Greetings all!
New guy here, first post.
I'm still trying to get my head around why neither of the MAX accident crews simply applied sufficient nose up trim to neutralize the MCAS input. It could be an "airmanship" issue, but is there another possibility? Does anyone know if the 737 stab trim motor can actually stall in a high load environment? Is there an internal circuit breaker or thermal relief? It's a big electric motor, so there's bound to be some kind of protection if the stab was truly jammed.
Related question: The 737 has a single stab trim motor that operates at two speeds. The yoke trim switches actuate the trim motor in the high-speed mode. The MCAS (I believe) uses the low-speed mode. Is there a difference between the available torque in high-speed vs low-speed modes? For example, I have a two-speed electric drill that can stall out in the high-speed setting, but will continue to operate at low-speed. If the stab motor suffers from a similar phenomenon, I could see how the MCAS could function while the pilot-commanded trim would not.