[conspire] That costs extra

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Tony Godshall (togo at of.net):

> Wow.  Too big to fail and all that.  When there are just two major
> passenger aircraft manufacturers in the world and only one is American,
> I would cynically expect the American regulator to gut them too much
> slack.

I fear you're right.  That having been said, the FAA policy of letting
manufacturers most 'self-certify' safety has been applied to all ~30
regulated companies, not _just_ Boeing, so it was stupid but not
_necessarily_ corrupt.  That policy revision dates back to 2005:  IIRC
that the 737 MAX (MAX 8 and MAX 9) is the first aircraft certified under
the new regime (or nearly so).

Aside from that, yes, after Lockheed Corporation ended production of the
L-1011 TriStar in 1984 (and withdrew from commercial aviation entirely,
owing to below-target sales), and then McDonnell Douglas was gobbled up by
Boeing in 1997, I thought 'Oh-oh, we're going to have a monopoly problem.'

I mentioned Boeing's serious knuckle-dragging problem, on account of
needing to put larger engines on the 737's low-slung 1950s-style wings
to compete with the Airbus A320neo, but one picture's worth a thousand
words, so:
https://www.ge.com/reports/weve-got-an-exclusive-look-at-boeing-brand-new-737-max-jet/

Notice the bottom of the engine is right around the man's _shins_.  There
is _very_ little ground clearance, and that's after Boeing's deeply
problematic kludge of mounting the engines higher and further forward
than the plane's basic design contemplated.

I'm nobody's idea of neutral towards Boeing Company on account of that
whole Inigo Montoya thing -- but, um, 'res ipsa loquitur'.