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One of the requirements for an airplane to receive a certification is that the pilot needs to put more and more pressure on the stick to achieve higher and high
by roelschroeven 7y ago
One of the requirements for an airplane to receive a certification is that the pilot needs to put more and more pressure on the stick to achieve higher and higher angle of attack. If at some point the airplane starts to pitch to higher AoA without extra pressure from the pilot, that's a big no. Reason: otherwise it would be all too easy to inadvertently enter a stall condition.
Boeing 737 MAX without MCAS violates that requirement (caused by the lift generated by large engine nacelles in front of the wings). MCAS is indeed designed to restore that required back-force. Back-force that is required to prevent stalls.
I suppose one could debate whether the stall prevention effect of MCAS is direct or indirect. But I don't think it's debatable that it is designed to comply with a certification requirement that's intended to help prevent stalls.
- mannykannot 7y agoYou have a point, though, from what I have read, I do not think the airplane would become unstable prior to the stall, merely less statically stable than its predecessors. Boeing may be denying that MCAS has a stall prevention purpose only because to say so might put it in the critical systems category, requiring additional training. If so, this would apply as much to the fix as it does to the original version. To acknowledge that it has a stall prevention function might require an additional AofA sensor as well as additional training.