If the airframe isn’t flawed, fly it without MCAS. With Boeing management onboard. Surely you don’t need to dynamically adjust flight dynamics without the pilot’s input or knowledge if the airframe is sound.
It’s realistic to build aircraft where software is required to fly said aircraft depending on the flight dynamics, and the pilot(s) are fully aware of what’s running. But that changes the type rating and blows Boeing’s regulatory sidestep out of the sky.
God it's frustrating seeing people here talk about aviation.
Flight computers are a fundamental part of normal aeronautical design.
Asking Boeing to fly a Max without MCAS would be like asking you to write a bug free C++ program... with a compiler with no error messages or validation.
The MCAS was a workaround implemented as a stopgap, no? How does this fall under the broad category of a flight computer as you've stated? What other airliners have been retrofitted with similar systems? Why doesn't a non-Max 737 need MCAS?
A non-Max 737 doesn't need MCAS because it already behaves like a 737.
Essentially, most replies on this boil down to people being shocked (shocked!) that computers are currently helping all planes fly. I'm not sure how they thought AEs were getting efficiency gains while physics stayed the same...
The replies do not all boil down to people being shocked that computers help planes fly. That is a willfully distorted charicature.
Hundreds of people were killed due to a bad implementation of a deeply irresponsible and insensible approach to make money by skirting flight safety regulation. The bad implementation was in part software, but nobody is confusing that aspect with the whole picture.
The 737 MAX does not need MCAS. Nothing needs MCAS. Boeing executives wanted the money that MCAS made them.
If that were the case, then you'd see people debating the relative merits of SDLC approaches and organizational blinders to letting bugs slip through.
In reality, that's only about 20% of any Boeing discussion.
80% is outrage about how Boeing could have released such an "obviously flawed" airplane that required flight computer adjustments. And misunderstanding that Boeing pivoted from a clean sheet design to instead build exactly what the carriers asked them to.
Generally, HN comments are pretty good, but the amount of kneejerking in Boeing threads in lieu of informed discussion is terrible.
Edit: Although reading through new replies this morning, it's nice to see voting mostly sorted the technical wheat from the chaff.
> A non-Max 737 doesn't need MCAS because it already behaves like a 737.
If I read this correctly you're implying a 737 Max doesn't behave, aerodynamically, as that a non-Max 737 does? And if we follow that line of thinking since non-Max 737 don't require MCAS to behave appropriately then the 737 Max is not a 737 airframe and it should be recertified as something else, no?
I'm in no way "shocked" computers fly and/or help fly airplanes. I am shocked so many comments defend the gross negligence by Boeing, however.
Remember that in all of the needless death the 737 Max is attributed with absolutely zero deaths were because of a flight computer. The real root cause of the 737 Max crashes are Boeing executives and FAA personnel making cognizant choices to allow process to be skipped in the vain of profits and loss avoidance. I believe we'll see this, at some point, no different than the commonly referenced Challenger failure [0].
The Max is not fly by wire, that's the problem. It's a hydraulic/mechanical control. That's why pilots aren't able to pull it out of dives or re-trim it, the aerodynamic forces are too much for the crew to fight against.
Right. If this was a fly by wire aircraft, it would have to have triple or quadruple redundant control systems and redundant air data sensors. But because the auto-trim system wasn't considered primary flight control, it didn't get evaluated like a fly by wire system.
Auto-trim has been around for years, and failures are usually more annoying than serious. But the 737 MAX's auto-trim had far too much control authority, and was being used to compensate for bad handling characteristics, making it a flight critical system.
And if they hadn't opted for secrecy, properly put it in the manual instead of hoping that the outcome of bad sensor readings would appear like that of a fried switch, someone might have realized what a perfect trap they had built while writing "engage trim cut-out, then work the manual trim wheel until you regain control or hit the ground, whatever comes first".
Sophisticated flight computers are only necessary for aircrafts that are inheritenly unstable (fighter jets) that require special flight characteristics.
Safe commercial, and private aircraft are built to be inheritenly stable. It's less complexity.
Sure we've added fly by wire, or dynamic power controls. But those are relatively straight forward.
Changing the center of gravity of the plane and therefore introducing different (dangerous, risky, and unsafe) flight charectierstics is a major issue.
Depending on how exactly you define it, pilot error is either the #1 or #2 cause of commercial plane crashes. FBW systems seek to reduce or eliminate that.
It’s realistic to build aircraft where software is required to fly said aircraft depending on the flight dynamics, and the pilot(s) are fully aware of what’s running. But that changes the type rating and blows Boeing’s regulatory sidestep out of the sky.