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by mikeash
2577 days ago
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MCAS only exists to paper over a small handling deficiency. Apparently nobody (at least nobody with the power to force a change) thought that it could pose a safety problem. It’s not safety critical, so who cares if it fails? Except that it can fail in a way that crashes the plane. |
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Per the article MCAS was originally intended to handle uncommon edge cases but was extended to cover additional (low speed) deficiencies. This expanded scope is what made MCAS as problematic as it is because it did away with the second input (accelerometer) and expanded the authority dramatically (from something like 0.6 degrees to 2.4 degrees of stabilizer movement).