Weeks ago a poster put forward a series of comments which ended with (roughly) "So MCAS is not an anti-stall device . . . but it is, sort of."
Well, that about sums up the fuzziness of the public perception. The ST article substantiated my understanding, though the arguments above are thought provoking. I can well imagine the silent moments as test pilots and designers sat around a table staring at each other and taking on board just how that aircraft handled. I wonder what the very first suggested fix was. I expect the last suggestion was, "I know, we can rob MCAS from the military offering. No need for it to work the same, or bother with dual inputs . . ."
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3 seconds. Hmm . . . in a quiet cockpit that didn't have STS clanking around, just maybe, but not in the real world.
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In the ST, there was a (outline) suggestion that an extreme split-@rsed turn etc., etc., was so unlikely that it could be discounted. Just wouldn't happen in the real world. I was in my early twenties when I tore the controls out of my captain's hands, opened up the four Darts to firewall and started such a turn. The captain had finally conceded we had turned the wrong way in the Innsbruck valley but was making a series of jerky movements saying, 'we'll stall if we try to turn at this height'. We had been briefed on the impossibility of climbing out if we turned the wrong way and what I had in front of me was a layer of stratus with pointy granite islands. During a turn that exceeded 60 degrees, all I could thing was, 'I hope to God I'm right.' I was right, but right or wrong, just occasionally bewilderingly bizarre things happen. The thought of the controls coming light and mush as I pulled fills me with a dread that make me realise, this new Boeing must retain at least most of the characteristics of a real aircraft. It just can not be a botch with hidden computer corrections.