Originally Posted by
webecheck
Do you guys actually know what mcas really is and why the version everyone knows by name is on airplanes (737max's in this discussion)? It's on other aircraft besides Max's, which I'm sure you know, just different designs. Not trying to insult anyone's intelligence here, just throwing some info out.
I'll give you the cliff notes. Faa mandated what the stall recovery characteristics of transport category airplanes have to be like. If the airplane naturally doesn't fit that mold, make a system that will augment it to fall into our parameters. The irony here is that if the mandate was never there, pilots would be forced to be pilots, thus these incidents with the max would never have happened. Not saying other issues couldn't manifest themselves in precarious situations I suppose, but if you isolate these instances, the very system intended to enhance safety, due to a poor design, was the reason for the aircraft's demise.
The only other plane with MCAS is the KC-46, and it’s a bit different system. It can be overridden with the yoke, but the MAX’s couldn’t, iirc. There are some other differences but I can’t rattle them off and I’m not gonna look it up.
And it wasn’t just for stall recovery characteristics. That’s part of CFR 25.203, but it also addresses controls when approaching stalls, and without MCAS the MAX’s stick force gradients weren’t certifiable in those high AOA, high thrust situations.
http://www.b737.org.uk/mcas.htm
But yeah I agree with the point that without the system the plane would fly just fine, it just wouldn’t be certifiable.