gods No Mares. Oh yeah. The Mentaculous. JUSTIN Well, the problem is when the predictive model assigns the mare the wrong gender. ALICE Oh, you hate to see it.

Starting point is 00:03:18 ALICE Yeah, it happened with the Rudy Giuliani episode. We've moved past it. JUSTIN Sorry, the model is right, reality is frequently inaccurate. Anyway. Assume a perfectly spherical gender. A super perfectly spherical Rudy Giuliani. What we see on the screen here is the new 777 Twitter. You can look at pictures of it, very difficult to see it in real life.

Starting point is 00:03:47 And that's what we're gonna talk about today. ALICE Fantastic. The plane that killed Boeing, or will kill Boeing. Before Boeing kills us. SEAN Yeah, one of several planes that killed Boeing. ALICE To be fair, the plane killing Boeing is really an act of self-defense, considering what Boeing does to whistleblowers. And passengers. Yep. But before we do that, we have to do the goddamn news.

Starting point is 00:04:09 ALICE'S TITLE Oh, this is a terrific high rod. So yeah, uh, holy shit, what is going on? I don't know! I don't know! I don't know! For a while I thought we were all just gonna die, and now it seems like maybe we're not gonna die for a minute until we do die again.

Starting point is 00:04:35 Have you seen the euthanasia coaster? The roller coaster that at some point down snaps your neck several times, and then flips it back and forth like a dog? ALICE Yeah, well, even whips it back and forth like a dog? Yeah. Well, even so, that's kind of like, that's how I'm feeling with the markets, you know? Yeah, we don't know what the tariffs are anymore, how long they're gonna last.

Starting point is 00:04:56 It's gonna be really funny because... A lot of stuff accepted now, maybe? I don't know, I have the New York Times open. The last, whatchamacallit, episode we recorded was right after the tariffs were put in, and that hasn't come out yet, so now we're reporting on... we have no fucking clue what's going on anymore, guys. ALICE It's one of the worst combinations of lag between episode recording and release and news cycle speed.

Starting point is 00:05:22 So many things happen. ALICE Yeah. It's tragic. We just... I'm still pretty bullish on the power grid going down, I think they're gonna fuck it up that bad. I'll buy that. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:05:33 I have power outages this morning. I mean, extrapolating from that, it's only a matter of time. But like, I genuinely have no idea at this point, and I've learned to kind of... Trump has taught me Buddha nature, I've learned that my desires are hindering me, my needs are impermanent, I don't actually need a new graphics card, and not only that, but I should embrace uncertainty and not, and sort of like, I should, y'know, just allow it to wash over me. You know?

Starting point is 00:06:06 Yeah. It's a buyer's market, maybe? Question mark, question mark, question mark? So I guess what's happened is there's been a 90 day pause on the tariffs to some extent, to what extent no one actually knows. My other understanding is no one actually knows how to collect the tariffs. So, the collections haven't actually happened. ALICE They're trying to reimburse some, which I guess just means not doing them.

Starting point is 00:06:33 And I'm just like, at this point, all I can say is that the price of the Patreon feed is now reciprocal with the tariffs, but there are a number of exceptions, and so the Patreon doesn't currently cost $2,000 a month, but in 90 days it might, unless you meet the number of criteria. Who's to say? JUSTIN Well, who's to say, we might have something stupid happen to the dollar, there's some bullshit happening in the bond market that I don't understand, there's, uh, what's the other one?

Starting point is 00:07:05 Okay, so most of the tariffs have been suspended, except the tariffs on China, which have been increased to, I don't know, 100 and something percent. ALICE And 145? SEAN And 145? That would be the wrong answer by the time this comes out. ALICE It might be the wrong answer now! Don't you feel stupid, Maya? Yeah, that's true. Stupid liar. And, I mean, the other fun thing is trying to charge, like, a million dollars for each time a Chinese built, or flagged, or crewed ship docks in the US port, which is like,

Starting point is 00:07:39 as if you were hamstrung enough by the Jones Act. That's really... Well, that's for the ships that are compliant with the Chinese Jones Act. Um. ALICE I mean, you're gonna have to start doing that one seafood company and running everything that comes into the US over like, 45 meters of technically Canadian railroad, in order to make it Jones Act compliant. I miss it already, I love a regulatory loophole, and I'm sure that they'll find others. JUSTIN Yeah, I mean, you know, the way this is gonna

Starting point is 00:08:12 affect business, I think just people are gonna stop importing things for a while, I know a lot of containers are just being sent back to China. I know that, um, the one thing I saw a press release from was Rapido trains, they do a bunch of nice HO scale model trains, they're all made in China, and they were like, yeah, we think these tariffs are gonna disappear pretty soon, so we're just not importing anything until they disappear. ALICE We're waiting until the bond markets whack Trump over the head enough with a big two by four.

Starting point is 00:08:46 I mean, this is the thing, they can't just get rid of him like they did Liz Truss, at least I don't think they can, I don't know if the bond markets have shooters like that. JUSTIN You could invoke whatever, the 25th Amendment? ALICE Yeah. Yeah. JUSTIN Whatever it is, one of the later amendments. ALICE Yeah, I dunno, but, it's all insane. It's all completely unpredictable. ALICE It sure is, Nova.

Starting point is 00:09:13 And, my favourite detail, my favourite detail was I saw a Vox Pop, I saw an interview with a guy who got, I think maybe maximally screwed by the tariffs just in a short-term bets situation, because he bought a new iPhone, sort of panic buying before the tariffs came in, the day before the smartphones were exempted from the tariffs. ALICE All right, yeah, they did exempt a bunch of consumer electronics from the tariffs, which, you know, is, uh, sure, great, fine. What about all the other stuff that comes from China? Like, not everything that comes from China is like a smartphone.

Starting point is 00:09:51 You know, there's like, industrial equipment and shit. My god. You don't need clothes, you don't need shoes, you don't need industrial equipment, or anything like that. Yeah, you definitely don't need spare parts for industrial equipment you already have. The thing is, Trump knows what his constituency is, which is gamers and posters, and so obviously the price of graphics card or smartphone cannot go up.

Starting point is 00:10:12 ZACH Yeah, I was gonna say, I found out about this because it was in the mechanical keyboard community, because they accepted keycaps and switches under certain specific definitions, and it was very funny, especially since I just switched to a rubber dome keyboard. Because I'm bizarre. That would be really nice if the company that was supposedly shipping me my keycaps last year ever bothered to do that. Clearly an early victim of the tariffs, I guess.

Starting point is 00:10:40 Well, here's the thing, I deal with, I know a lot of retro tech hobbyists, and the iPod parts scene specifically, nobody's getting the parts that they buy just because of the Chinese companies, even though they're now exempt from the tariffs, just don't wanna bother. ALICE President Trump... ALICE I was just about to buy an old... Oh man. That sucks.

Starting point is 00:11:01 ALICE President Donald J. Trump, I am willing to praise you to the extent that you do what I want, just like anyone. Please authorize drone strikes on... Wait, no, I can't say that. Please consider investigating the use of all necessary federal responses against Aloha KB for their fucking biotech and firearm keycaps. Cause I really wanted them, and I ordered them like fucking five years ago, and they just didn't, they never shipped the fucking things.

Starting point is 00:11:37 So I need my retro iPad, uh, iPod please, because my, uh, my Shenling M0 broke and I need a new digital audio player and I really want a nice iPod with a Bluetooth mod. Please, Donald Trump. This is the thing though. You know, on the one hand... Ross, what do you want from the tariffs? What do I want from the tariffs? Tariff Santa.

Starting point is 00:12:02 Yeah, tariff Santa. There we go. Wow, he comes down the chimney and hands you a huge bill. What do you want from Tariff Santa? Yeah, Tariff Santa, there we go. Wow, he comes down the chimney and hands you a huge bill. And you still have to give him milk and cookies. A single lump of coal, and then charges you three thousand dollars. The problem with this situation is either, we have an insane economic collapse and all get cholera because water systems stop working, because there's no spare parts, or Congress removes

Starting point is 00:12:32 the president, and then, JD Vance becomes president. And- ALICE Third option- JUSTIN That is very, um, I don't know which is worse. Third option, national reunification, salvation, government under General Mark Milley. Yeah, alright, whatever, man. I'm real excited for the pro-woke junta. I'll take a woke military coup.

Starting point is 00:13:00 Oh, yeah, sure. Who you ship. Sure. Who you shit. Sure. Yeah, it's just, you know, the new president comes on TV in uniform and is like, alright, four things. Thing number one, politics is over, no more voting. Thing number two, the war in Ukraine continues forever.

Starting point is 00:13:16 Thing number three, mandatory pronouns. Thing number four, Donald Trump has been... You know when we can't say that? They're gonna yell at us. I was listening to the bonus episode on Catholicism with my parents, because I thought my dad would find it funny. And I did really like, Devon be like, I've been, listen, I've been playing pretty offhandedly with the bonus episode, but you absolutely cannot say that, so thank you, Gavin, for making

Starting point is 00:13:45 my mom laugh at me. ALICE Yeah, thank you for saving us from ourselves, so often. LIAM Yes. So, yeah. ALICE Fucked. Fucked, fucked, fucked, fucked, fucked, fucked, fucked. SEAN Here to say, y'know, this is a piece of news,

Starting point is 00:13:58 we don't know what's happening anymore, folks. ALICE And neither do you, dickhead. SEAN And neither do you. ALICE We're all completely out of touch with everything. And that's fine. But so is everyone else. Yeah. They're not calling it a black billowing cloud anymore, they're calling it the airborne toxic

Starting point is 00:14:13 event. Oh, great band. We're all floating in uncertainty. In a sort of comforting, black toxic cloud. I will say it is nice to wake up and read a headline that's like, Donald Trump hates everybody rather than just Donald Trump hates trans people. That's true. It has been a pleasant shift to share in the misery that I have been experiencing non-stop for the past four months.

Starting point is 00:14:45 Yeah, no pronouns, but also no iPhones. I again, playermods.com, if anyone on the Patreon wants to buy me this 2 terabytes of the 3000 milliamp hour battery please, I'll take that, it's $849 US dollars. SOMEHOW. ALICE The Aloha KB firearm keycaps looked really really good, and then they just never shipped them. They blow up the Three Gorges down. No choice. No option. LIAM I just wanted a new mouse wheel for my nice mouse.

Starting point is 00:15:19 TROY I could get you a new mouse wheel, but I have to wear the Tariff Santa hat. ALICE & LUCAS LAUGH. I mean, like, Jewish Tariff Santa really rolls off the tongue. The MAGA hat already is the same colour as a Santa hat, so if you just embossed it like a Make America Great Again on the front of the Santa hat... Oh god, let me... This probably exists, yeah. MAGA SANTA HAT. Yeah, it auto-completed.

Starting point is 00:15:44 Yeah, it exists. ALICE Oh god. Oh, that's one of the worst things I've ever thought of in my life, thank you. JUSTIN Speaking of worst things, in other news... ALICE I didn't mean it when I said blow up the Three Gorges Dam, if anything, like... LIAM Yes she did, yes she did. JUSTIN Wow. Yeah, they had that cool shiplift and everything there. blow up the Three Gorges Dam, if anything, like... Yes she did! Yes she did! I feel...

Starting point is 00:16:05 Yeah, they had that cool shiplift and everything there. I feel happiest when I'm lighting my American cigarettes with my Chinese matches, like, I just support both sides in doing whatever they're doing, so long as it doesn't inconvenience me in any way. Speaking of inconvenience to me... Speaking of inconvenience to me... Yeah, what you mean is a bunch of nodes of distribution and something... It's a borderless network of transport and supply, yes.

Starting point is 00:16:27 Exactly. Uh huh. But, so, yeah, speaking of, the British steelmaking industry is kind of just over at this point. Because- What happened to you? Well, we had one remaining set of blast furnaces left, which are these, in Scunthorpe. Because we closed... JUSTIN It's like the integrated steel mill.

Starting point is 00:16:48 ALICE Yeah. JUSTIN As opposed to mini mills that, y'know, only pussies have. ALICE This is the last big big steelworks that we have that still makes virgin steel. Like doesn't have as many imperfections in it, isn't recycled steel, because we closed the second to last one in Port Talbot, and that one just closed, and like, 2000 people lost their jobs. This one, the government stepped in at the last minute, except maybe too late at the

Starting point is 00:17:16 last minute, because it's seeming like they're gonna renationalize British steel, and, y'know, that's great news for the next five year plan and all the rest of it, y'know. Yes. But... Chocolate rations are going up. Yeah, exactly. But the problem is, that, so this Steelworks was owned by a Chinese parent corporation

Starting point is 00:17:39 that had basically realized that this is a completely uneconomical industry to be doing in the UK because electricity is really really expensive, and it's quite difficult to build things, and these are like old blast furnaces that have been running since the 50s. JUSTIN There's no coal, there's no iron. There is coal, but they don't mine it anymore in Britain. ALICE Yeah, yeah. So they stopped ordering the stuff that you need to keep the blast furnaces going, the coal and the iron, and in fact actively started selling off some of the stock of them. And so the government is now, like, sort of forced their way in to, they

Starting point is 00:18:26 haven't renationalized yet, but to make them keep the furnaces on, but it may just be too late. And exactly how bad is it to have to restart a blast furnace is not a question I know the answer to, but much like how long is the transplant list, I feel like it's a question that if you're asking, you're not in a good place in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. I would hazard a guess it's at least a couple weeks. The transplant list? No. The transplant list I assume is much longer than that.

Starting point is 00:18:57 Starting the blast furnace, you know, you gotta do a lot of stuff when you're trying to start up a furnace that's that hot, and that big, just so it doesn't accumulate moisture and then explode. So, yeah, so we are, like, the taxpayer, now, I guess, is losing 700,000 pounds a day on their steelworks. Just because, like I said, their electricity bill went up like 120 million dollars, 120 million pounds last year, and it just... It's this strange thing where we know on a headline basis, or politicians seem to know

Starting point is 00:19:36 on a headline basis, that you need some kind of steelmaking capacity, right? But have never invested anything in trying to maintain it? Or, like... JUSTIN Yeah, I mean, having a whole country without an integrated steel mill is embarrassing. You know, that's just the long and short of it there, it's like, you know... SEAN And you'll have no domestic steel production? You're saying that correctly, right?

Starting point is 00:20:03 I'm hearing that correctly. JUSTIN If you have no domestic steel production, that is embarrassing. I'm sorry, you're third world now. ALICE Yeah, I mean, I understand the deal is that we'll keep recycling steel, because they were trying to move them from these blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces, which are a bit less carbon-y... JUSTIN Yeah, well that's, again, because you're only recycling and you just add lots of electricity to scrap steel and you get new steel out of it.

Starting point is 00:20:37 You know, and a lot of sparks. ALICE Big spark factory. JUSTIN Yes, exactly. ALICE That's true. Big Sparke factory. Yeah, so this is maybe like the kind of capstone on a 160 year industrial legacy. And it's cool if they are able to preserve the jobs, I dunno long term about that, and it's also striking that they intervened in this way to do this, but in Port Talbot, the last steel mill was shut down, which is in Wales. You know, neither the Welsh government nor the UK government were that fast.

Starting point is 00:21:11 And you know, like, two thousand people lost their jobs. So I dunno, it's real bad, and I feel like this is all a series of deep, structural wounds that are all kind of like, have all sort of combined to get us to this point. JUSTIN Yeah, and if you don't have steel, how are you gonna fix the structure? SEAN Yeah, structural steel. ALICE Exactly. JUSTIN Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:21:33 ALICE How are you gonna get all of the guys hammering on the big I-beam to make the communism if you can't even make an I-beam anymore? JUSTIN That's a good point, that's a good point. ALICE Like, you know, none of us are gonna have those building communism jobs if there's no steel to build communism out of, it's the basic resource of communism. I'm pretty sure that Donald Trump's tariffs are going to bring the steel industry back everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:58 What you want from Tariff Santa is a global steel industry thing. I mean, it's also like, just the kind of reciprocal of the Chinese steel industry doing very well, and having, you know, therefore it's very easy to get a lot of cheap steel, you just have to ship it from China. Not just China, you know. But places where it is cheap to make, whereas it's very expensive here, and so, we're just kind of... JUSTIN They've done this amazing thing in China that we don't really like to do in the West, which is, every once in a while they go through and modernize the facility.

Starting point is 00:22:35 As opposed to, yeah. SEAN We don't even have to do that anyway. Fuck you. Fuck you. Yeah, we just turn them into apartment buildings and tourist attractions here. JUSTIN Yeah, exactly. As opposed to, or just running the same shit from 1950 for 70 years. Oh, sure, yeah.

Starting point is 00:22:51 That last one is the British way, and specifically, this thing of trying to get them to move to these electric arc furnaces, the government was like, okay, you're gonna get two of these furnaces, right, one in Scunthorpe where the plant is now, one in Teesside, and then we're gonna give you 500 million pounds to do that, when the owners were like, this will cost 1.25 billion. And then they just didn't get planning permission for one of them anyway. So yeah, it's actually kind of illegal to build anything. So.

Starting point is 00:23:27 JUSTIN You know, that's why we need, um, abundance, I guess. ALICE Maybe everybody can have podcast jobs. Maybe we can all, you know... SEAN Nope, those are for me. Those are for me. JUSTIN You could have a little electric arc furnace in your backyard. ALICE Yeah, right next to your... Yeah, right next to your back-kissed nuke.

Starting point is 00:23:51 JUSTIN Make a little response. We're upgrading everyone's electrical service to like 11 kilovolts. ALICE Yeah, it's gonna be like, Texas ain't having this bitch. JUSTIN I love to just stand near an electrical outlet, and just, like, arc flash vaporized instantly. Just two boot prints on the floor, just scorch marks. ALICE We are upgrading everybody's electrical capacity on the electrical glint.

Starting point is 00:24:15 That is going to collapse. JUSTIN Yeah. I just, I feel like... ALICE Do you need special gloves to access the breaker panel in your own house now? I just feel like more and more Britain's economy is a game of workers and resources that has gone horribly wrong. JUSTIN Yes.

Starting point is 00:24:32 Yep, it's, uh, gonna have to shut down the steel mill. Oh shit, we got too many people, I can't afford to import the electronics anymore. ALICE What we need to do... wait, shit. I was gonna do a joke about how I always play workers and resources, which is, you just run like an oil field until you have more money than you know what to do with, so that you can just do everything else, because the oil industry runs without needing to move workers around, and I don't understand how to do that, so I just, I fuck up on all other parts of the map that's subsidized by an oil industry

Starting point is 00:25:06 that runs itself. That's what Britain did with North Sea Oil. We just did that. It is a workers and resources game. And Norway figured it out. Yeah. Yeah. SEAN The thing is, I come from, like, Western

Starting point is 00:25:21 Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, sorry to harsh the Philadelphia, but the whole everybody loses their jobs and the government doesn't have anything to do about it is like, those are, that's the stories I've been hearing for my entire life. Cause people just, people just never stopped talking about it. Cause and you know, they voted for Donald Trump to bring the steel jobs back 40 years later. So hopefully the, with any luck, the British people will get a Donald Trump of their own to destroy the British Empire, finally.

Starting point is 00:25:49 ALICE Oh yeah. It'd be really funny to try and do all of the tariffs and the stuff, but we just don't have the economic power of the US. We just- it'd be like Argentina, we just bankrupt ourselves by being like, yeah, you know, 500% tariffs on China. China does not notice. Yes, but then you would get special White House visits, like, I don't actually know how his name is pronounced.

Starting point is 00:26:12 Miele? Haib Bukele? Yeah. No, that's... Oh, Javier Miele, yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, no, that's the... he's the prison guy. Miele is the economics guy. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:22 Well, in many ways, they're both the economics guy. And both the prison guy. Sure. Yeah. I read about that from a guy called Michel Foucault. Ooh. In many ways a steel mill is like a prison, though. Yeah, for real.

Starting point is 00:26:36 It's true. So anyway, the lesson here is, export oil. Mm. I guess so. Yeah. Ah. I think the lesson here is, split the atom. But to be honest, we don't even bother doing that. I understand you can make money off that if you import the raw uranium ore, and then you

Starting point is 00:26:57 build the factory, the various factories, and then you, the finished uranium fuel... I've never tried it in the game, but, y'know. I've heard it works pretty good. You gotta invest some research in first, though. ALICE This is the dynamic, this is the sort of dramaturgical dyad between me and you, right, is that you're a workers and resources level brain and I'm a Tropico 4 level brain. That's the kind of economics I'm capable of, like, digesting. I think that was the goddamn news.

Starting point is 00:27:28 That's right. So, first we must ask, what is Boeing? I don't know, but this is gorgeous. The good airplane, formerly? I do like this. Yeah. I've seen this plane recently, it's quite nice. Paint the engines burgundy.

Starting point is 00:27:44 Yes. A normal sentence, engines burgundy. Yes. A normal sentence, said by a sane person. SEAN I mean, even if you didn't paint them at this point, they were like polished metal, which looks a lot better than carbon fiber. No, not carbon fiber, shit, aluminum. ALICE This is a flying conversation pit, and I love it so much. Oh yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:01 This is Boeing 707. Boeing is the company that makes some of the airplanes that you may fly around in. They used to be headquartered in Seattle. They aren't anymore. We'll discuss them later. ALICE I stand by the Comet episode, no matter how many people it killed. De Havilland was robbed, you know? It should've been us.

Starting point is 00:28:25 You should be flying on a plane named after some kind of astronomical phenomenon. It should kill you. And you should feel good about it. JUSTIN Well, we have at least one of those things. ALICE Yeah, yeah, but it's always kind of an imitation, y'know? Like, it doesn't have the lunch pail, kind of like meat and potatoes killing you, that, you know, you used to have.

Starting point is 00:28:47 ALICE Anyway, so, Boeing started... I didn't put any notes down here, I'm just going from memory. SEAN What'd you say, you're Boeing from memory? ALICE Boeing from memory, yeah. SEAN Boeing from memory? ALICE Please applaud my- thank you, Vya! Thank you, Vya! SEAN Take a drink, folks.

Starting point is 00:29:02 ALICE You're winging it, would you say? Wow. No, I wouldn't say that. Get the gun out. Get the fun gun. They started making airplanes before World War Two, they sorta got lucky eventually because they were headquartered in Seattle. Seattle has a lot of cheap electricity from hydropower from the Columbia River, which

Starting point is 00:29:23 meant a lot of aluminum factories set up up there, cause you gotta use a lot of electricity to make aluminum. Boom. You can make great airplanes out of that, cause it's really light. Boeing sort of, with their 707, they really create like the modern, the first modern airliner, and you know, they've iterated on the concept ever since. You know, and they had, eventually where we, through a very long process of consolidation we wind up with the current situation we're in today, which is, you know, you want an

Starting point is 00:29:57 airliner, you get a Boeing or an Airbus, or maybe an Embraer, but I don't think Embraer... That's on the small end of the market, there's more people. Big end, nah, just the two. So yeah, that's my very brief incoherent history of bowing. That seemed pretty coherent to me. Yeah, that's about right. They did the 707 and then they did the 747 and everything else has been some form of slot pretty much.

Starting point is 00:30:24 Yeah. Just like, you know, pressing the button to crank out another slight variation of the, you know, the 707. I'd love to defend the 757, but every time I've been on one, it's just been the most horrendously bumpy flight I've ever been on. This has also been true for me, I still, if I'm booking a flight, I'm usually booking a flight to Seattle, and if I fly through Atlanta you'll sometimes get like a 757, and like that is exciting to me, and it's bad when a 757 is the most exciting thing that an American airline can give me. What's the tiny tiny one, the like little miniature Boeing, because that's kind of low

Starting point is 00:31:04 key my favorite. SEAN That's a few things, the 747SP we talked about. JUSTIN The 717? SEAN Uh, I don't even know. This is the thing, I don't know my Boeing family at all. JUSTIN You could get a really tiny 737. SEAN You could, but you haven't been able to do that for quite a few years now?

Starting point is 00:31:24 JUSTIN You could get, um, I don't know what the tiniest Boeing is. SEAN It is a 737. SEAN You could, but you haven't been able to do that for quite a few years now. ALICE Yeah, um, I don't know what tiny spelling is. JUSTIN It is a 737. That's the one that I like, yeah. SEAN The 737-100, technically. ALICE Yeah. The small one. SEAN Which they have not built for fifty years.

Starting point is 00:31:36 ALICE DOW. SEAN Well, you know, Nova lives in a different dimension than most of us. ALICE I haven't flown in a long time because of the transgender scans. SEAN I was gonna say because of woke, and then I realized it was the exact opposite of that. SEAN Exactly. It's because you're woke, so it is because of woke.

Starting point is 00:31:56 ALICE That's true. And the good news is I got my passport back and I have the yearn to travel again properly, so we'll see how long that lasts until it gets trauma blasted out of me at some airport security somewhere. ALICE I gotta go take the Eurostar. I don't know what security they do there, anyway, it's airport style. Which, much the same. ALICE Fuck yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:20 JUSTIN Yeah, it sucks. SEAN Yeah, see, Amtrak is nice because they just let me walk on the train without any... anything at all. They don't give a shit, yeah. They have not checked my ticket the last couple times. They truly don't give a fuck. Alright, anyway.

Starting point is 00:32:35 That's a Boeing. Here are more Boeings. Here are more Boeings. Oh look, back when paint liveries used to be... or, plain liveries, there we go, used to be cool and good. ALICE I feel real bad on this one for people who just listen to the podcast and stop looking at the slides, because... SEAN Give us that YouTube engagement nerds.

Starting point is 00:32:53 ALICE I mean, I like a livery, but my problem as ever is, every airline designed a good livery in like 1965, and then they made... this is something that I'm actually socially conservative about, is they designed a good livery in like, 1965, and then they made, this is something that I'm actually socially conservative about, is they designed a good livery once and then they kept changing it and making it worse. And they should, like, it's always the thing where they're like, oh, we've introduced this like a special fun bonus PR activity, we've gone to like a throwback thing, and it's like, if it's so good and fun, why didn't you keep it? ALICE I would say the railroads also did something similar. And it's like, if it's so good and fun, why didn't you keep it? Mmhm.

Starting point is 00:33:25 I would say the railroads also did something similar. I think most stuff did something similar, like, y'know, back when you could produce like a big graphic design book, like a corporate identity book, y'know, you don't have that anymore. Y'know, people put a lot of thought into the design of these things, and now it's kinda like, I don't know, put a vinyl wrap of Swoosh or something on there. ALICE Yeah, you know what it is, mostly, that I

Starting point is 00:33:51 think could fix all of this, is if you went back to the kind of livery that gives the plane the kind of black nosecone, that would be a big deal for me. Because all the ones that I like have that, and now it's just like, oh, the stripes just terminate there or whatever. And as I mentioned earlier, we need to go back to Pacific Southwest Airlines' thought. Big smile on the front, big black nose, like a friendly dog. ALICE Yeah, the plane should be more like a dog, I don't know why this is controversial.

Starting point is 00:34:22 It shouldn't be. JUSTIN Anyway. I think this part is for Maya. Yes. So this is the regular 777, which is where we're gonna get started today. These four were like four of the original launch customers for it. I only chose them for this slide because I think the liveries look nice. All of these were 1960s through 1980s and 90s logos, or liveries rather.

Starting point is 00:34:48 So lost art. People tend to think I'm crazy about the United one, but I stand by it. The United one is good, yeah. I think a plane that is not just white is something that we've lost sight of, and they don't do the bare aluminum either, because planes are made out of too many things now. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, people used to do this with cars as well, and then people started thinking about resale value much like airlines did, and so everything just became like white or silver. And in a really generic way.

Starting point is 00:35:29 And it's like, people used to have cars that came painted from the factory in colors other than white or silver. ALICE So, my friend June, who's been on the podcast, got courtesy-toed yesterday. And I had to help her, cause she parked in in a space and then that space, they did construction there. So they moved her car to next location and I had to help her find it yesterday. And I was just astonished like trying to look at all the damn cars in the city.

Starting point is 00:35:58 There's like three kinds of car and like three colors of car these days. It's all a crossover and they all hate you. Cars suck now. Yeah. Oh it's safer than ever and you can get more power than ever and no worries Power Wars, shut the fuck up. They all look the same, they're all identical, they're white, they're gray, or they're black. Car design now is so like, just monoculture in a way that's really grim and depressing.

Starting point is 00:36:26 ALICE It's awful. It's awful. JUSTIN Anyway, it took about an hour and a half of searching, but we found it. And it was parked in a spot that was scheduled to be courtesy-toed the next day. ALICE Just playing leapfrog. JUSTIN Just getting your car sequentially express kidnapped.

Starting point is 00:36:43 JUSTIN Yeah. Well, people have had their cars impounded after being courtesy towed, and then they have to go to court, and the court says, fuck you, we don't know that you didn't park it there. ALICE Right. Sure. Sure. Private towing is fascism, et cetera, et cetera.

Starting point is 00:36:59 JUSTIN I believe that, yeah. ALICE I mean, there is one company making a car that looks different, I believe it's called the Cybertruck. Oh, it sure does look different. It do look different, that's true. Different, parentheses derogatory. Anyway, this United delivery is called, they call it the Battleship Grey, which is funny to me because the word battleship really pisses off my wife in particular.

Starting point is 00:37:26 And that's the only reason I find it funny. Next slide. So the triple seven started sometime in the mid 1980s to fill sort of a gap that existed in the Boeing product line because they had the seven five seven and the seven six seven. And you know, those were both doing pretty well, but like, if you wanted anything bigger than that you had to get the 747. Like, those are expensive, right? Like big claim...

Starting point is 00:37:52 A lot of people doing like, sort of like car salesmen, hard sell stuff, and being like, yeah, a lot of airlines find themselves kind of intimidated about the prospect of owning a plane this cool. So they... Are you a bad enough bear to rescue the 747? SEAN I don't think anybody's rescuing Boeing or the 747 anymore. They initially started as these Tri-Jet designs, which is another lost art of ours.

Starting point is 00:38:19 This is, y'know, that has the big engine in the tail. ALICE Kill a lot of people, but it looked so good. Oh, sure, but like, that was just McDonald Douglas's fault, right? The engine itself, except on United 232, which was another... We call that a callback, because it was another episode. Except in, like, two specific cases, the design itself has not killed anybody. It was mostly there for... JUSTIN Your honor, accepting these two cases.

Starting point is 00:38:50 SEAN That's a lot of flights that went successfully! JUSTIN Yeah. Yeah, no one ever talks about when the planes don't crash. SEAN Count the rings. JUSTIN Look, I've flown on the MAX twice now, I was fine. SEAN Yeah, I'm sure you had a fully good time. I didn't. You were there.

Starting point is 00:39:09 I know. I got to fly the Max before they grounded them all. That's really exhilarating to know in hindsight. Yeah, the third engine was mostly a regulatory thing. The FAA didn't want to let planes with two engines fly over an ocean. This is pretty much all there is to it. It wasn't by the time the mid-60s rolled around, it wasn't actually... Planes could get across...

Starting point is 00:39:34 Jet engines were reliable enough that they could cross an ocean with two engines. It was fine. But the Carter and the Reagan FAAs said something to the respects of, no way in hell I will let a twin airliner cross the Atlantic Ocean, which is a really strange thing to have such an aggressive opinion on. ALICE Yeah, I was gonna say, okay. I think that- JUSTIN It's one of those, like, common sense things, right?

Starting point is 00:39:59 What if you lose both engines and then the opening of Bioshock happens to you? ALICE Right. JUSTIN I believe that's also why the Sela Express is restricted from using its tilting mechanism where it'd be most useful. Or some similar insane decision. ALICE It's so funny to me that, like, you can actually find examples of, like, regulatory overreach, or whatever, if you bother to look, but it's never the ones that conservatives worry about.

Starting point is 00:40:30 They're too busy hunting down pronouns. Yeah, they're trying to figure out a way to make child labor come back. Right. Yeah. I looked this up, it was Reagan's FAA director who said, quote, It'll be a cold day in hell before I let twins fly over water routes, close quote, which is really funny because he cared a lot about safety in that respect, but did not care about it in terms of air traffic control, which is why, of course, they did the we the Reagan FAA ruined air

Starting point is 00:41:01 traffic control unions in this country. Yes. The final, as Hunter Thompson said, a final dirty, the dirt, the final dirty victory of management over labor when they broke the Patco strike. Well, the thing and the thing is like the the Patco and the unions in general reacted so weakly to it that like it's what that's like why the White House is just saying they can end collective bargaining for all federal employees, because they pointed this precedent and go, look, they're not going to fight back too hard. And like, they might be right about

Starting point is 00:41:34 that. But it's bullshit. Yes. So I have a lot of opinions about labor, but that's a different podcast episode, I think. So by so where was I here? Yeah. So these were the two of the first designs. The, in the mid eighties, the FAA starts entertaining the idea of letting planes fly over water with two engines. They eventually decide to, they call it ETOPS, extended range twin engine something. It stands for Engines Turn or Passengers Swim. Yes. I was also going to say that, yes. Me too!

Starting point is 00:42:11 We've all heard the one joke about this. So by the time that they come out with that, Boeing ditches these designs entirely because they don't need to anymore. Next slide please. I like having a TA-like person next slide for me, it's quite nice. McDonald Douglas had already started building, one with three engines by this point, so they just said fuck it and kept doing it. That was the MD-11, it didn't do too well for a lot of reasons, but you can probably

Starting point is 00:42:42 guess the one, because I think I just said it. ALICE They used these for cargo for a while longer, didn't do too well for a lot of reasons, but you can probably guess the one, because I think I just said it. ALICE They used these for cargo for a while longer, didn't they? SEAN They still do, actually. Might just be in the US. UPS and FedEx love them, but... JUSTIN Oh yeah. Cause they got more power.

Starting point is 00:42:56 SEAN And they're cheap. That's the more important thing there, yeah. So like, by the later 80s, every every airline, every major airline has like a fleet of DC 10s or tri stars that are now very old and they would like to retire and get something nicer. So there are two planes in the US that get shopped around for that. One is the MD 11 pictured at the bottom right here, but also the original triple seven pictured at the bottom right here, but also the original triple seven, uh, pictured at the top left. Um,

Starting point is 00:43:26 Airbus also tries to shop the A330 around that doesn't really go anywhere. People are still big on like, uh, you know, die by wire. Uh, every French person has a brain muscle plane. Can't corner. However, on a prep surface, this thing could really scream. So one thing to remember, one thing that's important about the MD-11 specifically was that a lot of its various designs and systems were both wildly cost cut and outsourced extensively. And the end result of that is the reason a lot of people give for why McDonald Douglas gave up on making,

Starting point is 00:44:09 well, commercial aircraft, but also gave up being a company. Oh dear. Yeah. Now they didn't go out of business. That's going to be important later, as is the outsourcing part. That's going to be very important later. The

Starting point is 00:44:25 MD-11, which I'm going to talk about for a minute, because it is important, even though it may not sound like it, I'm just going to talk about how bad it is. Just a series, a short slide about kicking the absolute shit out of this trijet here. Yes. Which is funny, which is a shame, because I really like it. It's really cute, but like, mm. Stunk as a plane. Yes. American Airlines was one of the not they weren't a launch customer, but they bought them fairly early on because McDonnell Douglas told them it could fly from Dallas to Hong Kong nonstop. That's a I. It feels like a lie.

Starting point is 00:44:59 Well, it was they found that out like immediately. I can actually can't do How did you find out? Oh, well, it never showed up. SEAN It's in the ocean. We can see it from here. ALICE Yeah, yeah. Or just like, every... at the entire, like, sort of like, passenger compartment of the flight coming out of Dallas just throwing their 10 gallon hats on the ground. And as they find out they're not gonna make it to Hong Kong. SEAN Well, we used to be Super Bowl champions. The last time the Dallas Cowboys won a Super Bowl, my wife was not yet born.

Starting point is 00:45:33 So, yeah. Go Eagles. JUSTIN Go Birds. ALICE In fairness, they were cooking with the throwing your hat on the ground, to indicate it was a pleasure thing. But then you gotta pick up your own hat, and dust it off, which sucks. JUSTIN Where do you divert to, that's what I wanna know.

Starting point is 00:45:48 SEAN Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh...

Starting point is 00:45:56 Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh...

Starting point is 00:46:04 Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... business people landing in Ussurisk. Yeah. So they- What in taranation, it's a disputed island between Japan and Russia. Uh, so they go to McDonald Douglas to ask what the hell, because the plane doesn't do what they promised. McDonald Douglas puts them on what they call, I swear to God I'm reading this from the documentation, they call it a performance improvement plan? Like an employee? Fuck you!

Starting point is 00:46:28 Like you put an employee on? I've been pimped, fuck you! Yeah! Just like, calling the plane into a mandatory meeting. What would you say you do here? And the response is just a high-pitched jet engine one I can't do high-pitched jet engine, but I can do r2d2 and I apologize to anyone So that them and the engine manufacturer who I did did not write down, and I assume is probably

Starting point is 00:47:05 General Electric, but I'm not sure off the top of my head. Butthole Motors Inc. Yeah. Yeah, this is by not Rolls Royce, by twice. So they said, they went back, it took like a year and a half, they went back to American Airlines and told them that they had fixed the plane and said that to all their customers, but it still couldn't fly to Hong Kong. So American just gives up and sells them all to FedEx for probably half what they paid

Starting point is 00:47:35 for them like five years prior. That's tough. They gotta have like a lemon law or something. Yeah. I've been law for my big ass play now Clunkers 1877 cars for planes So this was 1995 So these were like brand new planes and to get a brand new plane converted directly to a cargo jet

Starting point is 00:47:59 It's not a good sign for your business if you are doing nothing but cargo aircraft. It's also important to remember about Boeing. So in designing the 777, Boeing just started fresh completely and they came up with this twin engine design, which the airline, a group of major airlines had input on. I don't have the list in front of me, but like the three major legacy American carriers were on there. British Airways was on there. There was a couple of others.

Starting point is 00:48:26 ALICE Yeah, functionally I'm envisioning an airline version of like the, uh, the, uh, sort of like, priest scene from Hail Caesar. SEAN Right, or the... ALICE Trying to get all these different guys to agree on the nature of the airplane. SEAN Five families meeting for the mob. I think we're looking at here I'm imagining like sort of a planes release sort of airline common turn I fuck with the phrase airline common turn

Starting point is 00:48:57 Revolution I want to be on that yeah It was the three of the major American Airlines the three that still exist But like they weren't the only ones at the time Corporate mergers. I pulled the list up on the pond airways in Japan Airlines American Delta United quantus British and Cathay Pacific. So that's what the US Japan Britain Australia and Hong Kong who are the major superpowers of the world? Yes Air Canada gets left in the cold It's true. You guys are a firebys, but not for you. They were in the cold to start out with, it's Canada.

Starting point is 00:49:29 I died. Mmm. You're lucky you're so cute. Boeing tells them the design by like, 1991-ish. United immediately orders a shit ton of them. American also does because they're really pissed off about the MD-11s. Delta also gets it, it's really hard to understrate

Starting point is 00:49:55 how mad they were that they got sold the plane. This MD-11 revenge game basically. There are two companies that make planes at this point. Nobody had heard of Airbus yet. Right. I just got to use the bathroom. I'm sorry. I drank three cans of liquid. I have five drinks in front of me. So like, it's fine. You amazed me, Maya. These were firmly the like, what the fuck is a kilometer years.

Starting point is 00:50:21 Yes. Yeah. Because I think by this point, the only airline, I actually wrote about this in the notes. Yeah. Airbus starts shopping the A-330 around like 1990 years, Joe. I think like the only major American airline that had bought Airbus's by this point was like American trialed the A A300s for a while. They didn't like them too much, so they didn't order more of them, but they flew them until like 2009. Why does this plane keep calling me the arseler?

Starting point is 00:50:58 They should have thought about that. Northwest Airlines was, I think, the only other airline that bought a bunch of Airbus aircraft because they had like the oldest fleet in the country. At that point, most of the mostly DC 10s were the issue here. So they bought a bunch of A320s initially, but they also bought a bunch of A330s. Understandable to be like we're new and. If previous to that, your Northwestern flight had been, we kick you out of a C47. Like it's D day. It's funny actually, because like they bought new planes, they bought the new airbuses,

Starting point is 00:51:36 but like they didn't get rid of most of their older planes until like the 2000s. And even then, even then just like I could see daylight through the floor. Even then, they kept a lot of them until they got bought by Delta, which is why the DC nines were built in like the 70s and early 80s. And I got the fly on one in like 2015, which was a slightly fucked experience. It was the most bare bones plane experience you can imagine. But it was interesting. It was loud as hell.

Starting point is 00:52:06 I don't even remember where I was flying. I just remember the plane was really loud. But yeah, you started out being able to remember that. Yeah, that's true. Right. Right. Yeah. Northwest bought some of them.

Starting point is 00:52:20 US Air also bought a bunch of A330s. Yeah, A330s. Yeah, A330s, but that was mostly because Airbus gave them a good deal because they didn't have a long haul fleet at that point and they wanted to get a customer. I don't know any of the details of that. I'm calling this kind of an educated guess, but like I could talk a lot about US Airways because mostly because I hate them because I'm from Pittsburgh. But in any case... Good luck. See if I... I could talk about that for a while. And if I keep thinking I'm going to get mad, so I'm going to move on. The design of the plane you see at top left was done by 1993, 1993 and they built it and finished it April 9th 1994 which was almost 31 years

Starting point is 00:53:10 ago like four days ago I guess. Yeah they created they did it they created the perfect aircraft. Yeah they did. They did actually create the perfect aircraft with this one it's the it's the other ones, the other derivatives that are a problem. It first flies in June and they give it to a customer on May 15th, 1995, which the first airline that flies them is United. It sort of becomes the flagship of United's fleet and also sort of like the American fleet. Like the 747 was still out, but by this point it was kind of dwindling because we were gradually moving away from planes that big. And as a matter of fact, they had actually gotten permission from the government to fly

Starting point is 00:53:53 even longer than the original ETOP specification. ETOP's 180 was designed for with the 777 in mind and all the new planes they built were certified with that. The MD-11's weren't. So that was not great for anybody Sorry, I'm just kicking the shit out of the MD 11 sale, but McDonald Douglas deserves it at least In 1997 Boeing launches the triple 7 200 extended, which is just the same version of the original plane that can fly longer.

Starting point is 00:54:29 They also do the 777-300, which is longer and has more people in it. And by, I use the end of the millennium as the standpoint here, we're going to go back in time a couple of years, it'll make sense by the end of the millennium Boeing delivered 261 triple sevens and had another 177 they were building over a million total flight hours like a 99 dispatch reliability this was this was the perfect plane this seems like it's going well right i was going to say like so yes i do have a question because i don't really know anything about commercial aviation other than i hate flying sure, what's the average like not order size, but like I understand there are various,

Starting point is 00:55:10 like it sounded like they had about 400 planes either delivered or sort of like in the, in the oven. Yeah. And that's, is that normal? Is that a lot? Is that a little, uh, that, that is well for a longer haul aircraft like that. Nowadays that would be considered, that would be considered a reasonable amount of total overall planes, orders and deliveries. It's kind of a low amount of orders compared to like modern long haul aircraft, but that's because everybody got worse at building planes, not because of anything else.

Starting point is 00:55:40 Yeah. I mean, the thing that I want to say here is that, at least to the best of my knowledge, there has never been a fatal accident on a 777 attributable to, like, a mechanical failure. Other than MH370, we don't know what happened there. They should print that on the outside of the plane so I'm less nervous getting on one. The whole thing, including the MH370 bit. This is God's own airplane. This is the greatest commercial airplane ever built.

Starting point is 00:56:13 You hate planes. Yeah. But I like this one. You're like, this is the solution to the problem of plane. Yeah, what if you just made the plane really good? Okay, yeah, but here's the thing, you would still refuse to fly on it but a tracer seven will not be happy when I see a triple yeah but you're never happy flying is what I mean so like yeah cuz it's usually like eight hours transatlantic and miserable my

Starting point is 00:56:37 my girlfriend once flew a triple seven from like Newark, New Jersey to I think Shanghai and got diverted Jesus fucking Christ that's Well, no got diverted to the middle of nowhere freezing Canada like Gardner not yeah Chander goose. Hey, okay, so we're up there. Yeah. Yeah goose Bay This is a funny story because this is just a funny story that she likes to tell But like Canadian immigration wasn't open at the airport so nobody could actually go anywhere, the crew timed out, basically they all had to stand around negative five degrees

Starting point is 00:57:15 for like twenty hours, or some figure like that, but like, it didn't kill anybody. ALICE Yeah, it's not the plane that doesn't inconvenience you. SEAN Yeah, here's the thing, right? The case for every aviation geek out there is that you love the plane, but you don't like to fly on it. Yeah. I will say I actually had one of the only pleasant transatlantic flights on a 777, because

Starting point is 00:57:38 I was booked in a row that had no one else in it. Oh, I've done that, yeah. And I'm just like, oh, you know, I't have, actually I'm turning my webcam on just for this, hold on. Oh yeah, oh, hey Toots, bring me two martinis. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uh yeah. I was too young to drink unfortunately. Oh buddy, I'm sorry. did do was I read catch 22 cover to cover for the first time. Oh, you had a good flight.

Starting point is 00:58:06 That was a really good flight. It was also during the daytime. There was no turbulence. It was fantastic. It's a rare flight experience these days. Yeah, yeah, I flew the only I've only flown a triple seven to from like Toronto to Tokyo, which is kind of a weird route. But it was rather smooth.

Starting point is 00:58:24 And the snack, the pre landing snack was cup noodles. So ultimately I'm not complaining about that. That sounds pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty good. I mean like 13 hour time time difference is fucking crazy, but that's a different problem. That sounds like it sucks. Yeah, it did. The cup noodle sounds like way better than the standard airline fare. Yeah, this was their Canada. This was Air Canada, so like we're obviously, we're still in North America. We're out of the US and are like worst airlines on earth, but we are still in North America. Yeah, they take away the poutine. They give you the cup noogle.

Starting point is 00:58:56 That's about right, actually. So basically, basically the 777 was a very good plane. And the MD-11 was very comfortable for customers, but the airlines hated it. ALICE So, the previous slide, like, passing the Triple Seven on the nose and bopping the MD-11 with a newspaper. SPRAYING IT WITH A SPRAY BOTTLE. SEAN And also, then the MD-11 killed a bunch of people with the Swiss Air flight, which was

Starting point is 00:59:26 considered a mechanical disaster until we found out it was the in-flight entertainment system which Boeing didn't build. ALICE The what? What? ALICE I mean, not to kind of preempt a future episode there, but this is... LIAM Did someone push the wings fall off button on the chair? ALICE Yeah! This is the terror that I have!

Starting point is 00:59:42 It's like, I'm gonna select the wrong movie and one of the engines drops off. I will give as brief a rundown on this as I can, so, uh, Swiss- Okay, say no more, say no more, that's the future episode. You could just play some mood music over that for a second. Thank you so much. Moving on. I could come music over that for a second, thank you so much. Moving on. I could come back for that one.

Starting point is 01:00:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, so, the MD-11 was considered kind of a failure for a lot of reasons, that was one of them, even though it turned out to kind of be fake, but whatever. At least in terms of McDonald Douglas' problem, I said Boeing earlier, I was wrong. How dare you, oh, execution. Sorry, Maya, you have to be killed now. That's okay, Douglas's problem. I said Boeing earlier, I was wrong. How dare you? Oh, execution. Sorry, Maya. You have to be killed now. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. Because that's a good segue. Next slide, please. Oh, no.

Starting point is 01:00:35 1997, McDonald Douglas has a commercial airline or airplane division that is failing, and a defense division that is absolutely fucking massive, from every, from every respect. ALICE This is the thing, if you're kind of in the civilian airliner business, and the military aircraft business, and your tagline for both is, we'll kill you, that's only gonna work as a sales pitch for one of them. SEAN This is true, yeah. Boeing was on a bit of a corporate buyout for you by this point, they're a lot of them. I will have the McDonald Douglas, we'll kill ya, t-shirt up on sale by the time this goes

Starting point is 01:01:17 out. Yeah, let me know, I can help you commission that. I don't know if it's commissioning, if it's us doing it, but yeah. Well, no, I would like to commission a little illustration of an MD-11 with the like, third engine just flying off, you know. I was gonna say, I've done shirt designs for you guys, I could do that, but I can't make the plane explode, unfortunately. Boeing has fucking billions of dollars and aren't sure what to do with it, so they

Starting point is 01:01:45 just start buying out everybody. Yeah, me when I start buying planes, cause I'm bored. Yep. Uh, they buy North American Aviation from Rockwell, uh, that's mostly a defense company, I think it was entirely a defense company by this point, actually. Yeah, this is the bit where they kill all of the, like, beloved names that were last heard of, uh, when, like, your great grandpa was flying against a Japanese carrier air group, where you're like, oh man, not Chance Vought,

Starting point is 01:02:11 or whatever. And to be clear, I love that shit. But, mm. JUSTIN This is just like, uh, they're the Macy's of airplanes. SEAN That's true, actually. If you have to use the sentence, my airplane is what you could call an institution, we might be struggling a bit here, oh my god. ALICE You're McDonald Douglas to die?

Starting point is 01:02:34 ALICE Do I want... we'll kill ya. ALICE It's just a real Apollo 13 looking motherfucker with the shirt sleeves and the pocket protector and the crew cut being like, we'll kill you. Then I'll walk home directly in a straight line. I like the Macy's metaphor actually, that's pretty funny because you have one of the Philadelphia department stores that got bought up by them completely, but also they did that to Kaufman's on this side of the state. So it's relatable to both of the Pennsylvania experiences.

Starting point is 01:03:10 Oh yeah, and then, you know, Wanamakers was, you know, when they were under United Department stores, at least they let them keep the brand and then Macy's came in and was like, no, fuck you. Yeah, they did that well. And now, you know, a couple weeks ago they closed down the Center City store and who knows what's gonna happen to the organ anyway Yeah, so Boeing buys North American they also decide to buy McDonald Douglas Which And you know, this is so this gave them like a not a monopoly, but it gave them a pretty

Starting point is 01:03:46 And you know, this gave them, not a monopoly, but it gave them a pretty powerful foothold in the defense, like a controlling interest in defense contracts. ALICE I don't appreciate that they've lined up the two planes there side by side, they should be facing each other like they're kissing. JUSTIN Oh yeah, that's a good point. SEAN It's true actually, yeah. So, yeah, they have a large, not monopoly, but close to it on defense aircraft. The only other major contractor is Lockheed Martin, which, not as big at this point in history.

Starting point is 01:04:15 Anyway. But they have a Skunk Works and Boeing doesn't. That's true. Yeah. They also did the Blackbird, which makes them much cooler than anything Boeing could ever make. We don't even know what part of Boeing smells bad. I have been to the assembly plants in Everett, I can assure you that it does smell, that

Starting point is 01:04:33 it smells bad there. Actually, okay, I'm gonna brief side-check, cause I mentioned that, but my favorite part of that tour was, the tour guide at one point is showing us the 7-6 assembly line or what of it, or what there is of it. And our tour guide, who was like this, who was this transgender twink holding a can of Monster. ALICE & JUSTIN Oh yeah? I love Washington.

Starting point is 01:04:58 SEAN Yeah. Uh, points to an aircraft on the assembly line and says that it's bound for Air China. Then I look at it and it has the China Airlines logo on the side of it. Um, which is, you know, that's a geopolitical problem you just started there. ALICE & LIAM LAUGH Ah, one of them. But, Boeing does support the one China policy, it's just not gonna say which one. Good enough. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:05:23 It was, they actually had an exhibit in the little, in their like head house for guests. So that was like Boeing in China, 50 year anniversary. And it had like the red, the red stars graphics and everything. It was incredible. It was a little weird. Um, so the board of directors of the merged, uh, Boeing, McDonald Douglas company was largely consistent with the McDonald Douglas board after this, and once 2003 comes around they would actually replace the CEO of Boeing with the CEO, former CEO of McDonald Douglas. ALICE The Master Plan. Make a bad airplane, and then infiltrate like a grub, like a worm, like a sort of like,

Starting point is 01:06:03 cordyceps,ps you infiltrate the more successful company. Yeah. Yeah. Now I understand that all y'all have been making very good airplanes here, but we're gonna fuck that up. Have you considered making bad airplanes? So this is the point that most people point to for when Boeing starts getting bad is when

Starting point is 01:06:26 they move from Seattle to Chicago, which was 2001. And now they're in Crystal City, right? Not yet, but they will be. Oh crap. God, no one should be there. Just demolish the neighborhood. Put Potomac Yard back up. Burn it.

Starting point is 01:06:43 Burn it. Straight down. neighborhood put the Potomac yard back up. Yes. I wrote an article about this which is where the idea for the slide deck came from but is Boeing moving to be very close to the Pentagon is very on brand. Yeah. Also interesting from a business standpoint because like I want to talk about this in a minute but like their commercial business their commercial business now was interesting to look at. As a matter of fact, I have this written in the notes here because it's relevant now because

Starting point is 01:07:09 in the year 2000, the Boeing commercial airplanes, their portfolio was the 737 Classic and Next Generation. They made both of them. Those are the 300, 400, 500 and 600, 700, 800 variants. They're very common. They gotta give them names. It's giving me 800 variants. They're very common. They got to give them names. It's giving me a headache. They're very common.

Starting point is 01:07:28 If you flown Southwest, you know what a triple, you know, what a 737 next gen looks like. Yes, they had the 747, which was on the 400 variant by this point. They had the 757 and the 767 and the triple seven. And they were still building MD11s, just the freighters. And they were building the seven one seven, which was, which was known as the Mc, the Mcdonald Douglas MD 95 when it was being developed. But then Boeing bought out the company and most people thought they were going to kill

Starting point is 01:07:58 the project because it is, it fills the same market and he says the seven three seven, they didn't. And I don't think we really know why why have one when I could have two it seems like you know if if I want if I were an airline and I needed some airplanes I could go to Boeing and I could get a wide variety of different aircraft yes which were all very good yes you could go to Boeing and you could buy a Boeing or you could go to Boeing You buy a McDonald Douglas. So, you know, that's Show me the bad planes. Yeah, actually can I get a bad plane? Can you show me to the bad side of the lot yeah, what What can I do to put you in a McDonnell Douglas today?

Starting point is 01:08:49 The seven ones fly right off the lot. Boeing has kind of done that before, but regardless, well, I, the seven, three, seven max, where they had all of them parked like a fucking car dealership lot As quite famously seen in pictures and also later in the slideshow that I forgot I included there Um, yeah, the 717 I don't know why it existed delta loves them I kind of like flying on them because I like the t-tail, you know, the ones with the engines at the back They're loud, but they're fun. They could stall in exciting ways. They can. That's true. There was that one regional flight that the two regional pilots took up to 50,000 feet, it was like a jackass stunt and then crashed it.

Starting point is 01:09:35 Just, flying with either of you sounds like a nightmare, because as we're about to get on I'm craning my neck to read the reassuring text, and then one of you like claps in the shower and goes, hey, did you know that this can stall in an entirely like new way? ALICE LAUGHS. Well, that last one I was talking about didn't kill any passengers, just the two pilots, which just kind of... Yeah, it was like a ferrying flight, right? And they were just like, oh, let's see what it can do.

Starting point is 01:10:03 ALICE LAUGHS. I think, I believe they literally said that actually was a CRJ so if you ever so it was also a tiny plane so additional suffering there you were dying in the smallest plane imagine I don't want to do that it was like the one that flipped over the Delta one that flipped over in Toronto earlier this year but like even smaller because it was an older one okay that's the end of the McDonald Douglas slide. So next slide. Starting in back to the 777 specifically, starting in the 1997, they would start designing what they

Starting point is 01:10:38 called the second generation of 777 models, which were the, they wanted to extend the range of the 200. They wanted to extend the range of both of them, basically. The code name for this project was the triple seven dash X, which is not to be confused with the triple seven X that is the main subject of this slideshow. What? This is a different X. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Here on X, the everything plane. That's true. an X yes yeah yes you're on X the everything plane that's true they were also building the 747 dash X and the MD 11 dash X was it had been in development I don't know this

Starting point is 01:11:13 is a bit of an Elon Musk thing going on here I don't quite understand it it's dance are exciting ways to die it's true these planes were fine though. You probably were not gonna die on them. Shut the hell up. The 777-300X which became the 300ER which you're looking at now, thank God. They launched that in 2000. They launched the Dash 200LR long-range in 2005. I don't actually quite know why they called it that off the top of my head so Er is extended range in the air. Our is LR is long range. I don't know the difference though Well, is it like an EP versus an LP? I mean, that's the only thing I could really Yeah, I forget which one is longer there. There's all the LP is longer Yeah, the LP is like, is usually like a full

Starting point is 01:12:05 12 inch album. Okay. I'm actually going to look this up real quick on the range because I'm vaguely curious. Okay, so the triple seven so the 200 er extended range can go065 nautical miles, which is 8,130 miles. There's a kilometers number as well, that's not important. That's not real. Yeah. That's not a real measurement, yeah. The long range one can go 8,555 nautical miles or 9,845 miles.

Starting point is 01:12:40 So yeah, the long range is longer than the extended range. I'm not sure, I don't know. I'm quite confused here. And I'm the one that wrote the slides. That feels like about as long as I need to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I need to go longer than that. Yeah. Because this is what this I'm trying to remember. I think this is what Singapore Airlines used for their like 28 hour route for directly to the US, which they don't fly anymore. That sounds like hell. Yeah, it does.

Starting point is 01:13:10 Yeah, they don't fly it anymore for a good reason. Also it was very expensive because why wouldn't it be? Yeah, these second generation aircraft are also perfectly normal planes with no major issues and were popular with the airlines loved them as well. Can't say anything bad about them. They have a, the code name was very stupid, but otherwise that's pretty much it. By the time the 200 LR enter service though,

Starting point is 01:13:33 it's still a 10 year old design. So, you know, they got to get started working on like the replacement for them, by which I mean a derivative because Boeing doesn't build anything new anymore. Right. Yes. With the exception of the next slide, which was to replace the 767 and also try and claw back the market share they had lost to the a330 very rapidly Even in the US notably but also in Europe You know US Airways and Northwest for both major airlines by this point and the A330

Starting point is 01:14:06 you could train their crews on the cockpit of an A320 and they could also use the cockpit of an A330. It saved money for everybody. So suddenly the Europeans are rather popular with airlines in the US with the exception of those that want to preserve their American only heritage, which at the time was a concerning amount of them like trying to think in the mid-2000s United Delta Alaska and American with except for one type of plane were all Boeing only because they were in the US and we have civic pride here

Starting point is 01:14:37 Yes, yes, this is true. I mean, you know, there's nothing we love more than a monopoly Yeah, it's patriotic to be a What's that called a? Corp or talk to see whatever. Yeah, whatever they ran in the nouveau start in Portugal corporate us Yeah, sure Hey, don't be sassy To be fair, we also bought most of our regional jets from Canada So it was more like a more like a NAFTA a court protocracy than what you know, that

Starting point is 01:15:09 the 51st state. That's true. I shouldn't even say that. Now, oh, God, the pain. Yeah. So to replace the 75 and 76 and try to beat the shit out of the A330, they do the 787, they launched that in 2003, it's pictured here in the last good airline livery. SEAN- Air China.

Starting point is 01:15:35 ALICE- Yes. Yeah, it's just like, well... ALICE- Because they designed it once, and it was good, and they stuck with it. SEAN- That's how communism works. ALICE- That's right. SEAN JUSTIN Yeah. They've never had to rewrite Das Kapital. ALICE No.

Starting point is 01:15:48 No. Marx did in fact consider this. JUSTIN Yeah. No, that's always what happens when you read the books, it's like, oh, no, Marx did think of that. ALICE Yeah. It's in there. JUSTIN Yeah.

Starting point is 01:16:00 The Boeing 777X? It's in there. ALICE So, the fucking moon in the sky Now that's in there too, hang on I clean my glasses, okay, we're good The seat whenever they announce this by the time they announce the 787 CEO Boeing is the old CEO of McDonald Douglas that oversaw the MD 11 development. So Boeing is the old CEO of McDonald Douglas that oversaw the MD 11 development. So Boeing management tells engineering to build it for less than 40% of the cost it took to develop the triple seven and

Starting point is 01:16:37 Target construction costs at like 60% of what it cost to build Listen guys, I know you guys built the perfect airplane, God's own airplane, honestly, the pinnacle achievement of human civilization, but could you do it a lot cheaper? ALICE & LIAM LAUGH This is very, like, Soviet decision making, you know? To respond to the good thing by being like, wow, it's very expensive. JUSTIN It's very expensive to do this well. What if we did it really bad? ALICE Bad and cheap, hell yeah.

Starting point is 01:17:14 SEAN Could do an episode on Soviet airliners, actually that would be an interesting one. JUSTIN Oh yeah. That would be a fun one. SEAN You've talked about the 144, the Concorde knockoff before, if I remember right. Yes. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:17:29 Very, yeah, that was only like a couple slides though. Probably do a whole one on that. Yeah, you could do a lot of the Russian planes you can, which is funny because, you know, Aeroflot is like we're going to an all Russian fleet in five years whenever they have one Russian plane in their fleet Right now it's very funny. I was about to say yeah those Illusion is not making too many planes right now. I understand. Yes, and I don't think Antonov is gonna work with them Antonov mostly needs to work with themselves and stop getting executives arrested for not flying the big boy out

Starting point is 01:18:07 Well, they can't they blew it up. Well, yeah, but the president they didn't fly it out beforehand and oh Ukrainian government was very unhappy about this. I don't quite know. I think everyone was unhappy about well, yes The Ukrainian government arrested them for it. I'm not quite sure of the details there. It seems a little strange, but it was a cool plane Somebody deserves to be punished for that. I need to know more about this now. Yeah. Yeah This is very interesting. Okay, they have three Russian planes in their fleet right now, but none of them are long They have a two Yakovlev aircraft and they have ordered Some of the Tupolevs that the North Koreans fly. I think only like, uh, Cubana has like a Soviet widebody at this point.

Starting point is 01:18:53 I think that's true. Um, they have, um, what was it? The IL-96 and 86 were like the, those were the big Soviet designs. Cubana has the 96, but I think that one's technically Russian? Yeah, because it was 1992. But it was a Soviet design. Anyway, it doesn't matter. It's a plane that also isn't very good.

Starting point is 01:19:12 Yeah, it's like four engines, right? Yes. Yeah, they didn't have ETOPS in the Soviet Union. It looks like a... It looks like an E340. ETOPS in Soviet Parliament stands for Engine's Turn or Pilot's Shot. Ah. Anyway.

Starting point is 01:19:32 Back to my topic. So they cut the costs of the... fuck. Cut the design and construction costs of the 787. It gets delayed 787, it gets delayed a bunch of times. We consider it was considered like a long and ridiculous delay at the time. Not really anymore in hindsight. And I mean, whenever these planes did finally start existing, it was like 2011 and they were mostly fine, except they would catch fire sometimes when nobody died.

Starting point is 01:20:09 It was only it only ever happened on the ground. That was an okay plane at the time. So once they launched that management takes a step back and realizes, oh, shit, this A320 thing has started to become a bit of a major problem. Yes. That it's very, very popular with airlines in the US and they had also announced the re-engine version, the A320 Neo family. You know, the A321 Neo is like what Delta sticks me on

Starting point is 01:20:38 every time I need to fly to Seattle now. It's kind of a boring aircraft. I don't like it too much. I also don't like it very much. Yeah, it's not the worst thing in the world. Every time I've gotten on one, the seatback entertainment has had, I saw the TV glow and I've watched it I think every time. God.

Starting point is 01:20:53 I genuinely can't imagine watching that movie more than once. When I'm on an airplane, I always watch the same movie, which is Airplane. That's true. This is reasonable. Yeah. Which is airplane? That's true. This is reasonable. Yeah So what the the a 320 neo family it was quickly like the quickest selling airliner of all time period We're in about 2011 by this point. Those are projected to start flying like in the mid to late to 2010s so they just so

Starting point is 01:21:27 Eventually, they wake up after American Airlines places in order for like a billion of them and they're like oh shit that's our best company we can't do that so then they start working on a re-engine version of the 737 which will take us to the next slide was of that was of course the 737 Max yes plane that needs no introduction this this is always a confusing one Which takes us to the next slide, was of course the 737 MAX. Plane that needs no introduction. JUSTIN This is always a confusing one, because you would think, okay, maybe you at least start with the newer airframe, the 757. And nah, nah, we're just gonna do another 737, guys.

Starting point is 01:21:59 You know, it's just because it's like, a billion years old. ALICE They really wanted to make a Well There's Your Problem episode. And they did. ALICE And who could blame them? JUSTIN Yeah. JUSTIN Just cause people who were, when this airframe was designed, there were still people who were alive who shook the hands of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Yeah, it's probably not accurate, but close enough.

Starting point is 01:22:23 ALICE Was Brunel looking at this and is like, where do you keep the giant lengths of chain? SEAN Where is the coal bunker? ALICE Show it to me! SEAN So, the 737 MAX pictured here, don't ask why they're all lined up like that, goes very well for them, and is never the centre of controversy ever again. SEAN Oh, yeah, there's never been a problem with the step 37. That was a 13, baby

Starting point is 01:22:47 Yeah, I was gonna say which is why it's been on it was on one of the like first episodes of this I believe that was episode 12 a call that's right It was like 60 years ago now. So yeah So after they introduced after they they create God's greatest 737 that will never do any wrong, which I'm not going to spend any time on because I could for a long time, but I'm not going to. After they do that, their executives come together and realize, oh, we're also getting our asses beat by the A350, the wide-body sort of triple 7 competitive Airbus aircraft, which that had been announced, I, it had been, that had been like announced,

Starting point is 01:23:26 I'm trying to think, I think it had been announced in like 2006. And most, and they had gotten, and like the 777 had narrowed down to very few orders by this point, whereas the A350s were getting ordered by, like, hotcakes. Sorry, I'm pulling up. Yeah, it's like, lived by wire, now. It's true. Yeah. Sorry, I had to look up the table. Airplanes.

Starting point is 01:23:50 Get your airplanes. Airplanes here. Get them on a stick. So if you look at the development of new aircraft, they will usually be unveiled at like the Dubai Air Show, and they will usually be they will usually be and usually like Boeing or Airbus executives will be like flanked by CEOs of like Emirates and everybody who is ordering a shit ton of these. I hate when I order an airplane at the ballpark and they they throw me the airplane and it enters a Fugoid cycle and lands on somebody's lap like two rows down.

Starting point is 01:24:24 It's true. is a Fugoid cycle and lands on somebody's lap like T-Rose now. It's true. I'm just there with the CEO of Turkish Airlines and also Eric Adams. The A350 is a plane I don't have much to say about. They replaced the old interflug A310s that became the German Air Force One. So I'm a little annoyed about that, but otherwise it's fine. ALICE It was so cool that the German Air Force One was full of rats, and was built by communists. That's genuinely true.

Starting point is 01:24:55 It was called Konrad-Adenauer, and it was full of rats. It had rats. There were rats in there. And Merkel was like, why are there rats in my plane, please get the rats out of my plane, and they're like, we cannot. this is something that we got from the East Germans. SEAN Yeah, yeah, because, yeah, Interflug had wanted to stop buying Soviet aircraft, with the softening of relations and all, so they bought the A310

Starting point is 01:25:18 and got two of them and then ceased to exist like a year later. ALICE There's a lesson there, isn't there, about revisionism. SEAN Yeah, that's true, that's true. SEAN That's true. ALICE What they should have done is put cats on the airplane. ALICE Oh, I love cats. SEAN That would have taken care of the rats.

Starting point is 01:25:31 It's true. ALICE Yeah, and then maybe you get like a cat problem, but that's fine, you know. SEAN That's fine, it'd be great to have a cat problem. ALICE Yeah, exactly. Fuck you. ALICE Get on German Air Force One, and you're like, why does it smell like cat in here, why is everything covered in cat fur?

Starting point is 01:25:45 And there's cats all over the plane. SEAN They're not gonna chew through the wiring, it's fine. ALICE That's true. SEAN No, they might, Toby's real stupid. ALICE Oh my god, he took a shit on top of the autopilot controls. SEAN So yeah, after the 737 MAX launches the executives have to go back, so they put their greatest

Starting point is 01:26:09 minds together and in 2013 they had come up with, next slide, the next generation of the 777, instead of anything I actually knew, was the 777X, well, was the 7779X and the 777-9X and the 777-8X. I think these people just like letters and numbers at this point. You built a composite aircraft, just iterate on that! I don't know why- No, we're gonna go back to a twenty year old airframe. I don't know why they've done a kind of like faux Junkers corrugated fuselage thing here. This is, that's just like the regular Boeing livery now, which is ugly as shit, but I don't

Starting point is 01:26:49 really know. It's supposed to evoke real American manufacturing, like the Bud Company. Evokes patriotic American Hugo Junkers. Say what you want about Bud, but they didn't build the Horizon railcars. Yeah, that's true. That was Pullman's standard. And, um, I should have put that in the goddamn news. Oh shit.

Starting point is 01:27:12 Oh, terrible. But, yeah, the, uh, whatchamacallit. Um, yeah, all those Bud cars are still gone. Where are the Boeing planes? That's right, in a boneyard. Maybe if they did try corrugating them for real. I don't know. Put some stainless steel fluting on the outside of the panel.

Starting point is 01:27:28 Yeah. This is my... it's a new thing, make the thing more rigid, but also corrugate it. Yes. So, they announced this, they sort of soft launched this in 2013 or so, it doesn't get formally announced until like 2015. It's written on there, September 2015. Notably, this is because as far as I can tell, it took them two years to find a company to order them.

Starting point is 01:27:55 Just like, we gotta find some kind of Rube willing to buy our stupid aircraft and into the room walks. Hey guys, what if you wanted an old plane but it was new? It's like a throwback, except, y'know, bad. It's true. Throwback. You pay the price of like a fully new aircraft, but for an old design. There are actually some really funny names in the list of people that ordered this, but it's relevant later so I'm not gonna say it now.

Starting point is 01:28:27 Rude number one, though. Lufthansa. Yes. Yes. The Germans are the first ones. I'm honestly not really sure why, but then again they still fly the 747 and I'm honestly not really sure why, so. Just pre and post reunification, both Germanys and the reunified Germany all

Starting point is 01:28:47 making really weird aircraft purchasing decisions. Yeah. Yeah, they still fly the A380, even, which is, I was gonna say very strange for a European airline, but British... No, British Airways does, but they're not a European airline. So I can say that. No, yeah, it's because of Brexit, you know? Been eliminated from the card, and... It see that. Because of Brexit, you know? But eliminated from the continent.

Starting point is 01:29:06 It's true. Whoa, sorry. I can't remember, Air France might still fly some more, but I'm not gonna make fun of the French right now, that's something for later. So they announced the launch order with Lufthansa and they promised that they'll reveal more at the Dubai Air Show. I didn't realize I'd written that down earlier when I first said that earlier. But Hi, it's Justin. So this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to.

Starting point is 01:29:39 People are annoyed by these. So let me get to the point. We have this thing called Patreon, right? The deal is you give us two bucks a month and we give you an extra episode once a month. Sometimes it's a little inconsistent but you know it's two bucks you get what you pay for. It also gets you our full back catalog of bonus episodes so you can learn about exciting topics like guns, pickup trucks, or pickup trucks with guns on them. The money we raise through Patreon goes to making sure that the only ad you hear on this podcast is this one. Anyway, that's something to consider if you have two bucks to spare each month. Join at patreon.com forward slash WTYP pod. Do it if you want or don't.

Starting point is 01:30:27 It's your decision and we respect that. Back to the show. They had introduced the aircraft in 2013, but it did take them like two years to find somebody to buy it, to order it. That's brutal. Yeah. So please somebody, anybody. You guys have heard of you guys haven't heard of this new airline. We're calling it a knee.

Starting point is 01:30:54 Neowab. Well, but back back back whenever we first got anti like anti monopoly laws before that, Boeing and United Airlines were the same company. You can't do that anymore. You can't do that anymore in this country. And notably, of course, United did not buy this plane. Oh, that's brutal.

Starting point is 01:31:19 This was like the 30s. They also had the United Technical Corporation, the one with the weird logo. Anyway, oh, good. The UTC. So by 2015, they have something in terms of like a timeline and they have these renderings. All of them are in like this red livery that I've shown you. None of them are actually painted in that for some reason. I kind of like the red.

Starting point is 01:31:42 Yeah. I mean, it's better than the blue that they eventually use, which is like the standard Boeing one. But I don't know. It's weird. They use the red on the seven. I want to say on the seven four seven. I'm not sure like the seven four seven dash eight. So they they're showing this to airlines. This form you can see here. I can't I can't draw around it, but it's from the Paris Air Show that year. They are handing this out to industry dipshits, anybody who really wanted one. Please buy our plane.

Starting point is 01:32:13 So by this point they're looking to introduce this plane in 2020. Sure. After a mere seven years. Yes. Right. We'll come back to that. Hang on, Britain's calling me. One years. Yes. Yeah, we will come back to that the Now it's just the two of us cool keep going

Starting point is 01:32:36 Yeah, sure sure They show off they show this off The finalized design they start showing off around to that late 2015 early 2016 ish It is specifically designed to compete with the A350. It can also be long enough to compete with the 747, which is kind of- It just comes in any length you want. You want it just like the tail butting right up against the back of the wings. We can do that. Yes.

Starting point is 01:32:57 You want it like a mile long, we can do that too. Aerodynamics never heard of them. So it's actually funny because it was kind of, it was kind of, it was too big of an airplane in its original design and as a result it had to have... It was classified with all of the 747 and the A380 in planes that need extended facilities and hangars. They would come up with a novel solution for this, which is on the next slide so I won't spoil it, especially since I can't switch slides.

Starting point is 01:33:25 I'm back. It was about golf. Oh, hell yeah. I was being called about fucking golf. Incredible. Phenomenal. Truly insane. What did I miss when I was out for those 30 seconds?

Starting point is 01:33:36 The 777X is a variable length from three feet long to infinity. Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. That fucks. All right. I like infinity. Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, alright, that fucks. Alright, I like it. Yeah, okay. Big accordion plane, it just like extends out like the bellows on an old camera. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:33:52 And it makes that noise too. Oh, that's crazy how it does that. I gotta get one of them cameras that does the... Yeah. The bellowing thing. I suck like this now. I only shoot the cheapest film camera as you can imagine, so that would be an interesting departure from form.

Starting point is 01:34:14 So anyways, this is, as far as Boeck is concerned, this is 777X, the everything plane. Wow. We were really leading up to that one. So anyways, it's designed to compete with the A350, which is obviously never going to do because the A350 has about a decade ahead start. And also the seven, the time to replace the seven four sevens, which it's also never going to do because that's stupid. Like it's a one story aircraft, but it's also never going to do, because that's stupid. It's a one story aircraft, but it's really long. It's not super great in terms of, like, maintenance and things, because you have to build it with the wings, and you have to build it off the ground. It looks like it's having a tail strike in the image that they're using.

Starting point is 01:35:01 This also is not the longest one, this is the 7779. Jesus Christ. You you know they should clearly what they should do is start segmented into like flexible you know different airplanes and just chain them all together yeah yeah exactly like yeah or just like a train in the sky what is this yes What is it? The plane, but it... Yeah. Yeah, Skytrain. That's, uh, that's what, the C-47? Anyway. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They, um, so they, the really long one, the 777-10, uh, X-10, 10X, Jesus fuck. Um.

Starting point is 01:35:36 Listen, I'm, I'm, I'm losing the ability to count at this point, so don't worry about it. I need, I really need them to do a new plane. They're not going to build that unless there's interest in it, zero orders have been placed for it so far. Oh, doing it as like a crowdfunded, like a kickstarting my Boeing. Oh, that'll be the, when we get really big and we can afford a big jet like fucking Iron Maiden we'll get a big jet like fucking Iron Maiden, we'll get

Starting point is 01:36:06 a triple 710. Yeah! One airline in the future, Singapore, tells them that they might be interested, but I think Boeing tells them that they're not just gonna build it for the one airline, so they just kind of don't order it. I also don't really know why Singapore Airlines would want them. It's kind of a pity order. Maybe they have height restrictions at the airport.

Starting point is 01:36:30 No, because they fly... Singapore has the A380 still, I think. I might be wrong about that. They hate them if they still have them, but they might... Yeah, they do. So, when the Dubai Air Show comes around, which is November 2015, Boeing announces orders from Emirates, who orders 150, Qatar Airways, who orders 50, and Etheod. I've never really been sure how to pronounce that. They ordered 25 and several other airlines ordered smaller ones. You'll notice that all of those are like Middle Eastern Gulf Coast operators. Mm, famously very responsible with their money. This will continue to be important. You gotta do, you gotta recycle the patch of dollars somehow. This is a plain equivalent of a Gucci belt.

Starting point is 01:37:33 Yeah, actually, that's where I'm eventually going with this. So we'll get there. But they only ordered, there was a total of 259 plane orders, which are from every airline, which is almost like a normal amount for an airliner being launched. But somehow, because of how expensive they were, this was the most expensive deal for an air for airliner orders in history. Totaling well, yeah, ninety five billion dollars at retail price. And it seemed like Boeing wasn't really cutting them any wasn't cutting any deals for buying more than a few of them, which is not a good way to do business in this industry, because like, you know, Airbus got their foothold in the U S by offering deals to American carriers.

Starting point is 01:38:12 And suddenly, shit, now everybody flies the funny Airbus planes everywhere. Um, being a rigid manufacturer who builds your planes to the spec that nobody wants and refuses to compromise on the price of them Yeah, not a great position to be in. We'll never surrender. So the woke Airbus mob One of the every time you say this I add another pronoun to the plane That's what the instead of instead of the Acknowledgement to light up the engines now

Starting point is 01:38:54 Instead of calling it the arse or the cockpit calls you know some sort of pronoun esoteric pronoun. Yeah One of you sis He calls you sis. One of the not launch customers, but early customers, was the official airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Because it was 2015, and they could do that. Ah, a little bit of a thul. You know, the JCPOA was kicking off. This was the Obama era, things were, uh, cool, and somebody somewhere decided that Iran could

Starting point is 01:39:28 buy planes again, and then they couldn't. This order- Just the entire history of US-Iran relations since the revolution is just a series of rug pulls on each side. No, you hang up! Just like, oh, no you don't. Nope. Fuck you, buddy.

Starting point is 01:39:48 I couldn't remember how many Iran Air bought, but it was very funny. I tried to include a picture of one of them in the Iran Air livery in the slide, but nobody ever seemed to have actually mocked that up, which is a shame. They ordered 15 of them, which is a lot, considering how expensive they were. I was about to say, I feel like Iran Air is not necessarily in great financial... What, with cash, yeah? ...situation, yeah. Okay, that year they ordered fifty 737 Max's, fifteen regular 777s, and fifteen of these

Starting point is 01:40:20 guys. Wow. Jesus. Obviously none of those were ever delivered. Oh. Of course. Wow. Obviously none of those were ever delivered. Oh. Of course. Wow. A typical American reliability.

Starting point is 01:40:28 They never formally cancelled that order, but I don't think it's on the books anymore, as funny as it would be to be including that in the order number. So next slide. We're gonna fix relations with Iran before they finish developing the aircraft. Yeah. It'll be the, yeah, the, yeah, the the it'll be like the friendship bridge will just be the friendship. Seven, the triple seven. Yes. Yes.

Starting point is 01:40:51 So they sometime in 2016, they changed the design to include this the folding wingtip, which you can see here is a pointy thing. I've read a fair amount about this aircraft and I'm not super certain what the aerodynamic purpose is I thought it was so they could fit it in existing gates yeah this is okay I I did say this a minute ago yes the triple 7x was too big that it was had to be like 747 and a 380 gates but if they did but yes if they did this, it didn't, they could fold the wingtips up

Starting point is 01:41:29 and it would actually fit at a gate or a hanger and things. Which seems like a bit of a cheat. Feel like you shouldn't be able to do that with an aircraft, I don't know. Listen, it's what they say in NASCAR, you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'. Right, yeah, of course, obviously. So yeah, the A350 has the regular like folded wingtip types, the nice ones that like sort of generally

Starting point is 01:41:53 lift up the principles of aerodynamics and so forth. I'm not really the mindset that went into this is baffling to me, because it means that it is another part that will be very expensive to maintain because it is a mechanically operated bit of the plane. JUSTIN Yes. SEAN I don't know. I genuinely cannot get my head around this, but like... ALICE Bendy wing, bendy wing, who says no to a bendy wing? SEAN It's true.

Starting point is 01:42:20 ALICE Just an entire company with ADHD, just like, when I gotta put a bendy wing on the plane, cause I'm bored. That's true. And I want a bendy wing, and I want it to be two stories, and I want it to be purple, and I want it to be... They should have cookies when you take off. It's an airline that used to do that in the US, but they don't anymore, presumably because of woke or something. Yeah, terrible.

Starting point is 01:42:48 Nazis. But by this point in time, what Boeing was sort of trying to introduce the most technologically advanced long haul airplane. And they're also doing literally everything in their power to cut the production costs of it. How does this go for them? We'll get there. Okay. They also include that. They also build a system to automate the insertion of rivets into the fuselage

Starting point is 01:43:13 or fuselages. This is mainly to circumvent union labor. But it's entirely to circumvent union labor. Yes. Also, that sounds like something that's damn near impossible to do. I have good news for you because they they shut it down in like 2019. Turned out it was impossible to do. Boeing is like one of the one of the great anti-union warriors of this country in terms of stuff that we do for industry. That's why they built Boeing, South Carolina, which cannot build planes to save its life.

Starting point is 01:43:47 Good. Fuck you. No, I that's the problem with the seven eight seven. They build them all in South Carolina now and the quality assurance is so bad that Boeing actually cannot self certify that they're air were airworthy. The FAA has to do it for them. Incredible. It did that. Is that plant still non-union? Yes. Incredible. Did that, is that plant still non-union? Yes.

Starting point is 01:44:05 Wow. As far as I'm aware. I would have figured they would have managed to unionize it by now. South Carolina, I mean, they picked South Carolina because it's the least unionized state in the union. I guess that makes sense. They have been very aggressive in targeting union organizers in in this plant like they've been I am has taken them in front of the NLRB like a couple times about it but and like

Starting point is 01:44:35 Boeing has made them withdraw complaints in order to ratify a new contract it's fun it's all fucked in every sense right so yeah that we don't build seven 787s anymore because we wanted to use non-union labor, and it turns out they're not very good at it. LIAM Because of woke. SEAN Yes. Yeah. So yeah, this is the result. JUSTIN The woke is the foundation of American society, in a way.

Starting point is 01:45:01 ALICE Keeps the wings attached to the plane. Uh, the 737 Maxis were Union built, so it's not... we don't want to get too aggressive. Insufficiently woke unions. That's true. But we gotta pre-build the IWW. That's true. We need to arm everyone in the... what? How woke was the guy who designed the MCAS system, that's the real question.

Starting point is 01:45:26 Oh, okay. Well, that was outsourced, so actually probably non-union. Oh, yeah, well there's your problem. Hey, that's the name of the show! Wow. You get the show that we do? Good work, everybody. I can finally wrap it up, it's all been leading up to this.

Starting point is 01:45:40 Shove the shark. Glad to be here for the last episode of While There's a Problem. Just kidding, we have to make red dickheads. So they start production sort of somewhere around like 2017, 18-ish, just in sort of like assembling the first prototypes. This goes up until about 2019, they build the first, they roll out the first aircraft in March. They were still telling Lufthansa that they would get it by the summer of 2020.

Starting point is 01:46:13 Now, there's the obvious thing here, but also I want to maintain that the 787 was rolled out in June of 2007, and the first airline got theirs in 2011. So... was rolled out in June of 2007, and the first airline got theirs in 2011. ALICE Okay. It's been a minute. Yeah, so we're gonna do it... ALICE We forgot that you ordered those. JUSTIN We're gonna do it in a third of the time, it's gonna be fine. You know why?

Starting point is 01:46:33 There's no unions in the way. SEAN Well, they were building this in Everett, which is still union, but... But, with the automated non-union rivet inserters, so... JUSTIN I need a union rivet inserters, so I need a union rivet insert. We we have those. They're called machinists. Yeah. That's what I call me. I'll show you my rivet insertion.

Starting point is 01:46:54 Oh, my. I don't sigh at that. That was good. So anyways, they rolled this plan out. It is three days after the second 737 Max crash. So they did it with not the greatest amount of fanfare in the world, which is fair. I think that's called tact. I'm not really sure. No one noticed this.

Starting point is 01:47:17 Yeah, yes. Yeah, it wasn't me. I mean, that was, I mean, that was the defense Boeing had at the time, but like... It was the Shaggy defense. What was it? Was it just, we outsourced this? Sorry? No, it was about, it was the pilot error was initially what they blamed it for.

Starting point is 01:47:34 It was the Shaggy defense. Shaggy defense. Sure, sure, sure, sure. For both of them, the Ethiopian and the Lion Air one. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, that was, man, that was a fucked up time. But, um... That's brutal.

Starting point is 01:47:45 Uh, July of 2019 rolls around and Boeing tells folks that the first flight isn't gonna happen until 2020. They blame the engine manufacturers, which is GE, General Electric, for this. That wasn't me. Um, they tell airlines that they're still gonna get their planes by the end of 2020? No? Unlikely. I mean, everybody in 2020 had a lot of stuff going on that kinda distracted them, you know,

Starting point is 01:48:11 especially airlines. Well, they didn't know that was gonna happen yet. That is... yeah. Or did they? My god, it was airlines all along. It's engineering a global pandemic to distract from your shitty airplane. That's true. Genius.

Starting point is 01:48:34 So, September 2019 rolls around and on September 5th of that year, September 5th, 2019, Boeing and the FAA were working together in conducting one of the standard tests that they need for certification, called the Ultimate Load Test. It's just ensuring that the airframe can actually handle what it has been engineered to handle, the absolute maximum load pressure. Yeah, I imagine the way that this works is you get a bunch of test pilots in there throwing heavy boxes and tree weights and stuff around.

Starting point is 01:49:08 Trying to open the doors. LIAM Yeah, a bunch of, uh, what else? ALICE You do like a western saloon brawl in the back? LIAM Oh, you do one of those in the Zero Gravity test plane too. Yeah. You're gonna have some like comical spherical bombs go off in there. You're gonna have some, I don't know. Yeah, the saloon brawl actually I think should be a test. It's true.

Starting point is 01:49:37 Well, it's good to know because then you can test what bullet holes do to the fuselage when it's under pressure. That's a good point. Yeah. Overturning the bar, shoving the catering cart into someone's face, you know, rolling it down the aisle. So on the topic of what the aircraft does when it's under pressure in. So in the middle of this test, if you go to the next slide please, this is... ALICE Looks fine.

Starting point is 01:50:08 SEAN Yes. Uh, at... ALICE Looks good. Approved. SEAN Well, okay. At 99% of the ultimate load it did this, which is just short of what they would have needed to pass the test. It's not supposed to look like that, obviously.

Starting point is 01:50:26 ALICE What it is, is a guy got punched through the plate glass window of the plane. JUSTIN Yeah. After the bar top got knocked over, spilling all the drinks. ALICE So, for reference... JUSTIN How did Mongo do this? So for reference, the original 777 went up to 105%. The 787 had gone up to about 101%. And then they released the pressure because they didn't want the airframe to crack because

Starting point is 01:50:58 it was made of composites and therefore tends to release dusts that you don't really want whenever it does that. Yes. Notably the 777X is also made of composites. So something to consider. Everybody in there, besides a bunch of Tennessee whiskey, also got lungs full of asbestos. Yes. Wow. Just like the Bud Company, where every railroad car gave a shot, well, there's an exotic cancer.

Starting point is 01:51:23 That's why they lasted so long. They absorbed the souls of the men who worked on them. God. So yeah, when they get to 99%, which to be clear, is not the percentage that they needed to be, that was 100. That's one lower. Yes. One lower. It it a crack develops a pretty somewhere around the center line of the underside of the fuselage where the wings intersect it.

Starting point is 01:51:52 Which causes the fuselage to rapidly rupture, crack travels upwards to a passenger door and blows it out entirely in sort of an explosive decompression scenario. Except they were on the ground, but it was pressururized so it was an explosive decompression scenario. Getting Plyford Dolphin'd at zero feet altitude. As far as we're aware the door did fly out violently in the test hanger. I don't know. I don't think it would have caused any damage because, okay, to anything other than the airframe, but I

Starting point is 01:52:26 would assume the test stand is Situated in such a way that no one's going to get murdered if the plane fails Yes, catastrophic. So yeah The Seattle Times doesn't does not actually report this for a couple of weeks afterwards and they get this picture Which is the best quality I could find of it. Not sure why it's so low resolution To look like that. Yes. Yeah, correct Again, you should at least get to a hundred percent ultimate load before this happens Pretty close. Yeah

Starting point is 01:53:02 A for effort Well, actually the Seattle Times theorized that, the FAA was going to take the same approach and pass them forward anyway. As long as Boeing could show that they had fixed the problem on paper. Which of course on paper it said it could withstand this much to begin with. So I'm not... Wow. On paper, the same thing the plane was apparently made of.

Starting point is 01:53:26 Same as what? By the end of October, various setbacks, mainly this one, but like a lot of other production problems meant that the prospects for getting the aircraft like flight certified were pretty grim. Their projected delivery date at this point was 2022, which is a little more realistic than 2020. It's just also wildly unrealistic because again, five year gap from the first flight to the delivery of the 787, which was a much smoother process.

Starting point is 01:53:57 Now, ultimate load here, I would assume, is the normal load that would be expected on the aircraft plus quite a robust factor of safety. Yes, yeah, 50%. 50%? Yes. 100, 150. That's, I'm a civil engineer. I'm used to like two or three. 150% of regular maximum load, yes. Sorry. I forgot. This was an engineering podcast and didn't write that number down Also by the end of 2019 I did write this down here also at the end of 2019 They shut down the automated rivet insertion scab system Which is which was like two years old at this point not even well

Starting point is 01:54:41 Assholes they sort of quickly discovered that it didn't actually put the rivets in good. Took them two years for that? Not really certain. Some kind of Boeing John Henry trying to outdo the automated rivet machine. Going to town on the rivets, yeah. They're passing out and dying. That's like, wow, actually we can only use the planes he made. Because the machine does otherwise. These are shaking apart. Yeah. Yeah. Bad for you.

Starting point is 01:55:09 So yeah, so this wasn't great. This was a big production setback and a big PR setback, because of course, you know, there's some nuances there as to ultimate load versus practice versus what would actually be practically what an aircraft's practical load would be. But like you have a picture of the plane having basically exploded. That's not really good press for anybody.

Starting point is 01:55:29 Yes. So this wasn't great, but next slide. 2020 rolls around and they're looking for a new Boeing is looking for a clean slate. They're looking to move on from the 737 max failures because they were fixing it. And also to be prepared for a busy summer 2020 travel season. Oh yeah, I was feeling great in like, you know, when 2020 rolled around,

Starting point is 01:55:53 I was like, this is gonna be my year, I'm gonna do great, this is gonna be fantastic. No. Actually, yeah. Yeah. Oh, the house on days of early 2020. Yeah, like up until like, you know, the middle of January. It's like thinking about the house on days of 2016. Unfortunately, this was pretty short lived because January 18th, the Senate committee that is investigating the 737 max issues releases a set of emails from Boeing employees in one of them, they complained that the company is using the same parts distributor and software development

Starting point is 01:56:30 team that was doing stuff for the Max program and on an even tighter production schedule. Now this was mostly in this case of the 737, this was mostly for flight simulators. It's not really clear what they were doing for the triple 7 but like the outsource the contractor that made 737 max parts not a great company to be oh no especially in 2020 yeah that makes sense boeing comes out very quickly and says that there's nothing to worry about because the triple 7x Hell yeah, you love that response. 777X does not have the MCAS system? Okay, good to know. It's fine, don't worry about it.

Starting point is 01:57:10 Shut up! Does Gaslight have always been like this? Don't worry about it. Nobody had said anything about the MCAS system specifically. The plane's fine, don't worry about it, it doesn't have MCAS. Shut up, you shut up, you shut up. Why are you worrying? Stop worrying, the plane's gonna be fine.

Starting point is 01:57:25 It says that on the outside instead of the thing that it should say. The plane? The plane is fine. We haven't crashed any of them yet. Yeah, we've never left a one up there. That's true, they have not crashed any of the 777Xs yet. It's fine, don't worry. January 25th comes around at 1009 Pacific Daylight Time.

Starting point is 01:57:47 In a rare instance of that, not being a bad harbinger on this podcast, the plane actually takes off for the first time. That's what that's what this picture is from. I want to say the airport, Boeing's airport and manufacturing facility in Everett specifically. I have been there. It's an interesting place. It is where you will see all of these aircraft lined up ready to never go into service.

Starting point is 01:58:13 They build a second plane, which flies on April 30th. They build a third one, which flies on August 3rd. This is the most productive that the airplane has been to date and since then. Not really any major setbacks for the 777X program that year, which is admittedly kind of a reprieve considering between the 737 MAX and COVID.

Starting point is 01:58:33 They had lost $11.9 billion that year. Oh. And of course, a lot of corporate analysts will say that the 737 MAX was probably the most expensive corporate blunder in history, because it probably... indirect costs probably cost them somewhere north of sixty billion dollars. That's crazy. Jesus.

Starting point is 01:58:54 Oh my god. I think that was a Business Insider article. It was not a great time to be Boeing. It's still not a great time to be Boeing, Marne. You are Boeing to go bankrupt. That's still not a great time to be Boeing, Marnie. ALICE You love Boeing to go bankrupt. LIAM You're Boeing to lose subscriber. SEAN Now, Boeing would lose $11.9 billion this year, which is of course a very ridiculous amount of money exacerbated by the 737 Max and the 777X, so of course they're obviously never going to do it again.

Starting point is 01:59:24 Except in 2024 when they lost 11.8 billion. Oh my God. We could run it better than they're doing. Put us on the Boeing board. You are probably building an airplane. How hard can it be? How hard can it be? You are a great shut up. Now granted a lot of that last year was probably because of the extended work stoppage But like there was an easy solution for that. It was ratify a better contract. Yeah Well, it's weird that you know, they've done all this cost cutting in order to create an aircraft which is much more expensive Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point actually. It's it's you know

Starting point is 02:00:03 Sometimes you get what you pay for They have cost cuts to build a more expensive airplane while still losing billions of dollars every year and that I I think that's genuinely something a level of Incompetence to aspire to in the corporate world. That's me. I'm fishing allocation of resources I when I was in college, I took a class on value engineering to in the corporate world. That's me, baby. Most efficient allocation of resources. When I was in college I took a class on value engineering. Oh no. And in fact, they gave me a certificate afterwards.

Starting point is 02:00:32 And all I could think through the whole class was, oh gee, this is gonna cost a lot of money a long time from now. I admit it. So, you know, it's like, Oh God, I don't, I don't want to make this decision. I want to spend more money. I like spending money. Let me spend the money now so I don't have to spend it. So I'm not being sued into oblivion right 30 years from now. Right.

Starting point is 02:01:03 Right. Right. Right. Right. Right, right, right. In 20, in 2021, somewhere in January and whatever the quarterly earnings call, Boeing tells investors that it won't be ready until late 2023. They blame, they blame this on the pandemic, which you know, whatever, I don't care if it's valid or not. It's just kind of a rotating excuse wheel. It's quite funny to look at Just like roll a d20 to generate excuse. Whoa, whoa, whoa, does this say serious uncommanded pitch event? That's the next bullet point. Yes.

Starting point is 02:01:36 Listen, that could be an M-stake. Don't worry, it wasn't MCAS. On June 27th, 2021, the Seattle Times reports on a letter that was written to Boeing by the Federal Aviation Administration on May 13th and had been subsequently leaked to them. Sometime in late December 2020, on a test flight, aircraft experienced a quote, serious uncontrolled, fuck, serious uncommanded pitch event, close quote, which means either the plane went up or down without anybody telling it to do that. They said that they complained about that.

Starting point is 02:02:13 They complained about a few other issues that they didn't give enough detail, but we don't know anything about them as the public, which is nice to think about. They also, they talk about a general quote, lack of design maturity. Listen, the airplane at this point, the airframe is only about 30 years old. And I'm about the same age and yeah, sometimes I feel like, you know, maybe I'm not all there. So, you know. The FAA basically tells them that they're not going to certify that there's no way they're going to certify that aircraft until mid to late 2023.

Starting point is 02:02:53 They won't even let FAA officials on test flights until Boeing has done something to fix it. I don't think it was specific as to what it was. This basically means that by the Boeing timeline, the first delivery would be in 2024. I can't find anywhere that Boeing ever said anything about this letter being publicly released. Incredible. Didn't happen, not real.

Starting point is 02:03:14 That was photoshopped. Yeah. Yeah, no, I don't even know what to think about that. They're just kind of building a plane for themselves at this point on their own timeline. Hey, anyone want to buy my plane? It's called self care. My brand new 30 year old plane. So now that we're in 2021, next slide.

Starting point is 02:03:38 I actually want to take a little bit of a step back and talk about Boeing commercial airplanes as an ongoing concern. In 2000, they made many different types of plane, the two McDonnell Douglas aircraft, 7374, 7576, and 77. Before 2011, they stopped making the MD-11, 717, 757, and the 747-400. In 2011 they were making the two kinds of 737 the new 747 model the 7677 and 7-8 So after this the last passenger said last passenger 767 visible at top right there was delivered So they stopped making those in 2014 leaving just the friders and

Starting point is 02:04:25 the military versions the last passenger 747 was delivered to Korean Air in 2017 and their livery that still looks great then they actually killed it in the time that between me writing these slides and today they made it bad they just changed it holy shit yeah they both got a brand ugly that awful. They made it minimal with lines and says opposed to colors It's still blue. So they get that but it's bad And then they even discontinued the Friday versions the 747 in 2023 so they don't make that plane anymore They're going to build the they're going to build the new Air Force ones out of the used ones But that's gonna be it for the 747. Ah, that makes sense to me, yeah.

Starting point is 02:05:07 Yeah, they've... This was, uh, there was a headline a few months ago that they were going to work with Elon to speed up the timeline on that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Incredible. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. We're gonna use one of the starships and then just explode.

Starting point is 02:05:21 Yeah. Hopefully the whole thing goes up like the fear bunker. I mean, I could not think of a greater, uh, sort of iconographic end to the, to the, to the century of American prosperity than the American made aircraft blowing up with Donald Trump in it. That would be, uh, just, just to kind of like, um- Oh, Andy Allen and JD Holy shit. Air Force One moment, but for America. Yes. That was a woke birch tree.

Starting point is 02:05:53 Yeah, you know, it depends on who gets left behind that day, and suddenly we have Sean Duffy, President of the United States. I saw designated survivor. Well, to be fair, that will probably be the third Trump term, so there'll be a new cabinet by that point. ALICE & LIAM Stop it, Maya. SEAN Sorry. The last Passenger, 737, Next Generation, was delivered in 2019.

Starting point is 02:06:20 The last Passenger, 7777, the original one, was built and delivered to Aeroflot in 2021. Pictured here in a livery that's also quite ugly. So Boeing builds, Boeing essentially builds two passenger aircraft now. They build the 737 MAX and the 787. And like I said, they can't build the 787 anymore, because they keep building them wrong. So... It says, I love American manufacturing. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:06:49 It's coming back, I hear. I think the tariffs might help. So I... Tariff Santa is gonna fix it. It's also notable that the tariff thing only sort of affects Airbus because they build A320s in Alabama now. So the decade of America, the new century of American manufacturing does also apply to Airbus who was in a proud American company.

Starting point is 02:07:15 It was also anti-union unknowingly, which is why they're in Alabama of all places. I was about to say, didn't a couple instances of like folks trying to build plants in the deep south and like just being astonished that like, oh no one can read here. Shit. Yeah, that's Boeing South Carolina and Airbus Mobile. Those are the two of them. Although, Boatmobile is outpost of civilization in Alabama.

Starting point is 02:07:46 I was sure that. Notably, of course, Airbus Mobile is on track to build more planes this year than not. Then Boeing has built non 737s the past two years. Oh, God. That's obviously a rosy estimate of theirs. But still, though, that's a you know, great American manufacturing company Airbus. So basically, by the time 2021 rolls around, they build two commercial airliners and a couple more freighters

Starting point is 02:08:16 and a shit ton of military derivatives thereof. And they also stop making several more of those since then. Anyways, 2021, you are Boeing commercial airplanes. Your parent company has lost $12 billion last year. All of your development money is in on the 777X. They just can't get this thing to they just can't fix this thing. You would hope that airlines would be absolutely championing it the bit to purchase them. Next slide. It sounds like a great plan. I let me take 400.

Starting point is 02:08:48 Yeah. On the left, you will see orders and deliveries of the Airbus A350, totally one thousand three hundred and sixty three. On the right, you'll see the triple seven totaling five hundred and fifteen. Not great. Not for anybody, but not great. Not terrible, but not great. Yeah. I'd like to get in. I would actually like to get in on these orders a little bit more in detail, but I would also like to point out that 515 orders was where the A350 was at in 2010. And that plane launched in 2007.

Starting point is 02:09:20 That was three years. It has taken them 12 years to scrape together 515 777X orders. Of those 515, 205 are for Emirates, 94 are for Qatar, 25 are for Etheod, 324 are for airlines either in Dubai or Qatar. Qatar. Never figured out the pronunciation of that. ALICE Thank you. Thank you to Rube Airlines. LIAM Yes. ALICE Please give us your money. LIAM Guy just waving hand, just buy me some planes. JUSTIN Just keep recycling the patcher dollars, come on. ALICE It's a patcher only recycling, it's also a bribe, right?

Starting point is 02:09:57 You're not buying these because you really care that much about your airline business, you'll find somewhere for them, and hopefully they don't nosedive and kill a bunch of people, but mostly it's like, y'know. ALICE It's a backhand to American manufacturing, yeah. SEAN Two orders are for Silkway West Airline, which is an airline in Azerbaijan that is mostly known for illegally transporting munitions to do genocide, so that's an interesting one to keep in mind. ALICE Well done, Baku! ALICE Just says a cargo hold being gently kissed by crates and crates of Kalashnikovs.

Starting point is 02:10:29 SEAN LAUGHS. SEAN Basically, at this point, they have built a ridiculous, ridiculously expensive airline that is, as far as I can tell, the most serious airline they've ever produced, and I use the word serious to exclude the A380, which was kind of always a shitpost that they also sold a bunch of to Middle Eastern airlines. The A350 does the things that the airlines actually want, and it's quite a bit cheaper. I don't know the per unit cost.

Starting point is 02:10:56 I would not be surprised if it was close to two thirds. But I thought it was 60 percent cheaper to build. That's what the executive said. It was going to be 60 percent cheap. And why would they lie? But I thought it was 60% cheaper to build. That's what the executive said. It was going to be 60% cheaper. And why would they lie? Indeed. Yeah. I thought that's what the executive said to do.

Starting point is 02:11:13 Well, to be fair, 60% cheaper to build, excuse me, doesn't necessarily mean the unit price is going to be lower. They could just be aiming for really high profit margins on this thing. Ah, that's true. That's true. What if they, yeah, they actually build these for like $40 each.

Starting point is 02:11:27 If they sell one, they are out of the money problems. That's all they need to do. They need to sell one plane and build one plane successfully. Boeing can't really stop losing money at this point. And we're still, you know, we're still a couple of years ago at this point. And we're still a couple years ago at this point, so that's great. I will say that these order numbers are for the current year, but I actually don't think there's been any 777X orders in the past year. So that might not actually be particularly relevant.

Starting point is 02:12:03 It is also notable that zero airlines in the United States have bought them. Passenger, freighter or otherwise, nobody wants them. Period. Yeah, nobody wants them. Like United really likes the seven eights. American really wants to like the 7-8s but they are but they won't they can't get them delivered because they can't build the 7-8s anymore

Starting point is 02:12:32 so they I think they probably kick the tires on the a350 and within the next five years Delta fucking loves the Airbus stuff they genuinely don't want to touch the bowings anymore They genuinely don't want to touch the Boeings anymore. Ow. Ow. Alright. Hold on. No, I got a weird cramp in my foot. We're doing endurance podcasting. Sorry.

Starting point is 02:12:48 We need to flash up the... No, it's all good. We just need to flash up the thing ahead of time that's like, uh, photosensitive epilepsy can strike at any time, and also remember to like, get up and drink water and walk around for about every couple of hours. This is true. This is true, this is true. One of the things that's frustrating about this, as an airline passenger, I do prefer

Starting point is 02:13:11 Boeing's because the windows are bigger. This is true. Yeah. I sit in the- What do you need the big window for? To see all the land you have stolen? No, I need to see, uh, why you need a big window? To see men.

Starting point is 02:13:25 Because we would support this because we are the worker option, obviously. This is true. And this is true especially because I sit in the aisle seat typically. So I like to, you know, see it's better, it's easier to see out there. But most of the airlines that have purchased this are airlines with either very strange fleet configurations or airlines with too much money, which covers most of the Middle Eastern airlines we've talked about. It also covers Singapore Airlines. Korean Air and Lufthansa are both airlines that have weird configurations. British Airways has ordered

Starting point is 02:14:00 like 50 of them, which is a, I will kind of want to make fun of Britain for it, but we make the plane. So I'm not sure what direction I can take that. ALICE What are we in this for? SEAN But you did buy the plane, at least. So that part's on you. ALICE Oh, no. Yeah. No, I'm not saying we're not stupid.

Starting point is 02:14:18 ALICE That's a special relationship. SEAN It's true. On the Pan Airways, Japan has bought them, but they are in a bizarre relationship where they cannot stop giving Boeing money for some reason. Air India also bought some. It's also kind of strange. I'm not really sure why. Yeah, there are no zero American carriers, only the two European carriers.

Starting point is 02:14:42 And I'm counting British Airways in that. Ethiopian has some cargo Lux has some the cargo airline. This is sounding better and better, I think. This is good, right? This is true. So, of course, so they can't seem to sell them to any airlines, which is great. Even whenever production, even whenever development and manufacturing is going well. Next slide, please. In early, this is a picture of an engine.

Starting point is 02:15:10 We'll get up to something to do with that. Early 2022, Boeing tells investors that the plane is delayed again, this time to 2025, which is the current year. Wow. That means it'll probably come out this year, right? Yeah, dummy. Yeah. In October of 2022 Boeing Experience is what they call a technical issue.

Starting point is 02:15:32 It's an uncommanded stock price pitch event. They attribute that to one of the aircraft's engines, they don't really elaborate, but they suspend test flights as a result. Oh, that's how you know it's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case.

Starting point is 02:15:49 I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case.

Starting point is 02:15:57 I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm not sure if that's the case. I'm in 2023. It's otherwise fine. They just keep flying it on test flights over and over again and not getting it

Starting point is 02:16:06 certified. Now, none of them crashed. So that part's good. 2024 Boeing is still telling airlines that it'll be delivered by 2025. Lufthansa is telling investors that they think it'll be like 2027 at the earliest. that they think it'll be like 2027 at the earliest. In August of 2024, they take a test flight from Washington to Hawaii, where they give a routine maintenance inspection, which reveals a crack on the thrust link of the engine, which is circled here. It's the big piece of titanium that actually transfers the thrust from the engines to the airframes.

Starting point is 02:16:44 Boeing initially dismisses this as just a trivial issue piece of titanium that actually transfers the thrust from the engines to the airframes. Boeing initially dismisses this as just a trivial issue for the one singular test airplane, although the fact that it was on both engines means, as far as I can tell, means that that's obviously false to begin with. They promise to replace it on that airplane and inspect the rest of the fleet in short order. They do that the following week where they find cracks in the thrust links on every single airframe But they have built to this point

Starting point is 02:17:09 That sounds I think titanium is a metal if there's a crack in that it was a metal Justin Rodzak You heard it here first folks less listen less you can use it's ductile It shouldn't be cracking in the first place under any kind of normal load be cracking in the first place under any kind of normal load. So they ground the whole program again and they talk and they sort of blame it on the engine design, which is a tacit way to pass blame with a General Electric. Problem is they built the thrust link. So you know, oops. So you know, that's great.

Starting point is 02:17:44 So this is August of 2024. What comes up next is not directly related to the plane, but it's not great. Next slide, please. Every single IAM machinist that is building the 777X is now on strike as of September 13th, having rejected the proposed contract given to them with 94.6% of the vote, which is not where you want to be in terms of negotiating these things. Yes. Maybe you should give them a better offer. Yes. On October 8th, all negotiations between the between machinist union and Boeing break

Starting point is 02:18:22 down completely and they walk away from the table Boeing files a complaint with the with the NLR be about this for some reason. I'm not really sure why I Think most the best descriptor I can come up with for with it for it would be whining Hmm. I'm like a corporate level doesn't matter. It doesn't go anywhere. That's all they got these days. Yes On October 12th The CEO of Boeing had announced a 10% cut in their total workforce laying off So laying off 10% of all workers companywide Union and non-union to my understanding and course, in the bottom of that statement is buried a delay of the triple seven X project to 2026.

Starting point is 02:19:09 And he died now. Yes, I know. On October 14th, the president of Emirates, which is of course, again, the largest customer of the triple seven X and uh, and buys a lot of planes from Boeing in general, uh, goes to business insider with a statement of how pissed off he is at Boeing management, which is not, not where you want to be as a company to have your biggest customer for the project, uh, be very mad at you. Um, and talk about how, you know, nobody could ever trust delivery timeline.

Starting point is 02:19:45 Your company is ever give us ever again. Interestingly, I don't think they actually reduce the order after that. They just, they just kind of wanted to be mad online, which is fair. You can do that. Yeah. Nah, we all love to do that. Um, especially if you're a CEO nowadays, it is in fact, uh, invoked to be a CEO and very mad online.

Starting point is 02:20:04 This is true. Uh, so yeah, I'm not great for them. days it is in fact invoked to be a CEO and very mad online. This is true. So, yeah, not great for them. They I am in Boeing eventually ratify a new contract on November 1st, which they do with a with 59 percent support from union workers, which isn't a great number if you are a union or management. This is true. Yeah, that is. You're better off if you have like a side numbers. Yes.

Starting point is 02:20:31 You know, that's what you prefer to have. So this strike last, this work stoppage and strike last about two months. Costs going about 10 billion dollars. Fuck me. Good. So again, with the, they cannot stop losing money. Um, they, they eventually fixed the, the engine, the thrust link problem. I wrote the engine thrust do hickey, which is kind of fair.

Starting point is 02:20:53 That's what it looks like to me. Um, they are flying test flights again by mid January of this past year. So four months ago or whenever it is, um, I accidentally saw the first test flight. It was in the Costco parking lot, which is just short of Boeing Field in Seattle. Myself and my girlfriend were both very stunned and pointed and laughed at it. So it's a large aircraft. It's impressive to see. It just also was a bad aircraft. I like that. Yes. Boeing later in January tells Lufthansa that they should expect delivery in 2026. Lufthansa, of course, previously had projected 2027. I believe by now they're probably projecting 2028.

Starting point is 02:21:37 Oh, it's never coming on this fucking slaps. Yep. So, yeah, everybody, including Emirates this time is pretty skeptical of that. That's where we are today. Boeing makes two commercial airplanes. They are the seven three seven company pretty much specifically at this point. They're moving their headquarters to the Pentagon. I suspect at this point they only give a shit about defense contracts, especially now that they're going to be able to get a lot more defense contracts.

Starting point is 02:22:04 It's going to be interesting when Airbus has a global monopoly on passenger planes. That's true. Much safer though. Cause of the wokeness. Bye bye wire. But, yeah, that's where we are today. The plane is supposed to come out in 2026, or 2027, or 2028, depending on who you ask. Great. I love when a plane is in development hell.

Starting point is 02:22:28 Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's like New Doom, exactly. It's confusing and infuriating. When does the Dark Ages come out? Soon. May 15th. I'm so excited. Refers to a paucity of sources rather than a period of intellectual decline. I was also going to say that. My bet is that Boeing is just out of the industry by like the late, the 2030 probably. Like not just with this plane, my guess is that they either, they'd spin off the 737

Starting point is 02:23:01 into its own company and just take defense money. It refers to a paucity of airplanes not a... Well and also an intellectual decline. Let's get real here. So yeah, there's no number for what the triple seven program has cost them in total. A lot? My like random off the back of my ass number is probably somewhere in the 20 billion mark. Especially because they keep taking tax penalties whenever they delay it more.

Starting point is 02:23:32 ALICE It's all McDonald Douglas's fault. ZACH It genuinely, this is what most people think. ALICE This is what McDonald Douglas has wrought. JUSTIN We're gonna wind up in a situation where it's impossible to build airplanes. The intercity buses have all sold themselves off into oblivion. Or maybe Alfa Romeo would get it. And then Trump privatizes M-Track. And then no one's going to be able to go anywhere anymore.

Starting point is 02:23:58 They are going to impose 15 minute cities because it will be impossible to get 15 minutes away from your house. That's all that I have. It's a great company with a great legacy. And I'm saying that very tongue in cheek. Shitting it up. Alright, we want to move on to Safety Turd. Wow, what did we learn? This plane's never coming, bro. If it's Bowen, you ain't goin'. SEAN You ain't goin'.

Starting point is 02:24:27 But if it's been Colin Douglas, we're gonna kill you. ALICE I will work on the shirt. Like once an episode now I generate a bit that I can turn into a shirt, we'll put a link in the description for the sale where you can buy em'. SEAN This is excellent. I can buy that one. ALICE Alright, well, we have a segment on this podcast called Safety Third. Oh, he's sleeping!

Starting point is 02:24:50 Shake hands with danger. No, I got stressed out because someone's in my backyard doing something. Again? Why? I don't know. There's a drill going, I think. Working for your nuclear weapons. I know, right?

Starting point is 02:25:02 Well, that's not mine. Ahoy November Justin, Liam, and various guest hosts. Correct. Yeah, now... Guest host plural is slightly questionable if you wanted to nitpick something, but... Shut up. Today's story involves a rusty pickup truck, a 1930s tractor, a forklift, a bunch of World War II veterans, child labor, some ropes, a military cargo net, a couple of old mattresses, and most importantly a Boeing B-29 Superfortress. What do you call an act like that?

Starting point is 02:25:37 Symatic. The aristocrats. Yeah, hey, I'm on it. As a teenager, I volunteered as an apprentice mechanic at a local aviation museum. Oh, no. On this particular day, our task was to remove the vertical stabilizer from a Boeing B-29 Superfortress that was slated to be restored. The all volunteer staff included myself, two other high schoolers and

Starting point is 02:26:04 five WW2 veterans. When was this, because how old are these men? Oh, that's a good question. I think that's revealed later. Okay. Being the most athletic and nimble of the crew, my role was to use various ladders to jerry-rig a cargo net borrowed from a local military union around the top of the stabiliser, then to attach some ropes to it, and then attach those ropes at one end to an antique tractor, usually used for mowing the outdoor

Starting point is 02:26:39 display area of the museum, and to a heavy duty pickup truck at the other end. ALICE They're gonna tear it apart, like, by lashing it to horses? LIAM Yeah. JUSTIN The idea was that I would remove the bolts on one side of the stabiliser, and loosen the bolts on the other side, and have them act as a hinge. The pickup truck would pull on the rope and eventually gravity would tilt the vertical stabilizer

Starting point is 02:27:07 slowly down onto the horizontal stabilizer, which had used mattresses that I would position on top of it to act as cushioning. The attached 1930s farm tractor at the other end would use its brakes, operated by a geriatric born in the 1920s to control the descent. Hell yeah. America's greatest generation. We began this stupid mission, which in hindsight should have been done with a crane. I feel like the phrase, we began this stupid mission, attached to a B-29, not the first time.

Starting point is 02:27:43 Probably not even the thousandth time. LORENZO At first, everything was going well. I ascended a ladder, leaning against the right horizontal stabilizer with a bag of tools, and removed the rusty hardware from the vertical stabilizer attach points of the B-29. Then scrambled down and climbed another ladder on the left stabilizer to position the mattresses we had forklifted up. While I was stepping over the forklift tines adjusting the mattresses without any fall restraining gear with only one exit other than jumping to my likely death.

Starting point is 02:28:25 ALICE Pretty high up. JUSTIN The dear old man's foot on the ancient tractor slipped off the brake. SEAN Great. Excellent. JUSTIN Because he was in his 80s. And it was an ancient tractor, and the colossal tower of America's previous powers started coming down really fast. ALICE How do you ask someone to be the last person

Starting point is 02:28:44 to get killed by a B-29 Superfortress? JUSTIN I remember hearing the truck driver yelling, oh god, no! ALICE Oh, Jesus. I've read Randall Jarrell's poetry, I know these things are powered by blood and you gotta recharge him every now and again, but like, seems unfair for it to be high schoolers, at least high schoolers in the 80s. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 02:29:08 Thankfully, I was an athletic 15 year old at the time, so was able to parkour style flip myself off the stabilizer. Somehow I landed on a forklift, as the massive sheet metal beast came down with a thump so big it shook an entire B-29, which weighs approximately 75,000 pounds. Thankfully, I had positioned the mattresses in a way such that it was only lightly damaged, and was later repaired by skilled sheet metal technicians." ALICE Hit it with hammers.

Starting point is 02:29:39 Hit it with wooden mallets until it looks right again. GARRETT Yeah, hammers, yeah. STAN God bless you for the mattress positioning work there. I was about to say, well the good news is, you know, the tariffs are going to bring back this type of, this type of skill set, you know? Yeah, specifically the 15 year old part as well. I climbed off the forklift, which saved me from a roughly 12 foot drop to the ground. And after catching our breath, one old soldier said, well, that was scary, but we still got

Starting point is 02:30:11 the job done. Let's continue. So I again climbed aboard the weary bomber and removed the hardware on the other side, cut all the remaining wires and control cables. I took the borrowed cargo net off and used the ropes and the net to kinky bondage style wrap the stabilizer to the forklift and we lifted the vertical stabilizer, which was now a second horizontal position, now, okay, yeah, off of the B-29 and into a hanger where the wacky army of kids and geriatrics muscled it onto wooden sawhorses.

Starting point is 02:30:46 ALICE This is, this is, you had an apprentice job working for the boomers in Fallout New Vegas. LIAM I sometimes reflect on weird ways to be killed, and being killed by a World War Two bomber fifty years after the end of World War Two is admittedly pretty weird. ALICE Can't argue with that. I dearly enjoy your show and look forward to many future episodes. All the best from Piper.

Starting point is 02:31:12 Good name to work with planes. It's true. Yes. Thank you Piper. This is what happens when you work with Boeing Airplanes. Piper noooo. I was gonna say, it's funny. It's funny.

Starting point is 02:31:20 It's been a great day for Boeing aircraft, in general, here. How do you say you are Boeing to die in German? Anyway, that was Safety Third. Our next episode will be on Chernobyl. I don't think we did any announcements about the tour, there are still tickets available in New York City on the 29th, and in Philadelphia, on the 4th. ALICE Yeah. I will regretfully not be there in person on account of, I don't wanna go to El Salvador.

Starting point is 02:31:55 JUSTIN Yes, that is a strong issue at the moment. Does anyone have any commercials before we go? ALICE So, something about the worst of all possible worlds? No, I copied that from an earlier episode. Everyone knows I went on worst of all possible worlds to talk about falling down. I've probably said that three times now because I've copied the slide three times. Flying home in a straight line. Yes.

Starting point is 02:32:24 I need to get tickets for the Philadelphia show and figure out a way to go. We'll figure out a way to comp you. Oh, okay. Maya, thank you so much. If the people want more Maya, where can they find more Maya? You can find me at a lot of places. The easiest way is to actually go to my website, the Maya Ventura Information Network. That would be www.maya walk with me walk with dot me me

Starting point is 02:32:48 that is a David Lynch reference oh yeah so if you need to know how to spell any of that just look up the Twin Peaks film you can find me at on X the everything app triple seven X the everything plane under the same username without the dodge you could find me on blue sky at the same username with the dot because it's weird federated systems You can find me in print hopefully by the time this comes out you go buy 2600 magazine Which is available at most Barnes and Nobles? I write a subsec, which is how I got here because I wrote an article about this Subscribe to my sub stack, please. I am poor and would like money. I think that's it.

Starting point is 02:33:26 Alright. Fantastic. More like, uh, trip triple 7x than nothing plane. That's true. Oh god, they're us. Yeah. Wow. Alright. Thank you. I think we did it. That was a podcast. Alright. Good afternoon, everyone.

Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 179: The Boeing 777X

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