When I started in aviation we had a saying; If I’m going it's in a Boeing!” This is not so today!
While I still think the Boeing 777 is the epitome of aluminum transport aircraft, the company Boeing is a disgrace.
The last six year of my career was in support of Boeing as a vendor or partner. Much of this time was spent sittting in meetings on mahogany row. It pains me to say that the management of the last three aircraft (737 Max, 747-8 and the 787-8) I was involved with was often rather poor, if not downright horrible! Many of Boeing’s actions with regard to safety actually were made counter to their defined processes. There still are some great engineers at Boeing but since their purchase of McDonald Douglas the "Boeing management" has been focused on monetary issues over sound engineering. This may be an unpleasant reality when needing to make the acquisition of McDonald Douglass look to be working to the Wall Street bean counters.
Having, as an engineer, supplied hardware and services to all 4 major transport aircraft manufactures. I can say without reservation that Boeing is at the bottom of the pile as far as ethics and holding to their stated processes. Can Boeing recover; maybe? But the issues are now systemic in the culture. It will take some very very strong leadership at Boeing to turn a round the commercial division. I know almost nothing about the military side of Boeing. But I have no reason to think it is any different than the commercial side.
Yes, I’d like to see Boeing broken up and other more ethical firms allowed to grow in its place. This is the only way I know to get the real attention of management. And this is coming from a guy that has close to 2 million dollars in Boeing stock. Well, at one time it was close to 2 million dollars! Again piss poor management!
On the subject of piss poor management, here is more proof that I hold to my engineering analysis. Here is a photo after the maiden flights of my foamy jet. You might notice that I'm still using some FrSky products. Please notice the transmitter harness. This has proven to be real comfortable and it interfaces well with other brands of transmitters. Now to the main subject of this thread TX performance, you might notice that the TX is a Spektrum DX-9. It performed without a hitch!
The sad truth is that My FrSky X9D+ has been relegated to only controlling low cost, low emotional value toys like this 64mm Rafale jet. This jet really wasn’t worth the time to figure out how to program a delta wing wing with the pull down menus. FrSky needs to learn that the only reason they are still in the TX race is because of the fact they are running OpenTX. Without OpenTX I’d be done with FrSky TX’s!
BTW; I need to thank Wayne for helping me with an annoying haptic feedback I was getting. It felt like I was being shocked every time I touched the rudder. To be clear the dealers like Aloft Hobbies have been doing an exemplary job picking up the slack, dealing with the inherent ineptitude of FrSky's managemen when it comes to software and customer support! But at some point the core issues need to be addressed at the source of the problem, and that comes from the very top of FrSky’s management, as the problem is FrSky management!
To the last question, that’s much the point, FrSky does not see those using their unlicensed products as customers, but rather leeches. This may be true, but to FrSky’s customer base and future customer base this attitude will cost FrSky more, much more than the clones are costing FrSky.
All the best,
Konrad
