Originally Posted by
yanrair
The 737-Max can of course be flown in total manual mode. It’s about the only series of models that can- all 737s can.
You can even lose ALL hydraulic and all AC POWER and it still flies.
Yanair,
Thank you for your reply. This illustrates the point I am trying to make. I've learned a great deal about the 737 max from following the posts on this long thread, and have learned that the 737 is one of the few airliners that can be flown completely manually. I've also learned, correct me if I'm wrong, that manual recovery from from a seriously out of trim situation involves turning a jackscrew 10's of times to move the horozontal stabilizer back to neutral against strong aerodynamic forces.
What I learned as well was that horizontal stabilizer fulcrum is at the back of the stabilizer, and the jack screw moves the front edge. This means that aerodynamic forces push the stabilizer harder to extreme up or down positions the further it is from neutral and the higher the airspeed. The scenario has been discussed (forgive me if I can't find it in this long thread) where the pilot desperately accellerates to try to gain altitude resulting in a situation where the forces are too great to recover the trim manually.
Consider the situation if the pilot has the option of maintaining power to the trim, and other control surfaces, while shutting off other automated functions. Firstly he/she has a much easier decision than going completely manual and, once taken, will be able to make trim corrections much more quickly and against a much larger force.
Consider, also an option with a higher level of automation, but still using the most reliable and time tested components and software, where, upon activation by the pilot, sets the ac controls to best obtain level and stable flight. The 'panic' button. This way the pilot can start recovery more easily and from a known state.
These options do not absolve the manufacturer from culpability, but make it much easier to recover from higher level automation errors which inevitably will occur as aircraft automation gets more and more complex.
My question again is: Is this all or nothing choice unique to Boeing? Does Airbus offer a more graduated approach?