All the talk about the new 737 MCAS (Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System) is reminiscent of the MD-11 LSAS (Longitudinal Stability Augmentation System) from 30 years ago. Even the name is eerily familiar. I wonder if it was onetime McDonnell Douglas designers, now in senior positions at Boeing, who came up with it. To paraphrase, LSAS was an electronic system which varied the pitch according to its own rules to ensure stability. Compared to its predecessor DC-10 the aircraft had a smaller tail, to reduce drag, and thus smaller elevators, and LSAS was provided to compensate in handling. LSAS was implicated in a number of both hard landings and actual accidents, where the aircraft just did not handle how the crew expected. Not for nothing was it known at the time as the "Scud", because 'you never knew where it was going to land'. Several major purchasers, particularly in the US, were spooked by its characteristics, and sold the aircraft off prematurely. How many of the 200 MD-11 built were lost in sudden instability landing accidents ?
As I understand it, today's team in Seattle (well, in Chicago actually, now the top management have moved themselves away from the worthwhile company members) were concerned about things like common type ratings with the previous models, so it had to be presented as sufficiently similar to those. Which of course it was. MCAS not on the old models, so no need to mention it.