Originally Posted by
ecto1
I'm all in for a cheap patch. The cheapest possible, no need to doom the plane and start over. But if the computers in the plane have no room for improvement, a software patch in 1980s style is not going to be enough. We need sanity checks, cross sensor checks and history checks on ALL sensors. Not only AOA.
Precisely, no software patch will fix the issue of mcas being useless for real life (too slow).
Interesting. I guess somewhere in this thread is a revelation that the MCAS hardware was too slow - I hadn't heard that. It it's from the 1980's, where they using Ada? That was one of those "safe" languages - but may come with a lot of overhead. If it had been coded in C, there would have been no practical problem with the machine speed.
If I was the FAA, I would not allow the plane to fly without having simulators available that fully simulate operations where the MCAS can work and fail - and then require that the pilots go through the different failure modes before visiting the MAX cockpit. If the MCAS hardware needs to be replaced, replace it.
I think that if Boeing tackles this problem correctly, they could have the planes flying safely in about four months. Or they can go for Micky Mouse fixes and risk either an ineffective fix or a recovery timeline that goes well beyond four months.