Originally Posted by
Bend alot
"As the FAA re-evaluates and recertifies the updated flight-control systems, it has specifically rejected Boeing’s assumption that the plane’s pilots can be relied upon as the backstop safeguard in scenarios such as the uncommanded movement of the horizontal tail involved in both the Indonesian and Ethiopian crashes. That notion was ruled out by FAA pilots in June when, during testing of the effect of a glitch in the computer hardware, one out of three pilots in a simulation failed to save the aircraft."
If this is fact - it puts a very large spotlight on what training will be required as part of the re-certification of the MAX. (another shadow on the NG?)
It will also be interesting to know the training/experience levels of these pilots that passed/failed to "save the aircraft" in the simulator.
Were there only 3 simulations carried out? or 6/9?
Use of the word "pilots" is not "crew" the word that should be used?
According to the Seattle Times , there were 3 Faa pilots. 2 test pilots, typically ex military and one typically former airline pilot. They tested 33 different scenarios. After feeling uncomfortable with the reaction time necessary during a test, they delayed response a bit to allow a more realistic scenario. One of the pilots did not recover. It was the former airline pilot that had trouble according to a source.
It is in the Seattle Times article.
One would hope that identifying this now and rewriting most of the flight control software that these particular problems won’t occur anymore. Training could then be spent on more generic stabilizer cases and not the rare cases they are hopefully rectifying.