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My understanding is that the design is fundamentally flawed; the engines are too large to fit under the wings with the existing landing gear, so they were moved
by samcheng 7y ago
My understanding is that the design is fundamentally flawed; the engines are too large to fit under the wings with the existing landing gear, so they were moved forward, thereby upsetting the balance between the center of thrust of the engines and the center of lift of the wings, thereby requiring a brittle MCAS system to attempt to compensate.
The MCAS system itself is flawed in a number of ways, but the core problem (in my opinion) is the attempt to fit large engines under a too-small airplane, in the name of saving regulatory / training costs.
- armada651 7y agoActually it's important to remember that MCAS was not fitted to make the plane safer. It was fited to make it behave the same way as a 737 so that pilots don't need to be retrained. If you would retrain pilots then the 737 MAX can be safely flown without MCAS. Pilots just need to be familiar with the different aerodynamics.
- ahakki 7y agoA 737 Max without MCAS doesn't have linearly increasing stick forces as AOA increases. This is a FAA requirement, so the 737 MAX can't be approved without the MCAS system, regardless if it could be flown by a trained pilot.