Originally Posted by
chuck416
Not a Boeing guy. Serious question...what does MCAS stand for. I can gather what it does from the conversation thread.
Maneuvering Characteristic Augmentation System. Because of the shape of the Max motors and the fact they extend further forward ahead of the CG than other 737s, at high angles of attack the engine nacelle itself starts to produce lift which causes an additional pitch up moment. So they had to design a system to drive the nose down...
MCAS is supposed to be disabled with the flaps extended...will be curious to know the configuration of ET302 when they started to encounter issues.