The reason for the MAX existing is Boeing making a desperate rush to preempt the market start of the Airbus “neo”. They did this by slapping a modern, but too large engine on a frame that was never designed for it. The result was an aerodynamically unsound plane, that would probably not have been approved in “the olden days”. However we live in the gizmo age, and they “solved” the problem by putting in MCAS, that will force a control surface movement upon detection of a critical flight attitude and -speed, to cheat around that unsafe spot in the flight envelope. The inputs to MCAS are comparatively primitive though. I could be wrong, but to my knowledge, it does not know or care about the altitude, landing gear or flap configuration, let alone forward terrain or flight regime. As a result, there are flight situations where MCAS’ automatic “fix” to the sub-par aerodynamics can only create a disaster. Perhaps this could be solved electronically, but it would require a far more advanced system than MCAS, that takes a lot of additional factors into consideration. The proper way to solve this however, would be to design a proper, modern airframe to fit those modern engines. But Boeing’s management and shareholders have staked the project, and maybe the whole company, on exactly not doing that to get one up on Airbus. Now what do you do.
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