One of my best friends is a 20,000 hour 737 captain (and check pilot) at United and spent the past several weeks getting training on the new Max. He says the pr

One of my best friends is a 20,000 hour 737 captain (and check pilot) at United and spent the past several weeks getting training on the new Max. He says the primary win for the new MCAS is that there is no longer a single point of failure (in the prior version the system only took data from a single AOA source even though there were two AOA indicators already on the airplane. At least on the United versions of the plane.) The new version uses both AOA sources. Additionally, the MCAS system now has limits on the amount of “correction” to prevent extreme compensation by the system. My friend is just a single anecdote, but I trust pilots highly experienced in type more than articles written by journalists who don’t actually fly or even bureaucrats who have never spent significant time with the airplane in real world conditions. If mainline airline pilots are confident in the system, so am I. Even with the old system, no US (or major European) airline ever had problems with the old system because European and US have far higher pilot experience requirements to fly in the bigger jets. For example, at United, you need at least 3000 hours before even being allowed in the right seat of a 737. For RJs, you have to have 1500 hours before being allowed in the right seat. That is a significantly higher standard than Ethiopian which has right seaters with less than 250 total flight hours. At Ethiopian or Lion Air 5000 hours is an “experienced” captain. At United that would be a rookie first officer. I don’t know anyone at Southwest, but they have very high entry level minimums as well. The first 737 Max had flaws, no question, but statistically, why didn’t any American carriers have any crashes despite flying an order of magnitude more hours in the airplane compared to Ethiopian or Lion Air? The US and European airlines are simply far more rigorous in training and pilot requirements as well as maintenance requirements. Fixing the Max is not addressing the bigger, far more significant issue of pilot training in non-US/Euro airlines. I have almost 1000 hours and am commercial and instrument rated but I am barely qualified to fly FedEx feeder Cessna 208s or perhaps right seat in a King Air. If I were outside the US/Canada/Europe, I could be flying 737s with 150 passengers. We still have the significant issue of “fake pilots” [1] and all sorts of chicanery that has yet to be addressed. Despite flaws inherent in any government agency, the fact is the FAA has made American skies among the very safest in the world, at least according to the data. If US and Euro airlines start crashing, then we can revisit that theory. [1] https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/680358-why-has-eu-never-banned-indian-airlines-flown-by-fake-pilots https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/680358-why-has-eu-never-ban...