WSJ today reporting, under headline "Next Boeing 737 MAX Government Test Flight Scheduled for Coming Days", that next flight or flights will include what the news item refers to as "
federal pilots along with airline crews from around the world" - which would indicate the JOEB, Joint Operations Evaluation Board, I think. (Article on WSJ website includes a bit more content than the version in the print edition.)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/next-bo...d=hp_lead_pos4
Not explained by the article is the source of reported friction between Transport Canada and FAA. Also of note is the content on the website edition regarding FAA dispensing with - the word used in the Journal is "jettisoned" - the average pilot response time assumption which is one of the root sources of the debacle and tragedies. One must wonder, what has replaced it, though? An old Ann Arbor wisdom holds that one must add before one may drop - and while that relates to course registration changes (back in the days of paper forms, press hard you are making seven copies and so on), it works a lot more broadly.
So then, what is the assumption now about response or reaction times?; does it account for differing training backgrounds and particularly with respect to expected completion of hand-flying and/or airmanship experience quanta; does it account for cultural-based cockpit gradients? What exactly does it account for, in other words, what went into the definition of the "new" assumption - if there is one - in the first place? One could reasonably say the former "average" assumption was based on some long-since discarded Right Stuff movie conception, watered down to some baseline destined to be overtaken and swamped by technology advances so badly that the word "average" did not even apply any longer.
FAA's July 1, 2020 update announcement states that the FSB will issue a draft report on "minimum pilot training requirements" based on its findings and those of the JOEB - the draft will be open for public comments when it is completed.