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Yes, from everything that I've researched about this (not working in this industry anymore), MCAS was to adjust the feel of the controls when at the edge of the flight envelope. The plane, during normal flight, would behave very similarly to existing 737s. What I read that shocked me was that Boeing was relying on a single angle of attack sensor at a time, with software rules that should have never flown. Such as: not tossing out obviously impossible angle of attack readings, doubling down on nose-down stall corrections, and not limiting MCAS to an input that ensured pilot controllability if the electric trim had to be disabled. (this may not have been possible, actually, in certain flight regimes) The system pushed the plane into a regime where, from everything I have read, the aerodynamic forces were strong enough that manual pilot trimming (via a physical wheel near the control column) was not possible for a normal human, especially while the pilots were experiencing negative G's from such a strong nose-down trim. The flight log information I could find showed a very difficult cockpit situation. Enabling electric trim (and MCAS) shoved the nose downward, but also allowed some level of trim correction by the pilots that they could not achieve with the trim wheel. Stick forces were also enormous on the elevator, having to pull back over 50lbs if my memory serves. Imagine yanking back with all your might while fiddling with secondary controls that also required enormous force to move, while the plane is forcing you up and out of your seat, against the seatbelt. This is where any cockpit communication issues between the two pilots would be severely complicating. That Boeing released this with such flaws, and the FAA accepted it, seems quite damning to Boeing and the FAA. This is something that I can imagine technical leadership and management at Boeing would know about and should have caught and stopped much earlier in the process. |