[sgarland]

I’ve just finished reading Flying Blind by Peter Robison (recommended elsewhere on HN recently), which had engineers arguing that the plane’s flight characteristics in extremis were not acceptable, and that the correct fix was by physical redesign, not software.

Another point the book made was that since nearly every other modern aircraft has far more advanced avionics, it causes the issue of pilots who are used to computers handling a lot of tasks suddenly having to do that themselves. This is probably not as much an issue with carriers who solely use 737s, like Southwest, but I can definitely see the issue otherwise.

[wkat4242]

Interesting, I was reading elsewhere that the pitch-up tendency is not extreme and within limits of other approved airframes.

And there's the stabiliser trim that helps a lot with control forces of course. But I didn't read that book, I will check it out thanks!