About Erik Dolson

Erik Dolson is a writer living in Oregon

The Strength of America

By Erik Dolson

Three weeks ago today I headed back up to Canada. I needed to prepare the boat for her trip up the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Anacortes in Washington state, where work was scheduled to be done about a week later. It was pleasant in Victoria, even without my car. The city is beautiful, I worked on the boat, enjoyed the nearby restaurants, went to the gym, rode my wheel.

I read news about the Corona virus, about a death in a Seattle nursing home, but it all seemed far away.

A nice weather window opened up a day earlier than I planned, and the trip up the strait was uneventful. After three nights in a marina, Foxy was hauled out of the water and put on stands to paint the bottom and install a new depth, speed and temperature sensor compatible with modern electronics.

I stayed on board the boat, despite the occasional 33 degree F weather and winds that howled through the rigging.The Corona virus, hitting San Francisco and then Oregon, still seemed far away: I could shop at Safeway without enduring lines too long, buy a coffee at Starbucks and sit and read the news.

Work on the boat lasted a little longer because of weather and by the time Foxy was back in the water, travel restrictions between the U.S. and Canada were being discussed. There were rumors that ferry schedules were changing. If I took Foxy back to Victoria, if Canada would even let me in, travel back and forth was going to be difficult. So I took the boat to Friday Harbor instead, and drove back to Oregon about three weeks after I left.

The world had changed.

With California under an order to “shelter in place,” I went to Costco Saturday morning for food that would last me a few weeks if need be. I was in a lane one away from where I needed to be to make a turn so I accelerated quickly, but the car next to me raced to block me out instead of letting me in. Hmmm.

At 9:30 in the morning at Costco, people were pushing carts piled with toilet paper and paper towels out the door. Inside, there was no hamburger or toilet paper left. I bought a jar of peanut butter, some eggs, bricks of cheese, a few steaks I could cut in half, OTC medications I’ve come to depend on.

People weren’t functioning very well. Some would stop in the middle of an aisle and stare off, no doubt checking things off a mental list. I can’t carry all that in my head so my list was on paper. Others blocked an aisle while disagreeing with a warehouse worker who said that Costco was not in control of toilet paper shipments.

There was anxiety in the air, and I could feel it try to get to me. I wondered if social anxiety was more infectious than the virus. I made the decision to bury my frustration and pushed my cart around them, saying “excuse me.” Maybe too loudly. I had to accept that the changing world affected some more than others.

I went to Trader Joe’s for the oats I like to eat at breakfast, but there was a long line out the door, longer than I wanted to wait for a can of rolled oats. Instead, I walked over to Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy some simple dumbbells, since my gym is now closed. But Dick’s was closed too, except for curbside delivery.

So I went over to the nearby Sportsman’s Warehouse, thinking they might have some dumbbells. There was a line there too, but it seemed to move quickly, so I waited. As I got to the front, a sign said that ammunition purchases were limited to two boxes per customer, and they were out of 9 mm handgun ammo.

I thought about that for a minute.

You can’t shoot a Corona virus with 9 mm ammo. It just isn’t sporting, and there’s the possibility of collateral damage. So obviously, the run on ammo was in anticipation of social chaos. Did ammo hoarders think all those people who didn’t stock up would descend in clouds to steal their toilet paper? Didn’t ammo buyers have any left over from when they panicked and cleaned out the shelves when Obama was elected?

The fact that some of them seemed almost giddy at the prospect of social collapse made me a bit uncomfortable. It made me wonder if I had enough ammo at home. In that moment I knew social anxiety was contagious.

Maybe I’m still taking the world the way it used to be for granted, but look, I get it. A “shelter in place” is something we haven’t seen in our lifetime, and we’ve been left pretty much on our own to deal with it. The world has changed.

But still, the enemy is a virus, not each other, right? Everybody grabbing and hoarding and shooting are symptoms of social disorder that will make it worse, not better, right?

So I’ve had to slow down my defensive reactions a little bit. I’ve had to pause a second longer before I say something, or change lanes, or make judgements. Even that might not be enough. In fact, I may have to go out of my way to help someone else, a stranger perhaps, if they seem to be having a hard time.

Maybe that might be the strength of America, that we can put down our differences and give each other a hand when times are tough? I think I’ll give it a try.

Boeing rot again on display

By Erik Dolson

Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun has now stepped in another large pile of his own deposit. Think of it as interest on the Boeing’s inheritance from General Electric (G.E.). Just more of the same from the plane maker.

Calhoun was trained by G.E. Chairman Jack Welch, who died last week. Welch was known as “Neutron Jack,” nicknamed after neutron bombs that killed people but left buildings intact. The Welch style of management was ruthless, including termination of 10% of all employees every year.

This had consequences for morale. Several recent Boeing CEOs were from G.E. or heavily influenced by that company. Morale at Boeing suffered, as well.

Boeing’s Calhoun was quoted in an interview that appeared in the New York Times last week as laying the blame for Boeing failures on previous CEO Dennis Muilenberg. “If anybody ran over the rainbow for the pot of gold on stock, it would have been him,” Calhoun said. The problems at Boeing, he said, “speaks to the weakness of our (former) leadership.”

What Calhoun failed to say, possibly because he is incapable of it, was that as an important outside board member, his leadership was part of that weakness as yet another alumnus of General Electric, touted during the 80s and 90s as the zenith of corporate capitalism. In fact, the Welch legacy may be turning out to be a failure when not implemented by Welch.

Growth at all costs, huge payouts based on stock price, and ruthless cutting of costs (talent and expertise) in the effort to increase profits (and bonuses for management) may have resulted in destruction at Boeing and other companies where Welch protoges landed after drinking the G.E. Kool-aid.

That beverage also involves public relations at the expense of honesty. Last month, Calhoun said that emails and texts between Boeing test pilots lamenting the build quality and training of pilots on the 737 Max represented a problem with emails and texts, not the airplanes themselves or culture at the company.

It should be noted that Calhoun stands to receive a rather large fortune if he can quickly get the 737 Max approved by the FAA  and flying again.

Denying that the communications between pilots accurately represented a crumbling corporate culture, where engineering decisions were overruled by managers under the gun to cut costs, frightened they might lose thier jobs if they failed to do so, Calhoun said the emails and texts would stop.

How reassuring.

Now, Calhoun has turned on the top managers of Boeing that he supported while he was a crucial board member and they were putting profit ahead of safety.

And he has implied it was the fault of pilots who were overpowered by software that flew two of his jetliners into the ground, software that did not exist on aircraft they were trained on. These pilots apparntly did not read the fine print in manuals that accompanied the new planes. Shame on them.

The loss of 348 lives had nothing to do with greed and failure to provide adequate instrumentation and training.

His hand in the till while he is cracking the whip, Calhoun has defended his salary and is in full CYA mode, rather than being accountable. This is the G.E. way when followed by men other than the admittedly brilliant Jack Welch, who was dealing with a fat corporation in another era.

The leadership at Boeing is still in denial, which means the company has not yet hit bottom. This is not over. Even NASA recently suggested that agency no longer trusts the company.

Small wonder. Boeing will not recover until the company redevelops the honesty required to admit and then publicly correct rot caused by 40 years of misdirected leadership. Boeing builds airplanes. Airplanes need to be safe, not just profitable.

There was another capitalist icon of the 1980’s era who seems to have been forgotten in recent decades: W. Edwards Deming, who was essential to the rise of Toyota and other Japanese automakers. Like Welch, Deming was a believer in statistics and process control, and the elimination of defects in manufacturing.

But Deming also advocated team building (rather than cutthroat competition among fellow employees), distribution of responsibility and accountability (as opposed to top management collecting absurdly valuable stock options via intimidation), and listening to those actually doing the work (as opposed to firing or smothering dissenting voices).

Calhoun has to go. He is not the man for this job. No graduate from G.E.’s school of abusive management is. Perhaps Boeing could lure Dan Davis, former director of Motorsports for Ford Motor Company, out of retirement for a couple of years. Davis has a resumé and a style that Boeing needs about now.

Back to where we started

By Erik Dolson

It took a few hours but Foxy is mostly ready to make the trip up the Strait of Juan de Fuca tomorrow. Leaving Victoria is melancholy, like having dinner alone in a favorite restaurant, but we’ll be back in a couple of weeks, a month, or later in the year. It’s hard to say, there are too many factors not under my control. I’m trying to focus on what I can control and adjust to outcomes that will be what they will.

I’d like to get out of here about 7 a.m., which means 8 a.m. and I have no clue why but that’s been the case for years when starting out. It’s weird, but I’m rarely late for an arrival. But if I’m going to beat what looks like pretty strong currents against us when we arrive at Guemas Channel, an early departure is a must.

Or I’ll lay over in Friday Harbor. It’s good to have a backup plan.

The tool bag is up in the cockpit, sails are uncovered, jib sheets run. No, I don’t plan on sailing and weather for tomorrow looks calm. But the sails are my back-up propulsion in case of engine failure.

My buddy Roy gave me a good lesson the day he signed me off as competent to be out there. He sent me forward to untie the sail cover when Foxy was heaving through pretty high chop. I learned it’s hard to hold on and at the same time use both hands to untie even simple knots. Some tasks are better wrapped up when it’s calm and Foxy’s tied to the dock.

Especially when single handing.

Even so, I’ve probably forgotten some things and made decisions that could come back to bite me. The dinghy motor is still on Foxy’s transom. Mounting it on the dinghy is a tough job by myself — I’ve done it, which is why I know. So, while I made sure the dinghy is inflated in case I need a life boat, I’ll depend on oars if I do. Which reminds me, I need to charge up the hand-held radio because using oars in the Strait of Juan de Fuca seems just ridiculous.

But jack lines are tight from bow to cockpit, my harness and life vest are on the cushions above along with my heavy weather coat. I’ll practice with the somewhat-new radar and the Automatic Identification System tonight, though I doubt the radar will be required. Still, better to have a handle on it.

It’s been five months since Foxy’s been off the dock. This is our first trip of 2020. It’s not far — we (that would be Foxy and me) are just headed back to friends at Marine Servicenter in Anacortes where she was recommissioned four years ago. Or was it five? She needs another couple coats of anti-foul paint on her hull, we’ll grease and check the Maxprop, enlarge a through-hull for a new water speed sensor. Maybe reroute some plumbing. Maintenance that can only be done on the hard.

Then we’ll splash and either head back to Victoria or maybe just to the buoy at Friday Harbor. Wherever we are on the water, that will be home for at least as long as we’re there.

Trump x 2 = 0

By Erik Dolson

Andy Cross/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Proving he is a loathesome creature (nut doesn’t fall far from the tree), a tweet by Donald Trump Jr. about Senator Mitt Romney’s vote to impeach Donald J. Trump Sr. shows junior’s complete lack of ethical or logical constraint.

Romney had carefully explained his religion-based decision in the Senate. No one can doubt that Romney is a man of faith. But DJTjr. chose instead to substitute his own explanation, that Romney was “bitter” that he would never be president. This is no less than saying a man is a liar about his relationship with God.

Of course, DJTjr. has no logical basis for believing he knows Sen. Romney’s intentions better than Sen. Romney, except a twisted Trumpian view of the world. But logic has never been a Trump family trait.

This classic Trump malignancy, like father like son, puts on display a vile moral emptiness that damages not the intended victim but the fabric of our society.

Of course, Romney did lose the election in 2012, but probably by a smaller margin than Trump if he’d had to run against Obama. Crowds at inauguration don’t lie.

Boeing should go

By Erik Dolson

Boeing, maker of airplanes in America, employer of more than 100,000 Americans, major component of America’s economy and hero of America’s past wars, has become cancerous and should be cut out of the body of our capitalism.

For the good of America.

Boeing was once a company of engineers. It employed the best and the brightest who took ideas that were almost science fiction and built them into real, market-dominating airliners.

Like a healthy organ, Boeing did its job wonderfully well with a minimum of attention. Tucked up in the wet Pacific Northwest, Boeing dominated that part of Washington state not owned by Weyerhaeuser: the glacial plain from Boeing Field in the south to Everett in the north, and most of Seattle, long before the gestation of Microsoft and Amazon.

But in the 1980s, Boeing began to change. Focus shifted from building planes to growth. Originally intended to protect profit, growth became an end in itself, as did a focus in management on share price.

The hallmarks of cancer include continuous growth, limitless number of cell divisions, and invasion of tissue and formation of metastases. Boeing began to fit this description.

As with many cancers, there was an environmental component. The 1980s included a seismic shift in the concept of “success” in corporate America, epitomized by the genius of General Electric’s leader, “Neutron” Jack Welch. Neutron bombs kill people but leave buildings. Welch got his nickname by firing employees but keeping businesses, lowering cost and increasing profits.

One of Welch’s tools was “Six Sigma,” a data driven system to improve efficiency. He also had a policy of firing the bottom 10 percent of sales producers every year, regardless of their absolute performance. Stock price became a primary focus. At first Welch’s methods were successful. G.E. value skyrocketed as Welch bought and sold divisions, looking for maximum return.

Welch wanted G.E. to be the largest company in the world. Men who worked for him were sought by other companies hoping for some of the G.E. magic. This was also during a time of overall increase in stock valuations, but Welch’s G.E. and others outperformed indexes such as the S&P 500.

Welch also distributed stock to his management teams, took a good chunk himself. G.E. grew rapidly, gains in stock price became a primary measure of success, and Welch was regarded as a hero of capitalism. (It didn’t always work. Even G.E.’s stock lost half its value after Welch retired, and many of the companies that adopted his ideas did not fare much better.)

But other companies took note, including Boeing, in the 90s under the leadership of Phil Condit. Condit expanded Boeing, bought rivals such as McDonald Douglas, Rockwell Aerospace and Hughes Space & Communications, expanded operations to North Carolina and South Carolina (possibly to get away from the unions in the Pacific Northwest).

Condit doubled the size of the company and eventually moved Boeing headquarters out of its Seattle birthplace to Chicago in 2001. Boeing grew, it was profitable, but the cancer had metastasized. The company was showing early signs of disease as focus shifted away from building the best airplanes in the world to becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Harry Stonecipher succeeded Condit in 2003 after it was disclosed that Boeing had been in discussions to hire an Air Force officer who was in charge of procurement of Boeing planes. One got the sense that values were open to question.

Stonecipher had worked for G.E. under Jack Welch prior to heading up McDonnell Douglas, until Boeing bought that company. At Boeing, Stonecipher was proud of the fact that he was blowing up the engineering culture at Boeing so that it would be run “like a business rather than like a great engineering firm.” (JOE NOCERA, Bloomberg) Stock price rose.

Two years later, Stonecipher was replaced by James McNerney, yet another G.E. man. McNerney had no experience in aviation. But he too was an avid cost cutter, and it was under his watch that the decision was made to “upgrade” the 737 series to a 737 MAX instead of developing a new model.

It’s important to realize that this was gaming the system. A new model would have required a full review by the FAA and other regulatory agencies. More training would be required of pilots, etc. This would slow down approval and make the plane more expensive.

In a hurry, management was more interested in driving down labor cost, outsourcing work to the cheapest subcontractor, reducing staff, and misleading the Federal Aviation Administration. Presentation of the 737 Max plane as “just another 737” was critical to its planned success, and necessary to jack up the stock price. Money saved would be used for stock buybacks, executive compensation, and growth.

Internal communication was fraying, because what employee wanted to bring problems to a manager who was trying to eliminate his/her job?

McNerney was succeeded by Dennis Muilenburg. While Muilenburg was an engineer by training and a long time Boeing employee, at this point the Boeing mindset was squarely focused on profit and share price. No one at the top seemed to be aware of, or willing to consider, what was happening on the shop floors, in the warehouses. In fact, one of the goals of the move to Chicago was to isolate management from day-to-day concerns.

So, 40 years after it began, the cancer finally resulted in catastrophe when 346 people in two Boeing aircraft died when the planes flew into the ground due to flaws in software design, possibly hardware problems, and a lack of pilot training, all of which were the result of Boeing’s focus on profit and cost cutting rather than engineering.

The company’s internal failures were exposed in 2019, but they’ve been obvious to thousands who worked for Boeing for years. Employees were not reluctant to share their opinions that the company had been floundering, but were unheeded. 2019 was simply when the disease at Boeing became known to the world. When Muilenberg told Congress after the two Max crashes that “safety is in our DNA” at Boeing, he was describing a company that had not existed for years, if not decades.

The crisis of the 737 Max is not the only example. Boeing is failing to meet military requirements for new refueling tankers, faces a lukewarm reception for its revolutionary 787 plane that was years late, and recently had an embarrassing failure when its space division shuttle failed to rendezvous with the space station.

Muilenburg was fired a month ago on December 23, 2019, but he was replaced by yet another G.E. alumnus, David Calhoun, who had worked for G.E. for 26 years and also had no background in building airplanes beyond being a director of Boeing during the time when the problems festered.

So, what’s to be done? Many will say that Boeing is too big to fail, that the impact to America and to the communities Boeing supported for generations is simply too great. But there’s another way to look at this.

The social and economic community of America is a very strong organism; diverse, vibrant, and resistant to many ailments. It often demonstrates the success of capitalism, a paradigm of production and distribution that has vastly improved the human condition.

Capitalism also heralds its accomplishments through “creative destruction.” Perhaps an American icon needs to be destroyed by the very forces that led to its dominance. Perhaps Boeing should fail so that American capitalism itself can improve and become healthy.

A healthy body sloughs defective cells so that good cells can flourish. It is when this process stops that cancer spreads and bodies die.

Corporate leaders often stress “consequences” for the less fortunate. Consequences for mismanagement are equally appropriate.

Stockholders should lose their equity. Stockholder risk will sharpen oversight. Only then can there be a return to responsibility.

Boeing should be parted out. Whatever value is reclaimed should protect hundreds of thousands of Boeing workers, pensioners, subcontractors, and customers. Subsidiaries like the military division and the space division should be broken off and sold. Money raised should be used to make reparations.

There has been an impact on subcontractors, and their employees. Communities have been harmed, and this is likely to continue. They should be revitalized.

Businesses have been disrupted. Southwest Airline built its business model around the 737, and purchased new 737 Max planes that will have been grounded for over a year. Southwest and other airlines have been harmed. They should be compensated.

Executives and board members who were complicit in the destruction of Boeing and the loss of lives should be held accountable. Money made off their dereliction of duty, if not outright criminality, should be clawed back and redistributed. It is obscene that Dennis Muilenburg’s separation package is equal to the amount set aside for families of those who died in crashes of the 737 Max.

Attempts to “save” the Boeing of the last century are doomed, because that Boeing hasn’t existed since then, and Boeing of the 21st century is collapsing. For the good of capitalism in America and the communities where it once thrived, Boeing must be excised. Several new companies could take Boeing’s place. This should be expedited and American capitalism set on a path toward a future once promised but forgotten in a maelstrom of corporate greed.

Then an biopsy should be performed, to see if Boeing, Enron, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo (with some executives finally facing prison) are exceptions or the inevitable result of capitalist energy. Questions need to be asked:

What is the impact on a company when stock options outstrip salary as a portion of total executive compensation? When stock price reflects an emphasis on lowest possible cost, rather than the best possible product? When the take home of top floor executives is based partly on suppressing the livelihood of shop floor workers?

Is a balance possible in capitalism between competing values, or does the system itself require dynamic experimentation, excesses, crashes and disruption that characterize the current situation at Boeing and events like the Great Recession earlier this century? Was that recession caused by anomalous corporate greed in an era of deregulation, or simply the natural outcome of a dynamic, self-regulating capitalist system? Are rules effective, even possible?

What happens when a company begins to focus on its success rather than on what created that success? When does a healthy system grow out of control and become malignant?

Good God, Democrats

by Erik Dolson

Seriously? This is the best Democrats can do? Goddamnit.

Where in hell is the wicked smart, 50 to 60 something, experienced enough, visionary, charasmatic man or woman (I really don’t care) to lead my America into the next half century of challenges that face us all?

Hey DNC! Don’t you watch TV or the movies?! There’s your prototype. Find a Martin Sheen or Louis-Dreyfus! Look at the GOP! Their two most popular presidents were a “B” grade movie actor and a reality TV star! Can’t you figure it out?! Liberal bona fides don’t matter. The filters are too fine.

You have the most unpoular president in recent history, one who didn’t win the popular vote and hasn’t gathered many more supporters after three years in office. You have tremendous issues to run on, and, in Clinton and Obama, two of the best politicians to advise you. Why can’t you figure this out!?

You bumbling party incompetents are going to put up a candidate to lose against a man most people recognize as deranged, who is harming America, using the constitution to clean himself and to whom you will give another four years because you can’t find, across all this great land, a woman or a man who inspires, a leader around whom Americans can come together?

Then your system is broken. It is designed to fail in some fundemental way. Please, please, fix this before it is too late.

Hiding in plain sight

By Erik Dolson

We often just see the surface of things, the shapes we impose upon the world. Our filters block what we don’t know, or allow in only what we think we know already.

La Push Beach by Zan Maddox

Early one morning waiting in Anacortes for the ferry to Victoria, I decided the broad expanse of dry, empty asphalt would be perfect to practice on my electric unicycle. I just call it my “wheel,” it’s a single wheel 16 inches in diameter with two foot plates on each side. It looks quite simple, covers hiding the complexity of motor, gyroscopes and batteries that make it a wonder of transport.

But it had not been easy to learn. An empty parking lot early in the morning while waiting for a ferry was an irresistable invitation.

The second vehicle to come into the lot was a motorcycle; the rider and I exchanged good mornings as we crossed paths. Eventually the waiting area began to fill with cars. I put my wheel away and went over to sit on benches put out for passengers, to watch the sunrise.

Motorcycle rider asked about my wheel, then we talked about motorcycles, his and the one I’d sold during the recession. His was not a Harley or a BMW, so common among those riding long distance. It was a 2014 Honda NC 700 X with a dual clutch transmission; smaller, lighter than most road warriors. “I wanted it light enough to handle sand and mud or quad trails, as well as highway speeds,” he said.

There were times, like when crossing the U.S. continental divide through a pass with a head wind, he could have wished the bike had more weight or horsepower, but those were few.

He was from South Carolina, about as far away from Anacortes Washington as it’s possible to be and not get wet. In fact, we were both headed to Victoria, Canada on Vancouver Island. He was on his way to see the sights. I was on my way back to the boat I’d left a month before.

Before long we were joined by a woman who jumped into our discussion when it was about sailboats, she’d cruised with an on again, off again lover or husband, I wasn’t clear. She was high energy, opinionated and fun, responding to my stories of working on my boat by saying there were those who worked on boats and those who cruised them. I responded to the prod that I intended to cruise, but don’t think she was convinced.

The three of us are “Travelers.” I’ve not found a better word over the years. “Tourist” is too temporary and superficial. “Gypsy” is too rootless, “wanderer” too searching, “drifter” too aimless. Travelers just go, often with a destination but not too clearly defined, just to see something not yet experienced, to embrace a new context, planning to return home but not knowing when.

Motorcycle Rider was in transition, his marriage in the process of termination. He’d visited friends and extended family on his ride across the U.S. He was on his way to see the Butchart Gardens, planned to take pictures. He was 49, 6’4″, spoke directly, seemed open, uncomplicated, vulnerable. He had no anger for his soon-to-be ex wife, saying he hoped she would find happiness.

The three of us sat together on the ferry after we boarded, the woman heading back to Friday Harbor from a trip to Alaska or Canada where she’d spent time with her partner who worked up there, maybe, memory fades. She loved apples and I gave her the one I’d brought up from my car. She was a nurse among many other accomplishments or certifications, and would that afternoon or the next day again care for someone on San Juan Island.

Rider and I continued on and across the border to Canada, paradoxically to the southwest of where we left the U.S. Once in a while, Rider would look out and say something about the how wonderful the light was in the clouds. I just saw familiar shades of Pacific Northwest gray, but he’d grab his camera and go take a photo.

I asked if he used a polarizer to enhance his pictures. He had one but didn’t use it much, he used other techniques, and emphasized exposure time. He might change photos digitally, he said, but only in ways imperceptable. He was educated as a painter, a fine artist, in what I think he described as a classical style. I was surprised by his answer, then noticed his camera was a small Leica, often regarded as the best one could buy. Rider said he liked its simplicity.

I realized the camera was like his motorcycle: very high quality, purposefully chosen for how it matched what he needed it to do and not for any external reason, not at all for how it would be perceived. I recalibrated my impressions, again.

I told him if he had no place to stay in Victoria, there was plenty of room on my boat and easy parking. He was appreciative, said he would give me a call in a few hours after he’d visited the Butchart Gardens.

I didn’t hear from him at the designated time and figured he’d headed north on Vancouver Island instead of south, that’s the kind of decision Travelers often make. But he called a couple of hours later, saying his phone had not connected when he’d tried to call earlier. That’s a problem often encountered in an international transition.

He asked if the invitation was still good, I gave him the address and he came down to Victoria, parked his bike in the lot next to the marina. Another benefit of this bike was it had a lockable storage compartment that looked like the gas tank, and would fit his full face helmet. I’d cleared boat parts and supplies from the lower bunk in the aft cabin. He’d often camped out on his trip across the continent and brought in everything he needed, sleeping bag and all.

He insisted on buying dinner in exchange for the hospitality, and we went to my favorite restaurant where he ordered a vegan meal. Again I had to readjust my bigotries, rooted as they were in his South Carolina accent and complete lack of self aggrandizement.

We talked about traveling solo and the reasons relationships fail. I’d just left a woman with many attributes, but it wasn’t going to work. It was clear the ending of his marriage was having an impact, that he loved his wife. They’d started a business together, in graphic design. She wanted more, wanted it to grow, he was content as it was.

As artists, she thought they should collaborate more. He said they already worked together but that wasn’t what she meant, she meant on the same canvas. She spent a month in Arizona, staying at an Air BnB. Rider was supposed to go, but literally the day before he was to fly out, his elderly father drove off the road and hit a tree. The injuries were severe. Rider had to stay in South Carolina.

He thought his wife would return to be with him, but she stayed in Arizona. While there, over the phone she spoke highly of her host’s qualities, often, and when she did return wasn’t off the plane for 10 minutes before saying things that caused Rider to doubt the future of their marriage. It seemed like she’d realized there might be a better match for her out in the world. She later told friends that Rider wasn’t “fighting” for her.

She said often that Rider had such great potential. It didn’t feel like a compliment. Over dinner, I wondered if she failed to see his love in giving her freedom to be who she thought she wanted to be, that she mistook acceptance for passivity, or weakness. He responded, as he always did, that he wanted her to be happy.

She may have misjudged him. When she asked for things not already given, such as money after she bought a new home before they’d sold theirs and shared the gain, he said that element of their relationship was no longer in effect. Once when she was angry and unloaded on him when they met to discuss dissolution, he told her they should probably communicate through lawyers. She did later apologize, he was careful to point out.

He defended her when I suggested she’d not realized what she had in him. It was clear he’d been wounded, but he would not lay blame. “There were many, many good times. I choose to remember those,” he said, rather than brood upon the loss. He was in no hurry for another relationship, the divorce would be final in January and in the spring he planned to hike 2,200 miles of the Apalachan Trail, possibly spending his 50 birthday at a summit in Maine.

Back at the boat I showed him how to work lights and plumbing, which are not obvious. The next morning we walked up to a café for breakfast, my treat since he’d spent more on dinner than he would have on a bargain hotel, certainly more than on a campground spot.

Rider took off, crossing on the morning ferry back into Washington at Port Angelas, to the south. He planned to visit friends or family somewhere close to Seattle. He might soon be heading back east.

We exchanged cards, if I was ever in South Carolina, if he ever came back to the Northwest, yadda yadda …

His card was very different than most, square and of a finer, heavier material, the text quite simple. It was exceptional and elegant and matched his camera and motorcycle and his attitude about life and wife and everything else I’d come to appreciate in the 24 hours since I’d met him at the ferry terminal in Anacortes the morning before.

A month later I received another thank you, and a link to a page of photographs taken on his trip across America. Of course, they were from a different perspective, and stunning.

Boeing may need a hug

by Erik Dolson

Boeing has released information to airlines on how to convince customers and crew that the 737 Max planes are “safe” after two crashed, killing 346 people. One point made was that passengers are more emotional than rational:

“Every interaction with an anxious passenger, whether face-to-face or online, is an opportunity to demonstrate our care and concern,” the presentation said. “This is as simple as recognition of a passenger’s state of mind. Research shows that emotions drive decision-making, so a human connection will be more effective than rational appeals.” 

Perhaps Boeing should focus on fixing the planes and telling the truth, rather than manipulating emotions. 

Most aircraft fly in a “balance” of forces acting on wings and tail that rotate the plane around the “center of lift.” At any given speed through the air, wings push up with a certain force, and the tail pushes with a different force. Change the speed of air over wings and the balance will change, the plane will rotate up or down, finding a new equilibrium.

If the nose rises too far and the angle of the wing to the air flow (angle of attack) is too great, the wing will stop flying. This is called a “stall.” Usually, the main wing will stall before the tail, which will cause the nose to drop, the angle of attack to improve, airspeed to increase, and the wing (and plane) plane can start flying again.

Boeing put new engines on the 737 Max, but had to move them forward on the wing. Engine pods have their own lift. Being farther forward, there was more of a “lever arm” of lift from the engines, and this changed the balance between wing and tail, especially at high angles of attack.

It’s possible that the new configuration allowed the main wing to have more lift and not stall before the tail. If the main wing does not stall before the tail, neither wing nor tail can provide control. The airplane could fall out of the sky.

Or, it’s possible that at a certain angle of attack, lift from the engine pods might overwhelm the control of the tail surfaces, causing the nose to suddenly flip up.

In designing the plane, one solution would have been to change the wing. But a new wing would have required new certification, higher costs and delay. So Boeing installed the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) software that prevented the plane from approaching extremely high angles of attack.

In most planes, including the older 737s, if a plane’s nose drops one of the first things a pilot will do is pull back on controls to bring the nose up and increase power to gain more lift from the main wing. This appears to have happned in the two tragedies.

But changes Boeing made to the behavior of the new planes were not highlighted, nor were recovery procedures if the software was misbehaving. In those situations, pilots had to turn off the new software before they could regain control of their airplane because the software pushing the nose down was stronger than pilots.

It appears pilots of the two doomed 737 Max planes did not know this because Boeing did not want airlines to have to retrain pilots to fly the new Max. This would have increased airline costs and made the new plane less competitive, so Boeing downplayed the impact of the software and did what they could to avoid calling attention to this new characteristic, both with their airline customers and the FAA.

Boeing also included a single angle-of-attack sensor as standard equipment on the 737 Max, despite being required by military buyers to install three sensors. Airbus planes also have three sensors. The reason for three is that if two sensors disagree, which one is right? Boeing said the pilots themselves would be the “redundant” system, unless airlines wanted to spend the money on an additional sensor. Add-ons were a profit center for the plane maker.

One has to think that if Boeing, one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world, could fix this issue with a software tweak that would have been done long ago, and 737 Max planes that were piling up before Boeing ended production a couple of weeks ago would be on their way to customers. Why hasn’t this happened?

One guess is that a software tweak won’t fix a fundamental problem with the plane and the placement of the new engines. Will it still fly if computer systems failed, the MACA system was not there to babysit, and the plane encountered a condition of extremely high angle of attack where lift of engine pods destabilized the plane to the point of loss of control?

Would a plane built to those specifications be allowed to fly passengers?

If not, remember that Boeing believes “a human connection will be more effective than rational appeals.” The company may need a hug.

(I welcome comments on this topic by professional pilots, especially test pilots and/or aeronautical engineers)

Boeing is still hiding something

By Erik Dolson

I’d been working on a blog saying that Boeing chief Dennis Muilenburg had to go. Boeing beat me to it. Meulenberg was let go over the weekend before I could publish.

Muilenburg was clumsy through the crisis following the crash of two of its new 737 Max airplanes that killed 346 people. He applied political pressure and embarrassed the Federal Aviation Administration, which delayed grounding the airliner until many other nations had already done so. He repeated “Safety is our number one priority” long after that was obviously untrue. He failed to effectively communicate with his customers, the major airlines.

But it’s now critical for Boeing to accept that the tragedies resulted from deeper issues within the company that predate Muilenburg’s fraught leadership. Boeing has a cultural problem that has been stewing for decades. 

This is not a secret. Conversations with current and former Boeing employees uncover a uniform thread that runs all the way to the 737 Max: Boeing’s culture veered from making the best airliners in the world to profit and growth for its own sake.

It will not be easy nor quick for Boeing to recover. Huge damage has been done, not only to the reputation of the company but to internal resources. Good people whose primary goal was quality have been lost. Systems that provided feedback loops for safety have atrophied. Trust, within the company and in the company by customers around the world, has been squandered. It will take years, if not decades, to rebuild.

Boeing has been in denial about this cultural problem. Like an alcoholic who has been successful in business for years, Boeing has relied on presentation and powerful friends to hide core weakness. But Boeing lives in a world defined by physicis. Boeing’s attempt to fool the world has become unmanageable.

There’s a recipe for recovery that’s strangely appropriate. To paraphrase: “…Those who do not recover … are constitutionally incapable of grasping and developing … rigorous honesty… be fearless and thorough from the very start.” 

The 737 Max crisis reeks from lack of honesty. Boeing tried to pass a new engine configuration off as having the same characteristics as older 737s currently flying; said no additional pilot training was required; blamed pilots of the crashed planes; presented a fatuous power point to the FAA instead of a book of actual software changes. Boeing has been trying to buy time.

Boeing is still hiding something, despite Muilenburg’s “resignation.” If I had to guess, it’s the divergent flight characteristics caused by relocating the planes new engines further forward on the wing. Simply stated, a passenger plane is supposed to “converge” to straight and level flight at a certian throttle configuration. 

With “divergent “characteristics,” an abnormal situation will get worse, or “diverge” from straight and level, because of the abnormal condition. The new engine location causes the nose of the airplane to pitch up further when it’s already too high.

In the case of the two crashed airliners, a single (!) faulty sensor may have triggered an automated response in software designed to compensate for the divergent condition, and to make the plane seem to fly like older 737’s without the new engines. The software pushed the nose down, and the planes flew into the ground.

This may not be curable by software changes. Some regulators elsewhere in the world, and maybe even the FAA now that it seems to have found some spine when it comes to Boeing, may not approve a plane that has divergent flight characteristics. Airlines that purchased the plane may want their money back.

This could break the company.

Boeing may recover, but can no longer exist in denial. It will be fascinating to watch how the company deals with the crisis moving forward.