I am looking at what was stated, and provide the aerodynamic reasoning behind it. Forget about stick feel.
If, at high angle of attack, or low speeds, if, due to certain areas of the wing the airflow is going supersonic, the resulting lack of laminar airflow over the wing (as stated by the Boeing wind tunnel tests) induces a stall...
The aerodynamics of the engine and the wing are creating stall conditions at lower AoA and other conditions than the system is programmed for.
Look at what they tried to do, adding vortex tabs, changing the wing design....
Changing the wing design?? Do you change the wing design to make the stick pressure the same, or to prevent stall?
The differential pressure on the yoke is a RESULT of the stall.
Stick pressure? I feel that is a half baked response by Boeing to mask the problems with the aerodynamics of the wing/engine design, and simply does not make sense. Maybe that is how is was presented to the FAA, but I dont think that is reality. Boeing will never admit that the aircraft was not aerodynamically stable.
Is MCAS operational in AP? While I keep hearing the mantra, it only operation with AP off, it appears it is operational according to several reports that show turning off the AP resolves the problem. Wasnt it the case with the last crash, that when they turned AP back on, MCAS engaged again?
In one incident, an airline pilot reported that immediately after engaging the Max 8’s autopilot, the co-pilot shouted “DESCENDING,” followed by an audio cockpit warning, “DON’T SINK! DON’T SINK!”
“I immediately disconnected AP (Autopilot) (it WAS engaged as we got full horn etc.) and resumed climb,” the pilot writes in the report, which is available in a database compiled by NASA. “Now, I would generally assume it was my automation error, i.e., aircraft was trying to acquire a miss-commanded speed/no autothrottles, crossing restriction etc., but frankly neither of us could find an inappropriate setup error (not to say there wasn’t one).
In reality, MCAS is anti-stall.