I have followed this thread from the beginning, and read all of the posts, and some of the deleted ones, (thanks to the mods for keeping things on track and removing the abuse).
Two posts stick in my mind and I have been waiting for someone with more knowledge than me to put 2 and 2 together and make 22, so I’m ready to be shot down in flames.
Way back someone posted that in the rush to market Boeing might not have given full instructions for the installation of the wiring in the Max as was normal practice with previous builds.
IF this is a fact and not hearsay or fabrication, is it possible that a wrongly routed, worn, stretched or chafed wire or faulty connection is partly to blame for the AoA readings? I link this to Post 3234 by jimjim1
If the vane had been lost the AoA sensor would become unbalanced about its usual axis of rotation. The internal balance weight** would then cause the axle to be subject to movement when the aircraft transitioned from +g to -g. +g would cause the indication of +AoA. (If I have got this the right way round).
Looking at the FDR traces it can be seen that this appears to be the case. I have drawn four green vertical lines to indicate the transitions from +g to -g and vice versa. In each case they appear to align with a change in the direction of movement of the sensor in the correct sense. Remember that the data consists of discrete samples and we do not know the sample rate and I am assuming that any small discrepancies are due to errors introduced by the sampling.
I have (rather crudely) chopped out a period in the middle of the chart so that it is a bit narrower so that the scale markings can be easily seen. The horizontal blue line in the "g" section of the chart is coincidentally exactly on 0g.
It therefore seems quite likely that the vane was lost or perhaps damaged soon after take off, perhaps by a bird strike or otherwise. Note however that if the vane had been bent back its balance would be moved in the other direction and its aerodynamic influences would still have been felt so I think that the best conclusion consistent with the data is that the vane was lost.
If the transition from +g to -g caused a wiring loom or connector to move and interrupt a current or produce an unwanted one, would this have the same effect on the instruments and controls as a faulty AoA vane?
Sadly we can never know how things were installed on the two lost aircraft, but checking of the routing and condition of cables and connectors in the grounded planes might be advisable.