The trim failure mode has been observed and recovered by experienced pilots, and recovered successfully. This is US airlines, and many foreign airlines. The unsuccessful has been from low-time inexperienced and/or questionable airlines. That said, clearly US domestic pilots understand the issues, and have been vocal complaining... knowing full well that the trim motor s/w should not make them have to rely on instantly knowing what to do, because in this case, even an 50,000 hour experienced pilot could, given the second or two of reaction time, still succumb.
Juan Brown is a great source of info on this...
Lion Air has a program that allows inexperienced pilots to fly their 737s, but they pay the airline instead of receiving a salary.
Also, a starting captain at Lion Air makes less than 15k a year.
If Boeing wants to compete with Airbus in the third world they’ll have to make their aircraft tolerant of really bad pilots.
That said, clearly US domestic pilots understand the issues, and have been vocal complaining... knowing full well that the trim motor s/w should not make them have to rely on instantly knowing what to do, because in this case, even an 50,000 hour experienced pilot could, given the second or two of reaction time, still succumb.
...
Instantly?
The electric trim control on the wheel overrides MCAS. Simply holding on to the trim wheel will prevent the worst kind of automatic trim failure. Pilots have a long time to figure what’s wrong if they are competent.
“The trim failure mode has been observed and recovered by experienced pilots, and recovered successfully. “
Yes, the old “needle, ball and airspeed” flying skills have been lost. I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. In the Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco, weather was not a factor. The Cat 3B ILS was out of commission on a clear day, and the pilots ( the infamous Wee Too Lo, Sum Ting Wong, Bang Ding Owe, and Ho Lee $hit as noted on Fox Channel 2 here), could not establish a proper glide path to the runway by using basic flight instruments. They were even too stupid to execute a “go around” when it was clear that the plane was not in a stable, ready to land state. And yet, these guys, whose skills are probably limited to successfully taxiing the plane to and from the runway and knowing how to turn on the automated flight control systems, log ten or more hours of “flying time” on trips between the US and Asian cities (and quickly become “high time pilots”).
Another FReeper sent me a piece at the time from a retired UAL pilot who had been fired from both Asiana and KAL for failing their student pilots because they could not really fly their planes. So a word to the wise, if your plane isn’t being flown by round-eyed, white pilots, you are at risk if the pilots are really needed to fly the plane at some point in your trip.