[SystemSafety] "FAA chief '100% confident' of 737 MAX safety as flights to resume"

[Olwen Morgan]

On 22/11/2020 13:55, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:


<snip>

>
> This has not changed. (It could be fixed aerodynamically by installing 
> a slightly bigger HS, but that means more drag and thus higher fuel 
> usage. ...

<snip>


Safety vs economics? ... Never heard that one before!


I'm not going to argue about the number of definitions of stability that 
could fit on a pinhead.

If you've a choice between getting the physics right or fighting it with 
your control system, you should, IMHO, go for fixing the physics every 
time. It was, IMHO, a fundamental blunder for Boeing to adopt MCAS as 
the solution to their 737 MAX attitude problems (whether those problems 
were technical or cultural). Moreover, I suspect that, given Boeing's 
current less-than-entirely-rosy financial position (search the website 
of /The Economist/ for further details) the FAA is likely to have been 
under pressure to accede to demands not to require solution of the 
problem in the physics.

Put bluntly, I don't trust the current US institutional framework for 
aviation safety.


Olwen


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