"The nose gear was actually eight inches longer to accommodate the bigger engines. So it changes the elevation of the nose of the airplane as it’s flying through the air..."Boeing DID lengthen the landing gear, but obviously the gear are retracted in flight and do not affect the flight dynamics.
When Boeing adopted the higher-bypass LEAP engines to get improved fuel economy, they now had a ground clearance problem -- the engines were simply too big to fit under the wing. So they did two things: lengthened the landing gear AND moved the larger diameter engines forward to get the nacelles in front of the wing. In normal attitude flight, the nacelles do not generate lift, but at high angle of attack flight, they DO generate lift. Because they are further forward, this lift generates an upward pitch moment. The problem is that the upward pitch in high angle of attack flight is not what you want because it exacerbates the situation. Higher angle of attack attitude --> more upward pitch moment --> higher angle of attack --> more upward pitch, etc. (think of this as a positive feedback loop). This can happen very quickly, too, and is NOT the handling characteristic of the more neutral prior 373 types.
MCAS was added to arrest this upward pitch tendency in high AoA attitude flight. If they hadn't done this, the 737 MAX would probably have required complete re-certification as a new airframe (no longer the 737 type) at untold millions and years of delay. It was a bad FINANCIAL decision at the expense of safety.
The 737 Max is a brilliant airplane that was put to its limits of present technology. It is a good airplane. The concept of one Individual Angle of Attack controlling the computer is insanity. One device with out a backup system could kill you. It did! Boeing makes the finest aircraft in the world. I do not understand why they did this.
I would also suspect inferior pilot training from Boeing on the new aircraft. Yes it was just a new version of a 737 but in reality it was a new aircraft with different computer systems.
If pilots really understood the system they would have just pulled two switches and turned it off and flew it by hand.
The pilots in command of those two airplanes that went in were competent pilots. That means they were not properly trained on this aircraft. Boeing and the airlines own this.