“I can understand why the FAA wanted a system to to make sure pilots don’t stall the plane”
So, explain to the layman, does that only activate at a certain altitude? And what happens in those scenarios if the pilot put the plane into a stall(no MCAS)?
The MCAS was added, because in order to put an engine with a larger fan on a 737, Boeing had to mount the engines forward of the wing rather than under. The 737 Max landing gear is the same as the 737 NG landing gear. It's very difficult to make the 737 landing gear any longer that it is, because of the way it retracts into the wing root. It is a legacy of the original 737-100 and 737-200 that had a much smaller diameter low bypass engine mounded under the wing. The 737 was originally designed to go to small airports that previously just had propeller service. The short landing gear saved weight. It also cut down on the ground equipment needed to service the plane between flights. Unfortunately it has caused great headaches in updating the 737 starting the the 737-300 in the 1980's.
“An airplane can stall at any airspeed.” It is exceeding the Angle of Attack for the current flight situation that will stall the aircraft.
An old saying, “pull back on the stick and the nose will go up, continue to pull back and the nose will go down.”
What causes the nose to go down is the angle of attack has been exceeded and the airplane has stalled. All aircraft are nose heavy and, when stalled or engine power quits, the nose will lower.