Originally Posted by
iflyjetz
I understand why Boeing opted for MCAS; they're continuing to stretch out the life of the 737. Personally, I thought the 737 had far outlived its usefulness when the -900 rolled off the line. In order to keep from dragging the tail on the -900, Boeing increased the approach speed to ludicrous speed with much longer landing distances. The very predictable result has been several -900s run off the end of the runway because they were unable to stop within the runway length. In fact, a 737 pilot told me a while back that United doesn't allow the 737-900 to land at LGA because of the long landing distance.
I'm a bit skeptical of this criticism. Why would Boeing want to build a bad airplane? And why have so many airlines placed so many orders for it? Every airplane has limitations, but Boeing seems to have had huge commercial success with the MAX -- at least before these crashes. My guess from prior experience is that they'll be fine with the aircraft in the future. The 787 was also briefly grounded, and look how successful that airplane is today.