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It's an AoA sensor. Planes flew without AoA sensors for 100 years; it's a useful sensor but not a critical sensor. Pilots and autopilots are perfectly capable o
by dreamcompiler 8y ago
It's an AoA sensor. Planes flew without AoA sensors for 100 years; it's a useful sensor but not a critical sensor. Pilots and autopilots are perfectly capable of flying planes without it. If two AoA sensors disagree, you just stop making decisions based on the AoA sensor and fly the plane without it.
- inferiorhuman 8y agoThe crux of the problem is that the NG/MAX isn't certified to fly with malfunctioning alpha vanes. On the NG and MAX the effort required to move the control column varies based on the angle-of-attack (a.k.a. elevator feel system). On the MAX the airspeed calculation is influenced by the AoA and MCAS is triggered by data from a single alpha vane with no sanity checking. Functioning alpha vanes are critical on the MAX and NG.
- dreamcompiler 8y agoThat's the huge design flaw. They should have made the AoA sensors either critical and triply redundant, or not critical at all (as is typical).