Originally Posted by
Bergerie1
The fix was the nudger. This is a gentle stick force augmentor of about 16lbs in the nose down sense which operates when the stick shaker starts to operate and remains effective until the stick shake cancels. In a fairly rough and ready manner it restores the pre-stall longitudinal stability and satisfies the requirements at little cost and with no snags.
Since the very start of this whole debate on the 737MAX, I have always wondered why Boeing didn't try something similar rather than using the MCAS to drive the whole horizontal stabilser.
The reason might be that a stick pusher means some hardware has to be added to the aircraft, which would be hard to conceal and so would have mandated some certification and flight manual mods and additional simulator time.
Exactly what Boeing was wishing to avoid.