Why are there bolts and machine screws in use in the first place?
The seating configurations for United and Alaska, the 2 major customers for this aircraft, don't require this plug-door feature. Structurally, for these large carriers, the plug door serves only as a fuselage weakness and failure point.
Why don't they just rivet it permanently to the fuselage and make it non-functional? Per the diagrams shown, it's a complex assembly that serves no purpose at all for these carriers.
(Apparently it was used as a cargo door to furnish the interiors, which seems like a trivial use case.)
Aircraft are often sold between airlines, or reconfigured even with the same airline. If United ever wants to reconfigure their 737s to be higher density (which is pretty common), they might need to start using that door as a real emergency exit.
Yes I see, that makes good sense. Given the course of events, it's still a fair question from a design standpoint: Can this be engineered with a reversible option to switch it from functional to non-functional, depending on the seat configuration?
It just seems like a lot of complexity and moving parts, for a feature that's not in use.
> Can this be engineered with a reversible option to switch it from functional to non-functional, depending on the seat configuration?
That's exactly how it's engineered right now, though.
This same design has been used for decades and apparently without problem, so it's probably just a case of someone designed it this way originally, and nobody thought to fix what wasn't (at the time) broken.
Yes, there are two options for that space if you don't need a door there, one which fits most of the door mechanism (bolted shut) and hides it behind a solid wall, and an option that fits a plug with a normal sized window[1], which needs more effort to convert to a working door. Alaska choose the latter.
[1] This can still be swung out for inspection / maintenance, but has no normal latching mechanism, and should be bolted in place.
Yes, certainly. But the carriers could configure it to make it non-functional, since it serves no purpose for them. Or they could spec it as a rivet-it-shut option from Boeing. Just seems crazy to have this big failure point in the fuselage, adding to their maintenance costs, for a thing they don't even use.
Yes. After 20 years of trauma, I'm finally recovering my cognitive skills. It's like a miracle, I thought they were gone forever. The cognitive losses were THE worst part of C-PTSD. I was, yes, slow and dumb. And now I'm recovering those skills. There IS hope. I can't believe it. But here it is.
20 years ago, had a highly profitable, sustainable business, with a sociopathic co-founder. Stole my money, my ideas, my contributions, my customers, and my reputation in the community. There were credible threats of violence. Fought and lost, over a period of years. Ostracized and shunned. A nightmare.
Started over, from scratch, in a solo venture. Optimistic. But the first random adversity just knocked me cold. My body physically refused to approach the work, answer the phone, or open email. I had just enough energy left, to hand off the existing customers to a colleague. Then I just collapsed. A violent physiological reaction to years of gutting through on willpower.
And that was that, for my high-powered career. Brain non-functioning. Give-a-d*mn, permanently busted. Felt like I lost 50 IQ points. Didn't care.
Over the next 10 years or so, I rebuilt most functions. Re-learned how to sleep, eat, exercise, self-regulate, make friends, build a community, pay bills, keep the house running.
But ... those basic life tasks took all my energy. I couldn't work. Couldn't earn money. My brain, seriously, did not function. Like Shortcake27 said, at least I wasn't letting anyone down. And I would have.
I lived frugally, slowly used up my IRA at a 10% penalty, and tried to figure out what to do. I didn't even have a name for what my problem was.
Long story short(er), 3 years ago, I began working with a Stanford-trained PhD trauma therapist. I'd been "trying to work" for years, to re-launch my business. But I kept doing the same tasks over and over, and forgetting I'd done them. That was the issue that brought me to therapy, along with going broke.
I'm now successfully re-launching the business. My cognition, memory, and work capacity have returned full throttle. It's an amazing feeling. Here's what I've learned.
(1) YES to what everyone else said, about restoring physical health. Sleep, nutrition, exercise, fresh air, regular schedule. Trauma lives in the body. Fixing it starts with caring for the physical body.
(2) No healing will begin, without ensuring PRESENT-DAY safety, emotional and physical. You can't fix past damage, if your body's still incurring present damage. Your body knows, what's safe and what isn't. If there's still some low-level abuse or disrespect kicking around in your life, progress will be hard.
This is challenging. It might mean letting go of some relationships that are comfortable but unhealthy. And then just keeping that space open for yourself, without letting other dramas rush in to fill the void. This was the hardest thing I had to do.
(3) Respect the body's instinct to self-isolate after trauma. Being alone is SAFE. Obviously it's not a long-term solution. But it can definitely be a great short-term solution. It lets the body return to homeostasis, on an animal level.
(4) Have faith that your cognition and mental function can rebuild themselves. I didn't. But my therapist did.
(5) Since trauma lives in the body, it's no different than a broken bone that wasn't set properly. The body's reactions to it are NORMAL, not shameful or weird. If your leg bone's not set right, you won't be able to walk. There's nothing wrong with that. It just IS. It needs surgical re-alignment. Same thing with your cognition. It works just fine when properly treated.
Anyway hope this helps. It would have given encouragement to my past self, to see a story like this. :)
Edited to say, I'm cheering for you, and for all on this thread in a similar situation.
This is the worst phase, the waiting. Paradoxically once you start chemo, it's better. You're moving forward, and through. Just walking through the calendar to the end date.
Started a year ago. 5 months of chemo. Clear scan at 6-month checkup. :)
Chemo was my full-time job for awhile. It consumes a lot of energy. There wasn't much room for anything else. I could go thru the motions of other tasks, that's about it. And that's OK. Big picture, we're saving our lives, so that we can get to the other tasks later.
Brain function was fine all through chemo, and afterward. Not a cognition problem, thankfully. More an energy problem. I could think fine. Just couldn't act on it. Again that was OK.
It's so important to give ourselves some grace ... chemo's not a side project. Accepting that, makes everything else so much easier.
Very best of luck to you, and take ALL the anti-nausea drugs. They really work.
The seating configurations for United and Alaska, the 2 major customers for this aircraft, don't require this plug-door feature. Structurally, for these large carriers, the plug door serves only as a fuselage weakness and failure point.
Why don't they just rivet it permanently to the fuselage and make it non-functional? Per the diagrams shown, it's a complex assembly that serves no purpose at all for these carriers.
(Apparently it was used as a cargo door to furnish the interiors, which seems like a trivial use case.)