Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 03/25/2019

Boeing 737 Max Problems – Importance Of STEM Education For Society

Craig Peterson 0:00
Hey, good morning, everybody. Man we’ve been busy delivering, I don’t think I’ve been this busy in 20 years. Well, I don’t know, maybe five, six years ago, we’re doing a big deployment, I was pretty busy back then. But putting this course together and teaching it, it has been energizing for me, even though I’ve been so busy working so hard. So that last module is coming out this week. That’s eight major modules on do it yourself, cyber security. And I am putting together these bonus modules on securing your website. We’ve got a lot of stuff to release, the last coaching call is this week. It has been quite the little trip here. It’s been fun. I appreciate everybody that bought the course that signed up and has participated we had amazing participation too. I’m really quite, quite shocked. I’m very happy about it. It has been good all the way around. And I am going to do it again. Probably in another month or so once I kind of calmed down, take care of a few other things. And I’m going to add a few things, move some things around. And you know how that always goes. But anyhow, it has been great. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you to everybody who has been involved. Also, thanks to our listeners here in the podcast. I’ve been getting some nice feedback and you know, basically any feedback I think is good feedback. It really helps me to hone things in but some people listening on the weekend, some people listening to and from work. People listening at the gym, it’s it’s fascinating to think about all of the different people involved here listening and participating. So if you have any comments, suggestions, whatever, just email me@CraigPeterson.com or you can always text me 855-385-5553. Excuse me. 855-385-5553 Well, this morning, I was on with Mr. Jack Heath. And we spend quite a bit of time talking about what’s happening with Boeing and my concerns about it as well as what’s happening with the army recruiting they were on a little earlier on his radio show and they mentioned stem so of course I got into that little bit as well so here we go.

Jack Heath 2:34
Colonel Anzalone as we go to some Tech Talk we just had Colonel Ron Anzalone with us arm and he was talking about how Craig Peterson as we turn to our Tech Talk guy on the Auto Fair listener lines. Craig and his show airs Saturday later in the morning on our iHeart news talk stations. Craig, the colonel somewhat in effort to recruit young people in the army in Boston, they’re going to be taking part in that gamer weekend, you know, these these games and some colleges now are basically coming up with four year courses and what I would call, you know, e-game. You know, I don’t know, gaming, you know, video stuff, games and all the technology that goes with it as a way to reach more recruits. But interesting stuff. The other thing I want to get from you, Craig, is Boeing has a real challenge now working on the software adjustment for the 737 max class.

Craig 3:19
Yeah, Hey, good morning, Jack. There. I love the fact that you brought up STEM because I’ve always felt it’s so important. That’s the science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It’s something that US First has really emphasized over the years. And of course, that’s started right here. Something Dean Kamen helped to really spearhead. And that’s the first robotics competition. You know, when I had a longer show, in fact, we used to go three, four hours during the finals.

Jack 3:50
I remember that.

Craig 3:51 
Yeah, it was fantastic. But these kids, these are the future. And I’ve said that for so long, getting your kid involved. Almost every school in New Hampshire has a program. It starts when they’re young with Lego. And then moves all the way up to the big robots, where they’re doing everything from the business plan, how we’re going to raise money, how we’re going to do out to outreach, how we’re going to have safety when we’re building these things? They have different sub teams, the marketing people that are involved, and we’re talking about kids in high school, all the way through, how do we accomplish this task were assigned to accomplish with the robot? Well, we are given some very, very limited parts of basically just the controllers. So how do we want to make our robot? What we’re gonna make it out of? You see these things made out of PVC, out of wood, out of different types of metals, and then they come to the competition, and we’re in competition season now. And it’s just fantastic. And that’s what the not only the military’s looking for, is the kids with these abilities, not only to to play the games, but to design the software, design the hardware, design the systems. And I think this outreach you’re doing is fantastic. It’s going to be great for the military. And then we get down to the FAA side of things, Jack, and what’s happening with Boeing. And, man, this is a really big story. And again, I don’t want to say I told you so. So I’m not going to say it.

Craig 5:29
I really was worried about these European airplanes, because the basic design difference between what Boeing was doing at the time, and these European planes, Boeing bowling was designed so that if you wanted to disagree with the plane, you fought against the plane, you pulled harder on that stick or push harder or turn harder or, or with the flaps or whatever you wanted to do. Whereas the European planes are coming out were all based on computers and, and you had to walk through multiple screens. You might remember the first error, but I think it was the very first one crashed right when they were demonstrating it for the very first time to potential purchasers, because it overrode what the pilots wanted to do. And the pilots’ natural instincts were completely ignored. Well, this is what I’ve warned about when we’re talking about automation, it really appears that these 737 Max jets with this new anti stall system, and it’s technically called the maneuvering characteristics Augmentation System. But this new anti stall system is overriding the pilot’s inputs. The pilot should be able to fight with pet stick, if it works. If the pilot one set nose up, it should be able to fight with the plane. And the plane should then be saying, okay, pilot, I’m going to do what you want to do. But you know, I’m going to fight with you a little bit because I disagree. That is a huge design change in Boeing’s mind from what it was 20 years ago. And it is scary as heck. Because we are not computer operators. We have our natural instincts, the way we respond, the way we worked all of these gears. You can’t all of a sudden put a system in place. not have the instrumentation on on the board, but you can’t put a system in place that overrides the pilots input. 

Jack 7:42
Well that’s why I’m not a big fan of Teslas, the driverless cars are always the more automation I think the driver always needs to be, you know, ultimately responsible. Anyway. That’s good stuff, Craig, we’ll see where it all goes and pointing to talk about on the tech side. Thank you.

Craig 7:50 
Absolutely. Thanks Jack.