Boeing 737 Max Recertification Testing - Finally.

[WillowRun 6-3]

If there were to be a rite of passage for any old SLF/attorney poster in these parts, I'd say being addressed directly by the eminent gums (saluting, here) would be qualified as it.

It might reactivate the sense of being angered, if the real aviators consider the argument being advanced by Boeing's high-priced big law firm attorneys in federal district court in Chicago. In that case, Boeing is arguing that everything that Boeing has done wrongly, illegally and unlawfully, improperly - and this now includes the admittedly criminal conduct by its two technical pilots - is entirely beside the point. Boeing argues the court must rule that it had no legal obligation whatsoever NOT to lie, defraud, hide the ball from, any pilots anywhere. It's true. Boeing has argued that the amount or degree of legal responsibility owed to pilots who qualified to fly the 737 MAX, with regard to telling them or NOT telling them about the existence and operation of MCAS, is NO greater than the legal responsibility Boeing owed to baristas who work in airports. You can read it in their briefs. Too bad for you fly-boys and -girls, sayeth the once-mighty planemaker.

It's an outrageous argument. It hurts my mind even to read it. All the discussion about stick gradients in certain corners of the flight envelope, but if the planemaker lied and committed fraud and conspiracy about how the systems worked, and this led to the aviators suffering harms to their careers because the two crashes and then the grounding occurred, well too bad. So the stick gradient is supposed to convey certain feel, or some other system effect is supposed to occur so that the variant is perceived, comprehended and anticipated (3 phases of SA) just like the NG, but if it all is a fraud, well too bad. [correction: stick force gradient]

I don't know much about mods. I don't even recall always all the fast-movers my informal advisor flew in the era of the nasty Southeast Asia mess, though I do recall the mil career he had ended up in some Thuderous type stuff.