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Old 03-15-2019, 01:45 PM   #207
Stealth22
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(Warning, wall of text, but I'm catching up from the last few pages, heh)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigtime View Post
Yeah, like The Star this morning being all over a MAX 8 flying OGG to YYC. Except it was a 800 series NG. Loved WestJet tweeting right back at them on how factually incorrect they were.
They were probably so excited about "catching WestJet red handed" ignoring the ban, that they didn't stop to think that their info just might be incorrect.

Like Acey said, this is why you shouldn't trust sites like FlightAware to be totally correct.

Even so, there have still been 737 MAX's flying around. They're just on ferry flights with no passengers aboard, which is approved by both Transport Canada and the FAA.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz View Post
It is interesting how the more you know of a subject, the more you notice how little the media gets right about it. I think the only area I really trust the media to get it right is the political wonks. But maybe that's because I don't know enough about politics to notice all the stuff they get wrong there...
That doesn't just apply to aviation either, I bet.

But the media getting things wrong when reporting on aviation disasters just spreads so much information, especially because the general public knows so little about aviation, like Ryan said.

Journalists should just stick to reporting on what they hear from official sources, and stop consulting so-called "experts" and reporting on things that they know absolutely nothing about.

Ryan's quote below says it the best - there aren't many people who think grounding the plane is the wrong decision. But putting a microscope to every single 737 malfunction ever reported, and equating it to MCAS (not anyone in this thread, just referring to the inaccurate noise out there in general) and calling the plane a death trap before all the facts are known (from the official investigation) is just totally irresponsible.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan Coke View Post
I’m not disagreeing with the decision to ground the airplane, just there is a bunch of inaccurate noise around it now. And mentioning a bunch of other minor malfunctions that have nothing to do with this issue is inaccurate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan Coke View Post
And your right, media scrutiny is part of why aviation is so safe. But I hope you understand why it is frustrating when a bunch of what they report is wrong. It makes people even more confused about things.
Thanks for all your insight on this, Ryan. While I'm somewhat knowledgeable on the subject, having someone around who actually flies these things is awesome!

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Red View Post
And where does it say that MCAS doesnt work on auto pilot? All indications point to going to manual mode to override it so it seems logical that it only works in auto. Unless I'm missing something here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz View Post
I would assume autopilot takes care of the aircraft pitch itself, so it wouldn't need MCAS. "Manual mode" is not taking it out of autopilot in this case, it is overriding the MCAS system. They are 2 separate "auto" settings, where MCAS 's only job is to prevent runaway pitch. Autopilot is much more than that.

That's how I understand it, anyway.
Like Ryan said, MCAS is not engaged when the autopilot is on, or when the flaps are deployed.

The sole purpose of MCAS is to "trim" (i.e. tilt) the horizontal stabilizer slightly nose down to circumvent the possibility of the nose being pushed upwards too much.

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-s...em-mcas-jt610/

Like Ryan explained, the working unconfirmed theory is that Lion Air was caused by a faulty AOA sensor that caused MCAS to continuously trim the nose down when it wasn't supposed to, because it thought the nose was too high when it wasn't.

The glitch essentially causes "runaway trim" (Ryan, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this!), and if the pilots don't know what's going on, then they don't know that all they need to do is flick the stabilizer trim cutoff switches.

That said, if MCAS was causing runaway trim, the trim wheel makes a lot of noise, and in my opinion any seasoned 737 pilot should recognize the symptoms right away. The report doesn't say if the pilots followed the checklist to override the system, though. (EDIT: I'm told that it would also be easy to not recognize the trim wheel running, because you hear that sound quite a bit during normal flight, so there is that)

"[...] Data from the flight data recorder summarized in the report also makes clear that, as on the previous flight, the airplane experienced automatic nose down trim. [...] Unlike as is stated with respect to the prior flight, the report does not state whether the pilots performed the runaway stabilizer procedure or cut out the stabilizer trim switches."

https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-re...ts?item=130336

http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_a...y%20Report.pdf

The whole point behind the emergency airworthiness directive by the FAA after the Lion Air crash was to update all the training documents to include information about MCAS, which Boeing previously did not disclose.

We don't know if the same thing (faulty AOA sensor -> runaway trim by MCAS -> pilots didn't know the fix) is what caused the crash of ET302. But the fact that the radar data shows similarities between the two flights is what warrants the MAX to be grounded.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Red View Post
I will wait for the investigation to confirm what really happened. Pretty obvious that something is wrong if Boeing is releasing software fixes. Why else would they do that?

I thank the media for raising these issues. Based on what we know so far don't trust that plane. If we left it to Boeing to decide this would have been swept under the rug.
As Ryan mentioned, the purpose and intent behind MCAS is useful, but it appears that it's acting when it isn't supposed to, hence the software update. While a pilot can easily disable the system, the fact that Boeing did not include details on MCAS in it's training documents is the issue, which is why the pilots of the Lion Air flight (allegedly) did not know what course of action to take.

The problem I have with the media is that they are erroneously equating other minor issues (which all aircraft have from time to time) as being related to the MCAS issues, when they are not.

Given all that I know and have read about this whole thing, personally, if the 737 MAX was still flying now, I don't think I'd have an issue with getting on board. I trust the track record of the 737, and overall, I believe that the aircraft is safe.

But I don't disagree with grounding it until all of the facts come out for sure. I am personally going to reserve judgement regarding the cause of the crashes until the official investigations are completed. Until that happens, anything that anyone says is pure speculation.

Last edited by Stealth22; 03-15-2019 at 02:18 PM.
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