For the first time, we learn the difference in the domestic Boeing 737 Max 8 vs the aircraft that crashed where their carriers opt out of an expensive addition. Got this today from a very experienced jet aircraft pilot's dad. His son is the expert. Latest on the Boeing super 8 and 9. Seems this entire problem stems from the early airplanes having the smaller engines that fit under the wing and also built in steps. As things later evolved, the engines got bigger and bigger and more powerful. Had to move the engines forward to accommodate the larger engines. Well this meant that the system had to have an angle of attack system near the cockpit which fed the elevator pitch trim Seems another problem is with faulty input from the Angle of Attack indicator (AOA) the trim starts trimming down and input from the electric trim switch interrupts it for 10 seconds, then it starts trimming down again. The U.S. version has two cut out switches at the bottom of the throttle quadrant and it is an expensive option. International airlines do not want this as it is expensive. Couple that with the fact the guy in the right seat in Ethiopia had a TOTAL of 200 hours. So Boeing owns this one. Did not tell the crews how to disable the thing and it bit them in the rear end.... big time. We have a 737 sim over in our east building and I have been talking to the instructors in that airplane.
I've heard this, too. It still seems to leave a number of questions. First, it seems strange to me to be willing to deliver a plane that has an automation feature that can't be instantly disconnected such that it won't come back to try to kill you. If the pilot turns it off I could accept a warning, but to just automatically turn it back on? Even my little pane was designed with an autopilot cutoff switch to take care of the possibiility of runaway trim, failed altitude input, gyro instrumetns, etc.. It's right there on the yoke as easily reachable as coms.
Our systems on our private airplanes are not as complex as on the 737. I and other pilots also wondered why none of the domestic 737s came close to crashing but two from foreign carriers crashed. Until the report sent to me today arrived, i did not know the domestic fleet and the foreign fleet had such a major difference.
Is it true that the training requirement from Boeing amounted to an hour on a personal computer application? Is it true that in one case the MCAS was turned off more than once, but kept coming back on?
I was wondering about what those 200 hours included and didn't include, too. There are a lot of possible explanations that aren't all that bad. For one thing, the right seat is the junior of the two. Also, it could be his time in a 737, discounting all other flight and simulator time.
My guess is it was 200 hours in the right seat, because it took thousands of hours, on lots of different types of aircraft, to get there.
200 hours total flying time. USA requirement was 250 hours to fly scheduled commercial aircraft prior to the Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, NY in 2009. It has been raised to 1500 hours since 2013 to obtain an Air Transport Pilot (ATP) certificate. That 1500 hour requirement has created a commercial airline pilot shortage in the US.
A twin Otter is a commercial aircraft. he has a lot of school, ratings, and flight time to get into a commercial passenger jet. at least in America.
I thought they discovered what took down the Ethiopian 737 Max 8...a freakin bird that hit the sensor on takeoff.
The software performed exactly as programmed. The crash was a result of pilot error. They were flying at too high a speed at too low an altitude that resulted in aerodynamic forces on the control surfaces beyond design capability.
