A June 2nd front page Seattle Times article goes “Fateful 737 MAX revamp left key players in the dark.” The sub-head says “Critical decisions on design certification were based on misguided assumptions.”
The article is devoted 100% then to the proposition that the MAX’s “fatal flaws” have been “traced to a breakdown late in the plane’s development, when test pilots, engineers and regulators were left in the dark about a fundamental overhaul to an automated system that would ultimately play a role in two crashes.” No mention is made of the ships new, larger, more powerful engines, and their placement vis a vis the airframe, as the true and FUNDAMENTAL cause of why the MAX flys “differently” at times than any of its brethren. So differently, in fact, that an entirely new system had to be invented to cope with what Boeing is subtly admitting is a major and certain “aerodynamic” (as Gums says) shortfall.
But as for test pilots being left in the dark? Far from it I would venture. The latter would have been first to witness the new “bucking bronco” do her “characteristics” thing as she kicked up her heals to their spurs. Unless they’d been warned what maybe to expect (?), it must have been pretty unsettling. But that would be another story.