“The redesign of the 737-800 Max resulted in an aircraft that was unstable in pitch around the lateral axis when flown at high angles of attack and under conditions of high thrust. Rather than address the underlying aeronautical design flaws, and risk certification as a 737 variant, a decision was made to fix the problem with a “software kludge” the MCAS system.”
I told you so.
“I told you so.”
If true then the Max won’t fly for years or maybe never.
We will see shortly. If the Max gets back into the air with just a software fix you all be eating crow for a long time.
“The redesign of the 737-800 Max resulted in an aircraft that was unstable in pitch around the lateral axis ...”
I’m not sure the test pilot’s job is to evaluate reliability of things like an angle of attack sensor. Just like they’re not supposed to evaluate the strength of the blades within the engines.
But I’d think they would put the plane through all sorts of unusual maneuvers and problem situations while in flight.
Whether or not they knew explicitly of the MCAS system (autopilot), I’d think they would fly the plane with it both on and off.
I’d say the test pilots wouldn’t even need to know about the MCAS peculiarities beforehand because they would find them when testing.
The first job of the test pilots is to verify that the plane is safe for an ordinary pilot to fly.