supernova87a

I think we can tell who's the crazy one in this thread.

The point is that the old cargo planes fly each day the equivalent of your old truck going 5 miles per day to buy groceries.

At that point, if you got the truck dirt cheap, it doesn't matter how fuel inefficient it is.

It's not just the direct hourly operating cost, it's that they were able to buy the less fuel-efficient planes for dirt cheap to begin with. When you can do that, and your fuel usage isn't a major portion of the operating bill to begin with, you care less that it burns slightly more fuel each short trip per day.

I remember not too many years ago still flying on a 737-200 (the torpedo engines) in Chile, looking at cabin furnishings that were older than I was, and hoping that we would arrive in one piece (although I know that age has no necessary correlation with safety).

I also wonder if there are any readers from Flexport or Amazon Air services who have interesting takes / stories about these kinds of factors in the operations today.

I read this interesting commentary about MD-11s, not that they're old (which they are) but that they're just poorly designed aircraft and relegated to these cargo use cases.

"...

MD-11 had a whole range of issues that added up to a poor design.

McDD did the development of the MD-11 on the cheap, led by their illustrious leader HS who did everything for minimum cost. It really needed a clean sheet design wing rather than just adapting the DC-10 one (which had never been got right in the first place and had excessive drag). But the money was not provided to do this.

Madcap idea was to reduce the size of the horizontal stabiliser (the "tail") compared to the DC-10 (despite the greater size), to reduce its drag. That makes it more difficult to control. To then overcome this a computer called the Longitudinal Stability Augmentation System was devised. We're speaking about 25-30 year old computer technology here. This was meant to enhance the way the tailplane worked. Another was that MD-11 pilots were to receive "additional training", that euphemism for handling something difficult and not intuitive.

Various outcomes ensued, particularly on landing. One is the MD-11 got the universal nickname of "The Scud" in the pilot world because "you never know where it's going to land" (remember the MD-11 came into service at the time of the first Gulf War). Hence the "additional training" which concentrates on landing aspects. The second was its propensity to then drag a wing in landings that became unstable. This revealed a further poor (and cheap) piece of wing design, as the wing will tend to break at the attachment, which then leads to the aircraft cartwheeling on touchdown. For a type where only 200 were built, the number which have been destroyed in these cartwheeling accidents (which have never once happened to their Boeing or Airbus rivals) is just unacceptable.

Now the MD-11 had other poor aspects. It didn't meet its performance guarantees, which allowed a number who ordered it to walk away from it. The Pratt & Whitney engined version in particular were unreliable. But more than anything else Boeing came up with an aircraft of remarkably similar size which used just two engines, not three, and yet delivered not only equal performance but everything the MD-11 had claimed to do but didn't. Boeing spent the R&D money on the 777, and got their return.

The worth of the MD-11 didn't quite fall to scrap value, however, as the three-engined approach made it suitable for those who move high weight a medium distance - the cargo airlines. And so FedEx, UPS, and some others would pay reasonable secondhand prices for them.

The original buyers thus sold them off, and bought 777s instead. Yes, there were a range of reasons. But in the background, quietly, the Chief Pilot is telling the Chairman of the Board "that thing is an accident waiting to happen for us". As, I regret to say, the cargo airlines continue to find out. I suspect the airline's insurers had something to say as well.

McDD just didn't get their Return on Investment, and the same thing happened with the MD90 and MD95, two more adaptations done on the cheap. Out of cash, they had to be absorbed by Boeing, and their vast assembly plant area in Long Beach is now condos and shopping malls. The most extraordinary part about this is that HS got himself accepted and pushed up to the very top of the Boeing hierarchy, where his extreme cost cutting some years ago did the same again - this time going for a real all-whiz new design, new materials, plus all subcontracted out (to the low bidder of course) rather than use the traditional workforce, etc,etc. Everything different, all at once. Roll on several years from his time there, and we all know what's happened to that new Boeing type, don't we ...... ?

As was said 20-30 years ago : "The best aircraft would be - designed by Lockheed, built by Boeing, sales & markeing team from McDonnell Douglas". Notable which of the three skills eventually came out on top."

Related cargo airplane factoid (and I would be glad to hear about this and more from others too):

One thing I learned through listening to stories about Fedex and UPS is that their fleets are (or maybe were at the time of my learning this) surprisingly old. Or that is to say, sometimes it is surprising to learn that these leading freight companies fly planes that are several generations old, like MD-11s, or old 767s.

The reason for this is that these operations generally fly planes for just a few hours each night, being focused on overnight delivery, and hub-spoke swapping of packages from and to destinations.

And when an asset is in use for only a few hours each day, it is less important how fuel efficient or modern it is. It just has to get the job done in a basic way, and not break that often. A clunker is ok to be relatively inefficient because you only need to use it infrequently (compared to a passenger airplane, which by comparison is in nearly constant use to get as much revenue $ out of it and you want it to be economical in cost for that operation).

So these fleets have planes that are 20+ years old and feel little pressure to modernize from that point of view.

I remember realizing this fact when I heard that Avalon (Catalina Island) freight / mail is (or was) served by an old DC-3 every day. Doesn't matter how old the plane is if it really only has to operate for 30 minutes each day. I think that one retired though.

Other sources: https://nltimes.nl/2023/06/05/amsterdam-train-traffic-still-...

Echoes of some recent similar outages?

2021: https://nltimes.nl/2021/09/16/dutch-rail-traffic-shut-train-...

2022: https://www.dutchnews.nl/2022/04/railway-problems-will-conti...

General:

https://www.dutchnews.nl/2022/12/trouble-on-the-tracks-train...

Sure. I guess my reality is the one that's compatible with our laws.

The union waited until the concrete trucks were poured/loaded/on their way to call the strike action, in order to exact intentional and maximal damage to the company.

That doesn't seem to me as normal business losses and striking to increase one's bargaining position. That borders on extortion.

I think the difference is "obvious".

Maybe read the case and form an opinion based on what the facts are rather than assuming what the facts are based on the opinion you want to hold?

> "...Tensions came to a head on the morning of August 11. According to the allegations in Glacier’s complaint, a Union agent signaled for a work stoppage when the Union knew that Glacier was in the midst of mixing substantial amounts of concrete, loading batches into ready-mix trucks, and making deliveries. Although Glacier quickly instructed drivers to finish deliveries in progress, the Union directed them to ignore Glacier’s orders. At least 16 drivers who had already set out for deliveries returned with fully loaded trucks. Seven parked their trucks, notified a Glacier representative, and either asked for instructions or took actions to protect their trucks. But at least nine drivers abandoned their trucks without a word to anyone.

Glacier faced an emergency. The company could not leave the mixed concrete in the trucks because the concrete’s inevitable hardening would cause significant damage to the vehicles. At the same time, the company could not dump the concrete out of the trucks at random because concrete contains environmentally sensitive chemicals. To top it all off, Glacier had limited time to solve this conundrum.

A mad scramble ensued. Glacier needed to determine which trucks had concrete in them, how close the concrete in each truck was to hardening, and where to dump that concrete in an environmentally safe manner. Over the course of five hours, nonstriking employees built special bunkers and managed to offload the concrete. When all was said and done, Glacier’s emergency maneuvers prevented damage to its trucks. But the concrete that it had already mixed that day hardened in the bunkers and became useless."

(page 5 of the court's opinion)

So intentional property damage is just a reasonable part of the right to strike?

An aircraft mechanic decides to strike by walking out of the tow vehicle that he's driving, while it's moving, causing the airliner that vehicle is towing to ram into the hangar. That's legit?

A gas station fuel delivery truck driver decides to strike after starting the pumping of a load of fuel, intentionally (and foreseeably) causing the tank to overflow because he's no longer on the job to stop it. Just a cost of business and reasonable strike behavior?

How about the auto body shop workers decide to strike right after removing all the wheels from your car on the lift, intentionally starting the job first?

What principle are you advocating for exactly?

Sorry, I'm disagreeing with you on the 2nd point.

We have the rights to sue someone / some entity based on the laws that govern contracts, negligence, etc. that give us the right to sue and have redress in court. We don't have the right to sue anyone or anything for whatever random reason we come up with.

Lawsuits are a genuine cost to the legal system (look at the backlog of cases and how often people have to settle to get any resolution) and a question is whether the laws we put in place adequately take into account the cost they create in people suing each other and the behaviors that incentivizes.

There are notable differences in the behavior of the people of a country that can be attributable to what expectation of lawsuit risk there is. The US is on the more "people frequently sued" side of that scale. Of course, there are many benefits to the right to sue that many people in less "sue-happy" countries do not enjoy. It provides a method of oversight at the person-level, transparency, etc. But it also can rise to the level of being a drag on society and industry.

On a more mundane dimension, this is related to what some conservatives offhandedly (and probably not really with knowledge of what they're talking about) refer to as "trial lawyers getting rich". When laws you create don't anticipate that they also create the right to sue, and the implications of enabling people to do that.

Full court transcripts have been available for years, if not more than a decade at Oyez.org, and at numerous university and public interest websites.

Lame ruling in what way? In that it's unreasonable for a concrete company to sue the union for intentionally waiting until the concrete was mixed, loaded onto trucks, and only then striking, to obviously cause maximal damages to the company?

Maybe you should read the transcript if you're actually curious.

Thank you very much!

Is it me, or does anyone else find it frustrating that reporters reporting about some court case habitually cannot quote the exact ruling and link to PDF that people can read for themselves?

It's not like they didn't have the source material to base the story on, so why can't they pass that along to the reader in this day and age, to credit the source?

But no, apparently a retold story in someone else's words is better than being able to read the 50-page document that actually lays out the ruling..

The opinion in this case prevented a "evil" government entity from taking an individual's property unjustly, and was written by a person using anecdotes and references to people. So honestly I don't know what you're on about.

And what does that mean in this situation? The using of a historical analogy in a legal opinion contributes to making our government have the appearance of a dictatorship?

The justices of the Supreme Court are highly literate -- as well as literal people. Their livelihoods and judgements rely on the meaning of words. Their opinions draw from history, precedent, Latin, analogy, similarity and they have to communicate it through words, not code. In terms that can convey generally understood meaning and principles without having to rehash entire books to ensure thorough understanding. Opinions have included Shakespeare, poetry, wit, sarcasm.

Perhaps you may be disturbed or offended by a phrase that happens to come from the bible. Others are not, and take it simply as a historical analogy. I'm not Christian and I don't find it disturbing. You might be getting overly offended in this case.

Is there a rule / scaling relationship about the maximum passenger volume + payload of a supersonic aircraft and the fuel burn? Just wondering if by physical law, these transports are destined to be only ever extremely premium / luxury travel.

Apple does help its suppliers to make a profit -- but the amount of profit that sustains a healthy set of vendors for Apple, at quality levels and corporate practice levels that Apple evaluates as "fair".

Now, you may criticize that this holds vendors over a barrel and squeezes them to narrow margins, etc. But at least give Apple credit for having a view to the long run and trying to create a pool of vendors that it can rely on in a sustainable way, and not just some surge capacity for the next quarter only to drop them. Apple thinks longer than that. Their procurement function is quite skilled.

And it's not like the vendors would magically have some source of business at better terms than Apple that would be good for them in the long run either. You want suppliers to somehow be raking in great margins in excess of what was "fair"? You want an employer who's more clueless and lets you make lots of extra on the top?

A successful supplier to Apple knows what it's capable of and what its costs are, signs on to grow with Apple and become successful, and share in the practices that make a company efficient, skilled, productive. They can choose to join this train. Or not. It's voluntary.

You would think that with the incredible advances in chip power efficiency, they could produce an edition that would be able to be run off a solar cell instead of 2 stupid and expensive CR2032 batteries.

Oddities of human capability exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Heinrich_Heineken

Christian Heinrich Heineken or Heinecken (February 6, 1721 – June 27, 1725), also known as "the infant scholar of Lübeck", was a German child prodigy who lived only to the age of four.

Who are these aristocrats running these companies that dominate your belief in what the problem is?

Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Carl McMillon (Walmart), Jamie Dimon, John Stanken (AT&T), John Hammergren (McKesson), just to take a random sampling of top companies going down the list. I find that they're all from non-rich dynasty beginnings.

So do we go making policies based on your stories about children of robber barons?

I don't think headline-grabbing CEO pay differences from the average worker are the thing driving broad based economic inequality in our economies today. Cutting the salaries of every CEO and redistributing it to their company workers would hardly give every employee an extra $1,000 at most places.

Economic inequality springs from (among other things) the fact that each and every one of us chooses to buy things & engage in our economy which has gotten more and more efficient, and reward a few hundred thousands (or millions) of people who happen to be able to produce disproportionately more things that the rest of the population will pay for and reward them for. I'm not saying they're deserving of it or anything like that, just to say that's what it is (or part of it). And I'm not addressing the asshole PE CEOs which are a different breed of leech, but are their own sliver of headline-dominating but not significant to the general population's wealth concerns.

At the same time, efficiency and labor supply means that low skill wages have not moved much.

You're not going to defeat these economic tides by handicapping a couple of CEOs, as much as that might feel gratifying or even politically symbolically meaningful.

We each of us have made the economic inequality that we sit in. And I might also point out, what is at the bottom of our economic ladder is still in an absolute sense, well above what is the bottom of the ladder in many, many other countries, in material wealth and security.

Car companies seem to just not be very good at things other than bending steel, marketing that bent steel on TV, pushing costs and risks into suppliers (and forgetting about it), and running the insurance companies that their corporate entities have become.

I'm sure their internal incentive structure also does not reward people to join/stay at the company who would focus on the problems that this story points out.

Agreed, odd that the name just is not in the same group of people as Moore, Fairchild, Noyce, etc? This is the first I had heard the name.

I was. Were you?

You probably don't know or don't care, but there is more to running a company than producing a new hardware product line (which is important of course too).

Under Tim Cook, Apple's business functions (procurement, manufacturing, operations, financing, retail) had an incredible change in efficiency and cash generating capability. Also, you may notice that Apple Services are an incredibly large and profitable business in their own right, having grown from nothing about a decade ago.

I think part of that is reasonable. Certainly the original writers envisioned changes to the future and how would the Constitution adapt?

But whether the SCOTUS judges should write wholesale changes to the scope of the Constitution or rights that drift away from the original intent? That certainly is a matter for debate and thinking about implications.

There is a mechanism for changing the Constitution, amendments. Why should certain topics, if they rise to the level of "should have been an amendment passed by the people", be imposed by the justices?

What if the Constitution envisions that judges should interpret ambiguities at the margin, and not create whole new rights that drift from the fundamental codebase, if you will?

And then on top of that, if some new right involves significant social questions and implications, why should 9 justices (legal professionals) be the ones to say what the answer is?

As you said, these are open for adjustment. But whether the rights you seek should be created by justices versus the democratic process I think I differ with. Or at least, I see the logic of the more conservative approach to.