If in the due course of time this turns out to be a Lion Air equivalent, it is my opinion that a great deal of blame lies with Boeing. To implement software that will crash perfectly flyable aircraft (unless that software is overridden correctly by skilled pilots), and NOT even tell pilots about it until it became an issue, just seems to me to be "bad practice".
It’s worse than that. It uses a part of the control system (the trimming tail) which has much more authority than the elevators. Full nose down, or nose up, trim cannot be controlled by the pilots pushing or pulling. You must retrim to gain any sort of control.
And if this problem is kicking in at only 7000 feet, I suspect even well trained pilots may have a struggle saving the plane.
It won’t be at 7,000’. From my reading MCAS becomes active as soon as the flaps are retracted, which will be 3,000 plus or minus a bit. If you are trimmed nose down, but still within the limit of elevator control, you could be looking at loads in the order of 40kgs, applied through both control columns, to maintain any control at all... And once you get just a little bit more nose down trim, no matter how much force you apply, you’ll still lose.
I am usually all for waiting for a full and comprehensive investigation, but this 737 MAX issue may be so urgent that groundings are warranted.
It will be interesting to see, and I suspect the outcome will vary around the world. Personally, I find the entire concept of MCAS to be illogical, and I would probably be choosy about the aircraft I fly on until this is resolved.
heard Ethiopian are an OK airline with new planes
they have a bunch of 787 planes too
New aircraft mean nothing. They have a record that is quite spotty at best.
Change of flight would not be allowed I would say, not until a report finds the 737Max dangerous, and if the plane was grounded.
Also Airbus has experience with the stall protection on their aircraft and so the pilots should hopefully be trained. The issue was that Boeing introduced it without really telling the pilots
Airbus did not have any issue will stall protection. Air France had an issue with a pilot who could not fly. In normal law, an Airbus won’t stall at all. Sadly, the pilot doing the flying in AF447 did not recognise that the aircraft had changed laws, and that the stall protection had reverted to a stall warning. He then proceeded to do something that made ZERO aviation sense, no matter what law you’re in. When it reverts to laws other than normal, it simply behaves like any classic aircraft. It was called Boeing mode by some.
There are a number of issues for Boeing here. Firstly this system is being activated by ONE angle of attack probe. There is an immediate single point of failure issue. When Lion was being discussed I was very surprised to find, in this day and age, that any aircraft was being certified with only a dual, and not triplicated, AoA system. Secondly, it’s using a very powerful control surface, which has more control than the pilots, to initiate a change. It’s supposedly for stall recovery, but I’d just about defy anyone to be able to recover from a stall with full nose down trim....it’s actually quite stupid. Thirdly, they didn’t tell anyone.
The 737 is an aircraft designed in the ‘50s, and first brought into service in the ‘60s. It’s had mod after mod, and kludge after kludge, added over the years. Realistically, I think Boeing intended for it to be replaced by the 757, but that didn’t happen. It really doesn’t compare at all well with the AB equivalent.
