@WBHM
Quote: Originally Posted by A0283 One senator was already preparing a Bill aimed at demanding that 'safety related equipment' should be included in the 'basic price of the aircraft'. You could read that as 'should be standard' probably.
Quote: Originally Posted by WBHM: I think there were a number of us surprised that such were a chargeable extra ticket item. It would be interesting to ask if the FAA knew it was such, as (surely the prototype but) also the initial production aircraft used in the certification tests all seem to have been for operators who had selected the AOA comparison option.
I would say we dont know at the moment.
An example is the AoA indicator discussion (which the pilot senator mentioned). We have this AoA discussion on Pprune too. I would not like to fly without one (based on my background), but quite a few others (including on Pprune) dont consider them necessary for the majority of commercial pilots (which goes quite beyond just for the 'average' pilot). In some other discussions people state that an AoA indicator is only confusing, or 'worse'. As long as there is no formal conclusion on this type of solutions you might not be right to call them a 'safety item'.
I would like to add that the airlines that you mention were formally not the launching customer of the MAX. That was something that really surprised me at the time. You (historically) expect a launch to be with a customer who has more than average and competent (maintenance) engineering staff. When I asked around nobody could really answer my questions on this. Would be interesting to find out if the IG audit or the Special Committee come up with any facts or answers on this.