PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Boeing 737 Max Recertification Testing - Finally.
Old 5th Dec 2022, 16:37
  #838 (permalink)  
FlyingStone
 
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There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding as to how the stick shaker on the 737 works, and how it can be disabled (at the pilot's discretion), in the TC/EASA (and probably for many other regulators) versions of the Airspeed Unreliable NNC - already in place ever since the MAX re-certification.

The 737 has two SMYDs (Stall Management Yaw Damper computers), which take various inputs (including AoA) to calculate whether stick shaker needs to operate or not. Each SMYD is connected to its onside stick shaker (left SMYD to captain's stick shaker motor and right SMYD to the first officer one), so one SMYD can only make one stick shaker motor to operate. That being said, even with a single stick shaker motor operating, there will be vibration felt on both control columns (as they are interconnected), but it will be stronger on the side where stick shaker is operating.

Now, if one of the AoA sensors fails, or other malfunction occurs on that side, only one stick shaker motor will operate - potentially continuously. With both control columns vibrating, detecting a difference between this false stick shaker and an actual stall detected by the other SMYD will bevery difficult. For that reason, the NNC gives the crew an option to disable the false stick shaker (currently by pulling a collared CB for the onside stick shaker motor), which will make subsequent detection of an actual stall extremely simple, as it will be identical to a normal approach to stall with a fully serviceable aircraft.

Nobody is talking about disabling both stick shakers when one goes crazy, it's all just about disabling that single one to lower the workload for the crew. MAX 10 prototypes have been seen with stick shaker inhibit switches, which is probably a safer solution than having crew pulling circuit brakers:


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