Originally Posted by
Visconti
Forgive me for using layman's terms here. Regarding the MCAS required for certification, is that just a technical FAA requirement?
The situations in which MCAS would normally activate are not situations where the airplane is ever expected to be in normal operation. For that reason, I've never flown a transport jet in such a situation.
Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 25 governs the certification of transport aircraft. One of many requirements is that as Angle-of-Attack (AoA) increases, the control forces to maintain, and continue to increase, that AoA must increase proportionally.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-25
That is a requirement for all transport airplanes, and probably a requirement for all non-transport airplanes, too. They are certified under 14 CFR 23.
Originally Posted by
STS-134
I thought that it was perfectly okay to have a plane that pitches up when thrust is applied and requires the pilots to push down on the nose.
That is exactly how all airplanes with under-wing engines respond. When hand-flying, as I increase thrust I push, and trim, forward. As I decrease thrust I pull, and trim, aft. Aircraft with tail-mounted engines have virtually no pitch response to power changes. On those, the nose won't pitch up, or down, until the airspeed starts to increase, or decrease, as a result of the thrust change.
do they apply to all aircraft regardless of type?
I addressed that above for certified civil aircraft. Military aircraft are not certified under 14 CFR 23 or 25. Pilots flying military aircraft are not certified under FAA rules. Experimental aircraft also have completely different rules with which I am not familiar other than they can't be used commercially for passenger or cargo transport.
In any case, I thought that the software's only purpose was to make the MAX behave like the NG
That's not your fault. Many reporters, with little or no understanding of these technical issues, have continued to report exactly that. Unfortunately, many of their readers think they understand the issues related to the MAX from reading those inaccurate or misleading stories.