It's not a CG issue.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...ion-air-crash/

Yes, a widely quoted factoid with very little actual understanding. No doubt it's different, but the engine location is completely static throughout flight. They also made a bunch of changes to the back of the aircraft that move the CG.

MCAS has nothing to do with the CG location.

MCAS was added to the 737MAXes. It is NOT on the 737NG's. Why?

And why give all pilots less than 3 hours of training on the new system, via iPad, without any simulator training required, and no mention of the new system in the flight manuals of the 737MAX?

Yes. They're not identifying a problem and following a 5 decade old procedure.

To make the handling characteristics of the MAX more like the NG.

Because they went to great lengths to keep the aircraft similar to the prior gen, and minimize the training differences. The runaway pitch trim procedure is completely unchanged.

But the systems that can create a runaway pitch down are now different. @:-)

And?

You're arguing both sides of the same coin here. You've insisted, repeatedly, that the 737 MAX is too complicated, but you also want every single detail explained to the pilot.

The entire point of the MCAS is that it's not supposed to be noticeable to an experienced pilot -- it's supposed to make the MAX fly like an NG.

{Y}ou've actually hit onto a critical point here -- it's entirely possible that these crashes would have occurred if there were a stabilizer emergency in a 737NG. There isn't enough information to be sure, and there likely won't be for a long time. The MCAS may have been responsible for the emergency situation -- again, we don't yet know, although preliminary information supports that hypothesis -- but, as has been pointed out repeatedly on this thread by people who know much more about avionics than I do, there are many other systems that may have led to the same catastrophic result.

If I was Boeing, I'd be very wary of pushing for too much leeway on this front. There's probably a risk that if the FAA half-asses the recertification process to Boeing's advantage then Europe, China, Canada, etc. might reject the recertification. Payback is a ....., and after the C-series affair I don't think too many of their competitors will think twice.

And I had a very interesting discussion at the Royal York with an ex-Boeing guy last week about issues with the MAX's center of gravity...so there's a chance this might be gossip or it might be the gift that keeps on giving.

(It's actually only the second-most interesting hotel bar chat I've had...#1 was a deep dive on medical industry pricing practices at Dragon*Con a few years back.)

To counter that position, if the manufacturer is telling me that X is very much an optional extra, why am I going to buy it? So this comes down to the sales pitch...was Boeing pushing the "extra" here or not? Of course, it feels a bit like my car manufacturer trying to tell me that my brake light or ABS system light is an optional extra.

Moreover, when it comes to things like warning lights, I would argue that it is the manufacturer's responsibility. There's a difference between requiring "idiot-proofing" a plane and including some sort of clear indication when a given automated system is engaged that has the potential to, y'know, crash the plane. And even if we stipulate that it wasn't seen as necessary, given that Boeing was working out a fix after the first crash, there's a strong case that they should have raised the issue and made the "option" automatic after the first crash.

Edit: It is also worth noting that it isn't the pilots making these decisions, it is somebody in an office somewhere. So in a sense you're not protecting the airline from their own bad decision, you're protecting employees with potentially no say in the decision-making process and passengers with absolutely no ability to make an educated decision here from management making an unsafe decision. At least if (to use an example) I buy a car with a known safety issue (say, a defective airbag system) I'm probably only endangering myself and my passengers. If an airline does this, they're endangering anywhere from 50-500 pax at a go (depending on the plane).

Allowing such behavior is really only allowable (morally) in my mind if in letting them do so, you also jerk away liability protections if they want to "live dangerously".

This one only killed 3 out of 307, and might have killed fewer if seatbelt compliance during landing had been better and the fire trucks driven a little more carefully. Does it not count the same as a crash that killed 150?