Originally Posted by
HarryMann
Yeh. Think I made that point earlier based on such a blatantly naive solution to an Alpha ~ Stick force condition, messing so brutally with stab trim.
Literally, we seem to have a black and white mandatory certification requirement, ignored or overlooked by the project engineers who postulated moving these large engines up and forwards, developing into a mad rush for an affordable workaround... to a situation that would RARELY be met; would be UNDERSTANDABLE to a crew if it was; and could be ANSWERED COMPREHENSIBLY by a pre-existing and time-honoured stick shaker (or re-engineered shaker/ pusher pair)
Wasn't the problem with that, that - with the new bigger engines attached to the old wings - the elevator alone is too small to begin with to come to the rescue in a perceived approaching stall scenario, particularly at high speed at altitude scenarios, and that a redesign of the tail section was to be avoided, to save money and time?
Also, as far as we know, MCAS itself might have worked as intended, had the single AoA sensor it depends on not acted up. The problem apparently is, that against fundamental state of the art aerospace engineering principles, it was designed without redundant sensor data input, thus making it irregularly vulnerable as a system, that in case of malfunction potentially leads to outcomes in the "catastrophic" category.
Anyway, the jackscrew was found in the HST full nose down position, and it's highly unlikely the pilots put it there. Pilots and passengers are dead, but Boeing's order book is still full.
Insurances rationally calculate a fatality in aircraft accidents somewhere between 2 to 4 million US $ per victim.
So we stay at about 1 billion US $ for lost lives. Plus another 1-2 billion payments to customers for lost revenue due to the grounding.
Versus 600 billion US $ for Boeing's backlog for the 737 MAX?
Of course there are also highly unpredictable non tangible risks in that equation, image related, fear of traveling public etc.
Probably manageable though, and overall, the cost analysis is still in favour of the hasty design and pseudo-certification procedure. And looking at the numbers, Boeing management still deserves their yearly bonus, no?
(if you find cynicism, you can keep it.)