Originally Posted by
Water pilot
Real professional code tends to be a bit complex, boring, and hard to understand because every step has to deal with error.
Well, I'm a pilot, not a programmer, but by reverse-engineering the functions and performance we have seen from the MCAS, the programming must have looked something like this:
Is the AoA above some trigger value?
No---wait five seconds---repeat the question.
Yes---drive the nose down for ten seconds---wait five seconds ---repeat the question.
One input, one output. No comparison of inputs, because there is only one. No check for reasonableness, though many parameters are available...airspeed, VVI, pitch attitude, and of course another AoA. No question of whether or not the MCAS has trimmed down recently, no question of where the stab trim is, now...no questions. It didn't even look to see if the trim motor was working, as in one of the FDR plots, it was obvious that MCAS was trying to move the stab, but the trim motor was turned off.
Boeing will never let anyone see the code, because it's three lines long.