The A320 (as well as modern Boeing Airliners like the 777 and 787) has a comprehensive system of "flight envelope protection" which automatically acts to keep things like a pitch runaway from happening.
In a modern aircraft, flight envelope protection is closely integrated with the fly-by-wire system in normal operation. If sensors are degraded, the system reverts to a "control rule" which has less protection.
In the case of the 737 they retrofitted a partial flight envelope protection system onto an old aircraft. Thus it wasn't properly designed, tested, and pilots not trained how to use it.
I think it's generous to consider MCAS a variety of "flight envelope protection" considering in the working case it causes a MAX to behave unlike an NG in the same situation. In the perturbed case it's a likely saboteur.
Air France was criticized for not having high altitude training for the “vol avec IAS douteuse” procedure, in the Air France 447 final report. Pilots need to know all behaviors, natural and artificial, of an airplane.
I am very curious to what degree airlines knew of MCAS, and whether they instigated or were part of the conspiracy to withhold necessary training from pilots in order to avoid different a type certification for the 737 MAX, and thereby avoid pilots needing a type rating for it. The decision to deny training for MCAS is 180 degrees from the lesson that should have been learned from AF 447.
Citation? This is a very significant claim if true, it would be a clear violation of FAR 25.173. I don't see how a plane is certified to be airworthy by software work around, in particular one that can be disabled instantly rendering the plane not airworthy.
Not exactly as strong as "crack test pilot", but from the article:
"after a few minutes of wrestling with the control yoke, the pilots on Flight 302 did invoke the checklist procedure, and moved the STAB TRIM switches to CUTOUT. The stabilizer then stopped responding to MCAS nose-down commands, but the pilots were unable to regain control of the airplane."
That is due to the mistrim situation that a perturbed MCAS had already put the plane into. Proposing that without MCAS (from the outset) the aircraft is inherently unstable is what I'm questioning.
You can see the previous flight made by the same lion air plane that crashed here[1]. They not only did not declare an emergency but they contained the flight as normal and flew for over an hour with no MCAS and no electric trim.
I should point out they found the stab cut out procedure by trial and error and were able to maintain control of the plane simply by counteracting the errant downward trim. The reason the Ethiopian plane crashed is that they didn't execute the airspeed disagree procedure and left the throttles on basically maximum.
Yes MCAS is an issue, But since no one on this site has gotten this right I might as well point that out
You're saying that IAS disagree and unreliable airspeed ought to have caused them to throttle down? That seems counter-intuitive. If you don't know how fast you're going, how are you supposed to avoid stalling?
Are you looking at a specific QRH entry? What does it say?
On what basis do they follow the IAS disagree procedure, and not the procedure in emergency AD 2018-23-51?
KNKT's preliminary report says the prior flight, Lion Air 34, was not airworthy due to continuous stick shaker activation. Further, that flight expressly requested a much lower altitude, citing control problems for that request. Neither are normal.
Comments
A comparison to the A320 is in order.
The A320 (as well as modern Boeing Airliners like the 777 and 787) has a comprehensive system of "flight envelope protection" which automatically acts to keep things like a pitch runaway from happening.
In a modern aircraft, flight envelope protection is closely integrated with the fly-by-wire system in normal operation. If sensors are degraded, the system reverts to a "control rule" which has less protection.
In the case of the 737 they retrofitted a partial flight envelope protection system onto an old aircraft. Thus it wasn't properly designed, tested, and pilots not trained how to use it.
I think it's generous to consider MCAS a variety of "flight envelope protection" considering in the working case it causes a MAX to behave unlike an NG in the same situation. In the perturbed case it's a likely saboteur.
Air France was criticized for not having high altitude training for the “vol avec IAS douteuse” procedure, in the Air France 447 final report. Pilots need to know all behaviors, natural and artificial, of an airplane.
I am very curious to what degree airlines knew of MCAS, and whether they instigated or were part of the conspiracy to withhold necessary training from pilots in order to avoid different a type certification for the 737 MAX, and thereby avoid pilots needing a type rating for it. The decision to deny training for MCAS is 180 degrees from the lesson that should have been learned from AF 447.
The aircraft is also uncontrollable when this system is disabled unless you're a crack Boeing test pilot.
Citation? This is a very significant claim if true, it would be a clear violation of FAR 25.173. I don't see how a plane is certified to be airworthy by software work around, in particular one that can be disabled instantly rendering the plane not airworthy.
Not exactly as strong as "crack test pilot", but from the article:
"after a few minutes of wrestling with the control yoke, the pilots on Flight 302 did invoke the checklist procedure, and moved the STAB TRIM switches to CUTOUT. The stabilizer then stopped responding to MCAS nose-down commands, but the pilots were unable to regain control of the airplane."
That is due to the mistrim situation that a perturbed MCAS had already put the plane into. Proposing that without MCAS (from the outset) the aircraft is inherently unstable is what I'm questioning.
You can see the previous flight made by the same lion air plane that crashed here[1]. They not only did not declare an emergency but they contained the flight as normal and flew for over an hour with no MCAS and no electric trim.
[1]: https://leehamnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Previous-f...
I should point out they found the stab cut out procedure by trial and error and were able to maintain control of the plane simply by counteracting the errant downward trim. The reason the Ethiopian plane crashed is that they didn't execute the airspeed disagree procedure and left the throttles on basically maximum.
Yes MCAS is an issue, But since no one on this site has gotten this right I might as well point that out
You're saying that IAS disagree and unreliable airspeed ought to have caused them to throttle down? That seems counter-intuitive. If you don't know how fast you're going, how are you supposed to avoid stalling?
Are you looking at a specific QRH entry? What does it say?
On what basis do they follow the IAS disagree procedure, and not the procedure in emergency AD 2018-23-51?
KNKT's preliminary report says the prior flight, Lion Air 34, was not airworthy due to continuous stick shaker activation. Further, that flight expressly requested a much lower altitude, citing control problems for that request. Neither are normal.
Egypt air pilots performed the recovery procedure and still crashed. Pretty damning evidence that it can't fly safely with MCAS off.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy. Very basic.
MCAS caused the extreme mistrim that resulted in the crash. Turning it off does not solve the mistrim.
The procedure includes manually correcting the trim. It didn't work.