Originally Posted by
EDLB
Can't believe that it would be hard for software to detect frozen AoA sensors. If you change the eleivator or thrust and there is no effect on AoA sensors at a certain point the data should he figured as unreliable. To only count on the pilots, that they push the right two buttons at the right time might not always work out.
Clearly engineers have their own failures too.
For the boeing case, they didn't even take care to have enough probes.
On airbus they have more probes, which make it far less likely, but they still have some occurences.
It's true that some pilots on some incident occurences mismanaged trim problems. For example, one never figured out that his trim switch was reverted.
I think trim is one of the most important flight control. Especially on jetliners where the THS has a larger pitching power than elevators. (Which isn't true on most light airplanes, it seems).
Because of that, even if it's very rare that this control should be closely monitored, there should still be a THS position indicator somewhere obvious in the cockpit. Above the PFD for example.
Also one can wonder about why the THS could go so far pitch down on the MAX. It's understandable it needs to go very high pitch up, for very low speeds and forward CG. But an airplane already at maximum speed and normal CG shouldn't have a large nose down THS margin, should it ? What's the use of that ?
It should also slightly reduce cost and complexity to have a smaller amplitude for the THS.