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by jacquesm
2609 days ago
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At a guess you are not a test pilot. Test pilots are - or at least are supposed to be - briefed on all of the details of the systems they are testing, including what should happen when they take the plane outside of normal operating parameters. There is no such thing as 'destructive aircraft testing', that's called a crash and is considered an anomaly. It always amazes me how software and IT people in general assume that other industries are just as crappy in their processes. That said, I do actually believe that this speaks in favor of Boeing to the extent that that is still possible after all that came out so far: the fact that they did not alert their own test pilots proves to a certain degree that they did not believe the change was a major one or worth mentioning. It would have been a worse signal if they had alerted their test pilots to the change but then failed to notify their customers, this is at least consistent with their narrative that they did not see the change as a major one. |
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Yes, what Boeing is saying is that MCAS, being designed to force the new plane follow the flight envelope of the old plane
1/ wasn't an anti-stall system
2/ and therefore wasn't a "security" feature (and therefore, it was completely ok to sell upgrades to that system as expensive options)
During a recent interview, Boeing CEO repeatedly said that no specific training was necessary on MCAS because MCAS is part of the whole plane, and when you're flying the MAX you're using MCAS.
This is indeed the problem: they couldn't even consider MCAS failing -- even as a thought experiment, because if MCAS fails, the MAX isn't a 737 anymore!
It looks like they locked themselves up into an alternative reality that they couldn't escape, until planes started crashing into the ground.