Originally Posted by
Lonewolf_50
How many airlines did what American and Southwest did? I understand that both of those airlines have an installed option (why it's an 'option' I have no idea, I'll let wiser heads reflect on that) that gives the pilots AoA displays. Given that AoA signal appears to figure in this back up system's operation, seems a smart move to me. What puzzles me is why any airline would not, but I am biased since I believe that pilots are supposed to fly aircraft, not guess at what an aircraft is doing.
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I believe that customer option is not available with other customer options, so the airline in question has to choose which ones they want. As real estate on the PFD is at a premium (well, probably not on the MAX, never flown it and it has quite large screens) there is only so many places where any indicator like that can go. I flew 737NGs that had in the same space where American has its AoA display, a round dial RA display, as the space at the bottom of the AI where it would otherwise be was taken up by some other indication. So Boeing offers two different round dial displays for that position on the PFD, which show two completely different things.