Originally Posted by
ktcanuck
Since Lion Air I can't get out of my mind how ludicrous it seems to use movement of the horizontal stab to correct control force non-linearity when there are much easier, more conventional and safer ways to do it. I accept that a software add-on to STS may be the cheapest approach but it is such a brutal solution it just doesn't compute. Unless it is not just non-linearity that is the problem. JATR suggested FAA determine the bare, un-enhanced stall characteristics of the MAX. Could it be that this airplane just doesn't stall safely? In that case Stall PREVENTION would indeed need a brutal approach.
737-MAX may have been mis-named. It should have been 737-2MUCH.
I thought, when I first read it in the JATR report, that the recommendation to test the bare airframe was an indication that the Joint Authorities team has serious doubts about the MAX's stability in certain corners of the envelope. Reading it a couple more times hasn't changed the impression -- that was a very striking recommendation to include.
And, really, as ktcanuck says, MCAS is a sledgehammer solution for a rather delicate problem, if the problem really is stick force gradient.