Originally Posted by
yanrair
Bernd. By "every time" we are talking about a rare event but one that did happen. "Every time" a pilot suffers and engine failure on takeoff at V1 - a rare event, he is expected to handle it 100%. That is all we are saying really. Once again it is important to re-state that we don't know what happened on these two flights in any great detail and we await the full reports. What I have tried to do here in the last few days is explain how a 737 is capable of being flown in most all circumstances (not necessarily this exact one) and how it differs from pretty much any other modern plane in that computers are not at its heart. When the report is complete my guess is that there will be multiple factors at play which all contributed to a chain of events - as is so often the case. I will confess that I did not read the full article and will do so now to see where there is a suggestion that "some pilots are idiots" - I didn't pick that up first time around. My apologies.
Cheers
Y
Someone used an interesting word the other day to describe how erroneous MCAS activation is different from an engine failure at v1. The latter is immediately obvious, it is trained for ad nauseam, and it is briefed before every takeoff. Terefore this is an item where we can and must expect near 100% performance. But the former is "insidious". It is not nearly as clear-cut, since other system will repeatedly trim the airplane as well, and a racket of other warnings and noises is also going on. It isn't one (sometimes literal) bang like an engine failure, and you are also not primed for it, because it is not briefed every time. And it is also not acceptable because there are ways to do it better! Rejected takeoff is dictated by raw, high-kinetic-energy physics, and not a lot can be done to get around that.
But most importantly, we
know now that not all pilots will handle it well, and to say that only third-world pilots will ever get it wrong is "holier-than-thou"-hubris and no better than "Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.)" in the AOPA article.
(EDIT: just read your reply, and don't want to imply that you said or meant anything like that.)
As to "pilots are idiots", I was paraphrasing. What he said a couple of times, though, was "why didn't they simply do x?", which can only be said with hindsight (knowing the actual outcome, and only
now knowing the correct solution), and is also arrogant, condescending and serves no purpose other than to feel smugly superiour.
Bernd