
Interactive visualisation of 737 Max MCAS system - miohtama
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/29/business/boeing-737-max-8-flaws.html
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acqq
> As part of the update, the company said Max pilots would need to receive an
> additional 30-minute training program on the software.

But on an _iPad_! Boeing is still pretending that the training on the new
simulator is not needed. In fact there are almost no new simulators at all —
the MAX’s selling point was that it’s the same as the old 737.

And that was a very deadly lie.

Still, even after the software patch, with MCAS turned on, the plane pretends
to behave as the old one. Once MCAS is switched off, a pilot is left with a
new plane. For which he is not trained! And exactly at the moment the plane is
already in danger! Because Boeing’s marketing.

The obviousness of the plane not being the same is an exact reason why Boeing
tried to hide the existence of MCAS completely.

Now they still think everything is allowed to them.

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birdiesanders
This clears up a lot of how this happened. A system that does not have an
upper limit on number of corrections is dangerous. A system that relies on one
single sensor is dangerous. A system that has both flaws is lethal.

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cmurf
I'm disappointed that MCAS is still being made primarily about stall avoidance
and the idea that a stall means good chance (let alone certain chance) of a
crash. A pilot is required to understand and demostrate competency in approach
to stall, full stall, and stall recovery for category/class rating and also
for type rating.

The purpose of MCAS is to moderate the pitch up due to the aerodynamic lift
the new nacelles produce in high angles of attack. But it did so with such
aggression that it made it possible, perhaps even likely, that it would result
in sufficient mistrim and high airspeed as to make it difficult to correct in
a low altitude scenario until it was too late. It was a one size fits all
correction, and it was abrupt, regardless of airspeed, which is rather
significantly a problem at high airspeeds that would cause a problem even if
high angle of attack were true.

The graphic also ignores that MCAS accepts absurd angle of attack values as
actionable. In the Ethiopian Airlines case, 75 degrees is a nonsense value,
there's no point in correcting for it.

In effect, they made it both too simple, and deadly.

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Doxin
The problem with the 737 MAX is that it can get into a stall from which you
cannot recover. It doesn't behave the same as a regular 737 at all, which in
turn means that the actions needed to prevent a stall are wildly different. In
a regular 737 you apply more throttle in a stall to get more lift. In a 737
MAX applying more throttle will point the plane even more nose-up worsening an
already bad situation.

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cmurf
Do you have a citation for this? Getting into an unrecoverable stall is a
violation of FAR 25.203(c).

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Doxin
I should've been more specific: unrecoverable _using the old procedures_

And I'll be honest I'm rather an armchair expert here, so I don't have any
citations to back up above claims.

