Rogue Boeing 737 Max planes ‘with minds of their own’ | 60 Minutes Australia

The problem is, by the time that the pilots realized what the problem was and disconnected the electric trim, the aircraft was so far out of trim that 1) they could not maintain control of the aircraft, and 2) the excessive loads on the stabilizer prevented the pilots from physically being able to move the manual trim wheel. An expat pilot on a professional pilot board that I belong to had trained the Ethiopian captain, and said that he was an excellent pilot by any world standard. I just can't get behind the idea that had this been an American crew, that the aircraft would have been recoverable.

OverTheTop said:

Semantics. Pitching up, with most other factors being equal, leads to higher AoA.

Click to expand...

A pitch up moment creates an angular acceleration which increases the angular rate which eventually leads to a high AoA.

So you would prefer to wait until the AoA becomes extreme (the pilots are asleep or something) to do anything rather than counteract the forces that might lead to it?

Remember that the problem was supposed to be a pitch up moment caused by the engine position. Counter that force and it cannot create a high AoA. And the plane handles like any other 737 with no tendency to pitch up.

If you’re interested in some proper reporting on the 737 Max suggest you ignore 60 min rubish.

You tube channel blancolirio is also a 737 pilot https://www.youtube.com/user/blancolirio and what he says is pretty much what mach7 said.

There’s a playlist for the various reports / updates he’s done on the max 737 crashes.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6SYmp3qb3uPp1DS7fDy7I6y11MIMgnbO

Flyfalcons has it exactly right. MCAS is on the airplane to counteract a decrease in column force as the nose comes up, and this was known from wind tunnel and/or CFD studies (I don’t remember which) before the airplane was built. A close former colleague of mine actually ran that trade study for our group. It is also true that the intent was to make the airplane feel, to the flight crew, like the Next Generation airplanes in order to minimize NG to MAX transition training required.

What I did not know, having left the company in October of 2016 was the bit about flight testing leading to a huge increase in the authority given the system (as OverTheTop describes).

UhClem said:

If the goal was, as has been stated, to keep the plane as similar as possible to previous models, the system should use the trim to compensate for that pitch up tendency. Then let the pilots (along with the usual stall warning/stick shaker) fly the plane. Properly done the pilots would never notice the pitch up tendency and the plane would behave just like any other 737.

Click to expand...

This was exactly the intent as I understood it...and may well have been part of the rationale for not having any specific mention of the system in the Crew Ops manuals or the NG to MAX transition training at the outset. Of course we now know that was not correct.

The amount of trim would be limited with none of that stupid reset after a few seconds ratchet into uncontrollability.

I expect that this incident is going to be a part of engineering ethics courses as a case study for years to come.

Click to expand...

Quite likely, sadly.

mach7 said:

With the bigger engines on the MAX they had to move the engine forward and up so it would clear the ground. A new nacelle was designed. The new nacelle actually generates lift, this coupled with the higher thrust can create a greater nose up moment. MCAS was designed to counter this. It's obvious at this point that the fix was not a good one. But it does not alter the fact that both accident aircraft should not have crashed because of the failure.

Perhaps the MAX should have had fly by wire for the elevator, but the nose up moment was discovered during flight test and a major redesign of the pitch control system was out of the question. Adding FBW to the elevator would probably voided the original FAA certificate and maybe the common type rating. I'm not an expert in that.

Click to expand...

I expect the CFM-56 nacelle generates some lift at high angles of attack but the LEAP engine nacelle generates more. The pitch up moment manfests itself as decreased column force with increased angle of attack past a certain point.

Fly-by-wire elevators would have unraveled so many pieces of the certification basis that it was not even considered. Some of the reasons are as you suggest. As I mentioned above, the effect was known before the airplane flew, but apparently the magnitude of it was not if this increase of authority given to MCAS during flight test I have heard about in several places (besides here) is correct.

I would like to ask you again: would you recognize intermittent down trim being put in uncommanded as a runaway and therefore do the runaway stab memory procedure? I honestly wonder, because this is the other place that, in my opinion, a grave error was made in the implementation (as opposed to the intent/purpose) of MCAS as it was put on the airplane and was another part of the apparent rationale for not explicitly training for the new function.

BEC said:

I would like to ask you again: would you recognize intermittent down trim being put in uncommanded as a runaway and therefore do the runaway stab memory procedure? I honestly wonder, because this is the other place that, in my opinion, a grave error was made in the implementation (as opposed to the intent/purpose) of MCAS as it was put on the airplane and was another part of the apparent rationale for not explicitly training for the new function.

Click to expand...

This is a very interesting question.

I know how/when speed trim works. That is the only time on a 737 that I will accept the trim to move without any input
from me. When speed trim activates it does so at a very slow rate (.2 deg/sec I believe) and all the flight instruments are working properly.

We do train for unreliable airspeed and runaway trim. We also train on partial instrument failures and in the past we have done the failure of the flying pilots AOA vane.

All of these situations are very distracting but the aircraft can be flown very precisely despite them.

Sooo, would I recognizes it? I'm thinking I might let the 1st movement go by thinking its speed trim. But a quick cross check
of the flight instruments would show me that I had another issue.
Honestly I would probably transition to the Unreliable airspeed check list initially, before returning to the runaway stabilizer. This is assuming that the trim was moving intermittently. At the 2nd un-commanded stab trim movement I would be in the runaway trim procedure.

If the trim was continuously moving It would be the runaway trim procedure immediately.

This discussion is purely hypothetical, knowing what I know now I would disconnect the trim right away and deal with that path 1st.

Thanks, Mark. I appreciate the perspective of someone who flies 737s as this aspect has been nagging at me ever since I heard of the Lion Air crash.

The action of MCAS as it was implemented had an interval between automatic trim inputs - I have seen several different values for this but the one that sticks in my mind is 30 seconds - so it's not the same to this model-airplane-only pilot (but retired Boeing engineer) as "the trim just goes until the mechanical stop" kind of thing that I think of when I hear the term "runaway" and knowing some of how the stab trim system on a 737 functions. Hence the question.

Again, thanks for the thoughtful answer.

I have been following this issue across many media streams since it happened. It is definitely great to get pilot input on this discussion. Thanks!

mach7 said:

This is a very interesting question.

I know how/when speed trim works. That is the only time on a 737 that I will accept the trim to move without any input
from me. When speed trim activates it does so at a very slow rate (.2 deg/sec I believe) and all the flight instruments are working properly.

We do train for unreliable airspeed and runaway trim. We also train on partial instrument failures and in the past we have done the failure of the flying pilots AOA vane.

All of these situations are very distracting but the aircraft can be flown very precisely despite them.

Sooo, would I recognizes it? I'm thinking I might let the 1st movement go by thinking its speed trim. But a quick cross check
of the flight instruments would show me that I had another issue.
Honestly I would probably transition to the Unreliable airspeed check list initially, before returning to the runaway stabilizer. This is assuming that the trim was moving intermittently. At the 2nd un-commanded stab trim movement I would be in the runaway trim procedure.

If the trim was continuously moving It would be the runaway trim procedure immediately.

This discussion is purely hypothetical, knowing what I know now I would disconnect the trim right away and deal with that path 1st.

Click to expand...

Was there a system on the 737NG that would automatically pitch the plane one way or the other? I'm trying to wrap my brain around how much change this system really was. If there wasn't anything on the prior versions of the 737 that would push the plane up or down (absent throttle changes or pilot/autopilot commands), then it seems like a bigger change even if it was intended to just make the Max feel like the older versions.

Reading news coverage is a little eye-opening about how much stuff Boeing outsources. I'm not necessarily expecting them to be programming everything themselves, but this seems like a pretty big system to farm out, and I wonder about the QC/testing on the software if they didn't figure out that the AOA Disagree light wasn't coming on.

boatgeek said:

Was there a system on the 737NG that would automatically pitch the plane one way or the other?

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The autopilot can control the stabilizer trim on the 737NG. There's a separate switch to inhibit autopilot trim, leaving the manual trim switches still functioning. Apparently on the Max these switches were relabeled and it's not clear to me if there is a way to kill MCAS control of trim and leave manual electric trim operating. https://www.737ng.co.uk/B_NG-Flight_Controls.pdf

According to the preliminary accident report the Ethiopian crew did use the trim cutout switches and it did stop the MCAS from further trim movement. Once they reset the trim cutout switches MCAS was able to continue to move the stabilizer.
The procedure is to throw both the autopilot and manual trim switches. Speed trim works through the autopilot trim system, I assume MCAS does also but I don't know this to be the case.

I had a lengthy talk with my airlines Chief pilot today about the status of the MAX.

My airline is headquartered in Seattle, just down the street from Boeing. Being a good Boeing customer my airline has a very open information flow.

A few things that were brought up. He confirmed that there is a software glitch that will not display the AoA disagree message if the optional AoA display was not purchased. He also confirmed that the MCAS trim movement is faster than speed trim, .4 deg/sec instead of .2 deg/sec.

He also said that they have programed our sims to both the Lion Air and the Ethiopian air scenarios. Every pilot that has had it has flown out of it. Some have called it "A handfull".

US, and European airlines have flown the MAX over 200,000 cycles with no issues.

The existing procedures, if followed would have recovered control of both accident aircraft.

The fix is first to link the left and right instruments so data can be compared before MCAS will activate.
next slow the trim command of MCAS from .4 deg/sec to .3 deg/sec
allow only 1 activation of MCAS per event.

As for a timeline for when the MAX will fly again, he did not know.

Thats all the new information I have at this time.

mach7 said:

According to the preliminary accident report the Ethiopian crew did use the trim cutout switches and it did stop the MCAS from further trim movement. Once they reset the trim cutout switches MCAS was able to continue to move the stabilizer.
The procedure is to throw both the autopilot and manual trim switches. Speed trim works through the autopilot trim system, I assume MCAS does also but I don't know this to be the case.

Click to expand...

Yes, my understanding is that the airspeed had already gotten away from them by the time they used the cutout switches, which made it very difficult to apply manual trim adjustments with the trim wheel. At that point, my assumption is that they decided to attempt to regain pitch control by returning the electric stab trim cutout switch to the "normal" position. As far as I can tell from looking at the information, the electric trim thumb switch worked as intended, was released, and moments later MCAS went back into action dialing in nose down trim. At such high airspeeds, it obviously doesn't take much trim input to generate a significant pitch change. Another interesting thing to consider is the fact that if they were getting up to transonic speeds, the elevator effectiveness may be further reduced, and adjustments to the horizontal stabilizer are therefore even more effective at controlling pitch relative to the elevator. Obviously this makes it even more difficult to counteract the stabilizer trim inputs using the elevator, and putting the aircraft even closer to an unrecoverable situation. Once their airspeed got away from them, the odds of safely resolving the situation went down substantially. Unfortunately, I don't believe they ever reduced thrust during the entire ordeal. Their attention was likely focused entirely on pitch control.

Thanks mach7. Great information. Nice to see some progress towards fixing it, but I would hate to be doing the software testing (I have past history in that area, although in a train control system context).

Here is some recent info from an AIAA Daily Launch email, 21MAY2019:
Boeing Acknowledges 737 MAX Simulator Software Issue
AFP (5/19) reports that The Boeing Company “acknowledged Saturday it had to correct flaws in its 737 MAX flight simulator software used to train pilots, after two deadly crashes involving the aircraft that killed 346 people.” In a statement, Boeing said that it “made corrections to the 737 MAX simulator software and has provided additional information to device operators to ensure that the simulator experience is representative across different flight conditions.” The statement added, “Boeing is working closely with the device manufacturers and regulators on these changes and improvements, and to ensure that customer training is not disrupted.” The 737 MAX flight simulator software did not have the ability to replicate specific flying conditions similar to those experienced by pilots in the recent Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes, according to Boeing. FAA documentation indicated that “there is only one flight simulator specific to the 737 MAX in the United States, and it is owned by Boeing.”

The New York Times (5/17) reported that “the simulators did not reflect the immense force that it would take for pilots to regain control of the aircraft once the system activated on a plane traveling at a high speed.” An FAA spokesman said in an emailed statement, “The F.A.A. is aware that Boeing Company is working with the manufacturers of Boeing 737 Max flight simulators. ... The F.A.A. will review any proposed adjustments as part of its ongoing oversight of the company’s efforts to address safety concerns.”

Boeing Completes Work On MCAS Update For 737 MAX Reuters (5/18) reported that Boeing “has made corrections to simulator software that mimics the flying experience of its 737 MAX jets, which were involved in two fatal crashes, and the company has provided additional information to device operators, a spokesman said on Friday.” Boeing spokesman Gordon Johndroe “said the changes will ensure that the simulator experience is representative across different flight conditions and will improve the simulation of force loads on the manual trim wheel that helps control the airplane.”

For me, the biggest concern is, how in the world did Boeing get away with certifying a design where the backup trim system (manual) may be impossible to move if the aircraft is in a severely out of trim condition. If this is really the case, and I was the FAA, I would absolutely suspend the 737's certification until a backup electric pitch trim was incorporated. Because the manual pitch trim has been proven to be of little use in an emergency situation, there is no excuse to not have a secondary electric trim control. My last several jet types have all had a dumb secondary. No A/P, mach trim, or configuration trim, but it does go up and down when you command it to.

Flyfalcons said:

For me, the biggest concern is, how in the world did Boeing get away with certifying a design where the backup trim system (manual) may be impossible to move if the aircraft is in a severely out of trim condition. If this is really the case, and I was the FAA, I would absolutely suspend the 737's certification until a backup electric pitch trim was incorporated. Because the manual pitch trim has been proven to be of little use in an emergency situation, there is no excuse to not have a secondary electric trim control. My last several jet types have all had a dumb secondary. No A/P, mach trim, or configuration trim, but it does go up and down when you command it to.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure where to start here. I don't want to get confrontational, but your post isn't really relevant.

1. The 737 design, like and human made machine, is not perfect.

2. The 737 is certified to be able to remain in control with the stab trim stuck in the full nose up or nose down trim position. This has been demonstrated many times to the FAA during certification.

3. The 737 has a single electrical motor to control the manual electrical trim OR the auto pilot trim.

4. There is a cable operated manual trim system. The 737 is the only large airline transport aircraft that has this system.
all the other Boeing/Airbus aircraft have only electrical or hydraulic motors to move the stabilizer (how the trim system works)

5. All the fly by wire aircraft have NO true trim system. The trim is controlled automatically by the flight computers.
(depending on the control law mode)

6. There is more than 1 way to control a runaway trim. Actuating either control yoke manual trim switch will cut out any other trim input. Pushing the control yoke opposite the uncommanded trim direction will stop the trim movement.
using the cutout switches and manually moving the trim wheel.

7. Under high speed/high out of trim conditions it might take BOTH pilots turning the trim wheel to move the trim.

8. Again, no other aircraft has this last ditch system.

9. If the aircraft is flying at 378Kts, the airloads will put very high loads on the mechanical trim system.

10. If the engines are left at takeoff power, and never pulled back the aircraft will accelerate to a very high speed.

11. If at any time in either accident the pilots had followed FAA/Boeing/Airline procedures neither accident would have happened.

12. I'm not a Boeing lover, I fly one now but I've also spent much time flying Mcdonnell Douglas, Lockheed, Northrop, Shorts. I expect to check out on the Airbus in the future.

I expect #5 has much to do with both accidents. I have noticed many professional pilots now have grown up flying FBW aircraft and seem to have forgotten how important it is to keep an aircraft in trim, But this might just be me, a 59 year old guy yelling at those kids to "get off my lawn!"

I'm not trying to absolve Boeing, Mistakes were made. The system design could have been done better.
But paying passengers have the expectation that professional pilots can control their aircraft with 1 major system failed.

Mark,

Thanks for all your insights. As someone who has had a minor hand in two broad 737 family's creation (the Next Generation and the MAX) I appreciate all you've said.

Your comment about being checked out in the A320 family was brought home to me as I arrived at SEA on a Southwest 737-700 yesterday afternoon and saw an A319 or A320 parked down at Alaska's hangar in Alaska (not Virgin America) livery. Looked really odd to me......

mach7 said:

I had a lengthy talk with my airlines Chief pilot today about the status of the MAX.

My airline is headquartered in Seattle, just down the street from Boeing. Being a good Boeing customer my airline has a very open information flow.

A few things that were brought up. He confirmed that there is a software glitch that will not display the AoA disagree message if the optional AoA display was not purchased. He also confirmed that the MCAS trim movement is faster than speed trim, .4 deg/sec instead of .2 deg/sec.

He also said that they have programed our sims to both the Lion Air and the Ethiopian air scenarios. Every pilot that has had it has flown out of it. Some have called it "A handfull".

US, and European airlines have flown the MAX over 200,000 cycles with no issues.

The existing procedures, if followed would have recovered control of both accident aircraft.

The fix is first to link the left and right instruments so data can be compared before MCAS will activate.
next slow the trim command of MCAS from .4 deg/sec to .3 deg/sec
allow only 1 activation of MCAS per event.

As for a timeline for when the MAX will fly again, he did not know.

Thats all the new information I have at this time.

Click to expand...

I agree with almost all of what you said, but I don't agree with blaming it on "3rd world pilots". Saying pilot error contributed, sure. But not waving it off with those 3rd world pilots, of course it crashed.

Both planes crashed shortly after takeoff, the system malfunctioned at relatively low altitude. This puts extreme stress on pilots, and mistakes can (and occasionally will be) made, regardless of pilot's experience, nationality, or where they got their training. IMO, the fact that these two crashes did not happen in the US or Europe likely has more to do with random roll of the dice. Yes, better training, more experienced pilots, the probability gets lower. But the US pilots made their fair share of errors in the past too. They are humans, humans make mistakes under stress.

The fact that pilots were able to pull it out in the simulators doesn't contradict what I just wrote. They generally knew what is going to happen (or at least they knew "something" will happen, or why would they be in the simulator in the first place), and the stress is much lower (if they "crash", they get to try again). The pilots flying simulation of "Miracle on Hudson" were able to get that plane back to the runway too (barely, but they did). But we all 100% agree that pilots flying the actual airplane that day made the right choice to execute emergency landing on the river.

From what I can tell, the MCAS had more authority than it should have had, the system could have been more redundant for little to no extra manufacturing cost (but may have had extra re-certification cost for aircraft and/or pilots). Combine that with the indisputable fact that humans do make errors no matter how much experience and training they have, and few hundred people lost their lives.

mach7 said:

I'm not sure where to start here. I don't want to get confrontational, but your post isn't really relevant.

1. The 737 design, like and human made machine, is not perfect.

2. The 737 is certified to be able to remain in control with the stab trim stuck in the full nose up or nose down trim position. This has been demonstrated many times to the FAA during certification.

3. The 737 has a single electrical motor to control the manual electrical trim OR the auto pilot trim.

4. There is a cable operated manual trim system. The 737 is the only large airline transport aircraft that has this system.
all the other Boeing/Airbus aircraft have only electrical or hydraulic motors to move the stabilizer (how the trim system works)

5. All the fly by wire aircraft have NO true trim system. The trim is controlled automatically by the flight computers.
(depending on the control law mode)

6. There is more than 1 way to control a runaway trim. Actuating either control yoke manual trim switch will cut out any other trim input. Pushing the control yoke opposite the uncommanded trim direction will stop the trim movement.
using the cutout switches and manually moving the trim wheel.

7. Under high speed/high out of trim conditions it might take BOTH pilots turning the trim wheel to move the trim.

8. Again, no other aircraft has this last ditch system.

9. If the aircraft is flying at 378Kts, the airloads will put very high loads on the mechanical trim system.

10. If the engines are left at takeoff power, and never pulled back the aircraft will accelerate to a very high speed.

11. If at any time in either accident the pilots had followed FAA/Boeing/Airline procedures neither accident would have happened.

12. I'm not a Boeing lover, I fly one now but I've also spent much time flying Mcdonnell Douglas, Lockheed, Northrop, Shorts. I expect to check out on the Airbus in the future.

I expect #5 has much to do with both accidents. I have noticed many professional pilots now have grown up flying FBW aircraft and seem to have forgotten how important it is to keep an aircraft in trim, But this might just be me, a 59 year old guy yelling at those kids to "get off my lawn!"

I'm not trying to absolve Boeing, Mistakes were made. The system design could have been done better.
But paying passengers have the expectation that professional pilots can control their aircraft with 1 major system failed.

Click to expand...

That was a very lengthy post that basically says nothing relevant to my point. In the five jets I have flown, there are two trim systems that will work at any out of trim setting and any airspeed. The 737 has one. The Ethiopian pilots couldn't move the manual trim wheel after deactivating the electric trim. This is problematic. There's even news coverage on MAX sims being updated with increased manual trim wheel force. On any of the five jets I've flown (none FBW just like the 737), it's a simple matter of going to secondary trim, and trimming. None of this two-pilot nonsense or the yo-yo technique that was taught at one time.

Again, I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm sure we would have a great time over swapping war stories over a beer.
I tend to enjoy the company of other pilots.

The 737, like the MD-80, 727 have a single trim system. They are certified because they can fly with the the trim fully nose up or down. This is demonstrated during the certification. I would have to go back and dig through my old books, it's been 25 years since I flew the '27, but the 737 and the MD-80 actually use the same trim motors. The MD-80 had no cable backup like the '37 does.

In the flight manual for the '37 it clearly states that at high airspeeds and/or far out of trim it might take both pilots to turning the trim wheel due to high loads.

I have had a runaway trim at V1. It's no fun, but flyable.

And as an aside amiliv, I never used the phrase "3rd wold pilot". That is a demeaning phase that is loaded with emotion.

I have flown with very qualified pilots from all over the world. Training and experience make a good pilot, not where they are born. The fact of the matter is there is a pilot shortage, the western world and Asia are hiring all the experience that was previously flying at the smaller airlines. Couple that with the economic progress in developing countries and the demand for air travel around the world and the fact is that some airlines are hiring pilots that do not have the experience
that they did in the past.

I read the accident reports from around the world, There is a list of airlines that my family will not fly on. Yes there are
some US airlines on the list.

mach7 said:

And as an aside amiliv, I never used the phrase "3rd wold pilot". That is a demeaning phase that is loaded with emotion.

Click to expand...

Apologies there, I haven't had intention to imply it's your opinion. I've heard it expressed, sometime more implied than explicitly stated, over the past week, by various people in various places. I should have worded it bit differently and as generic reply on the thread, not as reply to any particular post.

Said that, the point I should have been making instead is this. If new generation of the aircraft requires pilots to execute emergency procedure(s) more often, there's something wrong with that aircraft. I.e. the argument that pilots should have been able to recover those airplanes absolves Boing only if incidence of runaway trim on the MAX is same or less than on the NG. Faced with emergency, there is extremely small but non-zero probability even experienced and well trained pilot will make a fatal mistake. These airplanes will be flying millions of commercial flights around the globe. It's a simple math that will result in the new generation of the aircraft crashing more often than previous generation.

We had two MAX's crash in less than a year while aircraft had runaway trim. How many NG's crash for the same reason annually?

Sure, two data points are only two data points, and it could be statistical fluke. But, the stakes are too high to declare it to be statistical fluke.

davdue said:

I understand the Boeing 737 Max on your list but why the SpaceX Dragon capsule? Sure they had that "anomaly" when it exploded but they figured out the problem and fixed it.

Click to expand...

No comment.

Now that no one needs more passenger aircraft:

Boeing 737 Max cleared to fly after deadly crashes forced a two-year ban
‘I am 100 percent comfortable with my family flying on it,’ the FAA administrator said
Nov 18, 2020

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/18/21573113/boeing-737-max-cleared-fly-grounding-faa-crashes

Parked airliners:

For what it's worth, I just bid on 737 MAX training on Jan 4th. My airline has a 3.6 hour computer module that needs to be done before 4 hours of simulator training. We get our 1st MAX in January and just bought a bunch more.

I'm not sure anyone cares, but I did my MAX simulator today.

2 crews, 4 hours of sim time. 2 hours flying, 2 hours observing.
Prior to this I had a 3.6 hour computer module to do on it.

Some take aways from the training, The MAX pushes the limit of change for the 737. Boeing changed a lot, mostly for the better. They did their best to bring a 50 year old design up to date.
Any 737 pilot would feel at home in the cockpit, but things have moved. Mostly to accommodate the lovely display screens.
They are VERY nice and VERY big!

We started right out with a runaway stabilizer on climb out around 1000ft. Ran the checklist, used manual trim for an ILS approach to a missed approach. Then a landing.
Another takeoff with an AOA (angle of attack) sensor failure (sort of the issue with the 2 accidents) at lift off. Very distracting but flyable. Ran the checklist, flew another ILS to a missed approach again. Another takeoff with unreliable airspeed just after liftoff. Ran the checklist, figured out which of the 3 airspeed indicators was bad, transferred control to the pilot with good instruments, came back for a visual landing. The Missed approaches we so we could use manual trim during large power changes.

Then we did a stall/MCAS scenario at 15,000 ft, followed by a landing with runaway trim at 500ft on final. We were instructed to not run a checklist, just land. To show us it can be done safely and easily.

Now, we were flying the MAX with all the "fixes" and we had a pretty good idea what we would see in the sim.

Having said that I found the MAX a delight to fly. The problems we had were much gentler than I expected. I was expecting much more of a pitch/power response with the bigger engines, it felt just like the NG's in out fleet.
I found the flight control balance very neutral and pleasant. It will take a bit of adjustment to get used to the slightly changed cockpit layout, but its really not bad. The changes are logical and an improvement, but they are changes.

I am glad you have had a good experience on the new Max. Let's hope Boeing have got the engineering and human factors right this time around.

When do you think you will by flying one for real? Covid must be causing a few plans, and planes, to be rejigged.

mach7 said:

Some take aways from the training, The MAX pushes the limit of change for the 737. Boeing changed a lot, mostly for the better. They did their best to bring a 50 year old design up to date.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. We did try to make the changes positive ones [notwithstanding what happened in a couple of areas, sadly]. And yes, we knew we were “pushing the limit“ in updating the basic 737 design again in a number of areas.

Any 737 pilot would feel at home in the cockpit, but things have moved. Mostly to accommodate the lovely display screens.
They are VERY nice and VERY big!

Click to expand...

Being involved with the trade study that helped get those displays (which are the same as on 787s) on the airplane (and to sort out what had to be moved around to make it work) I am very glad to hear this.

Having said that I found the MAX a delight to fly. The problems we had were much gentler than I expected. I was expecting much more of a pitch/power response with the bigger engines, it felt just like the NG's in out fleet.

Click to expand...

That was exactly what we were aiming for. The objective was that folks such as yourselves could move freely between NGs and Maxes without undue concern. This was a big driver for the decision not to update the crew alerting system to work like most other Boeing airliners (a decision much criticized in the press after the accidents).

I found the flight control balance very neutral and pleasant. It will take a bit of adjustment to get used to the slightly changed cockpit layout, but its really not bad. The changes are logical and an improvement, but they are changes.

Click to expand...

The elevator system changes to accommodate the new lower-drag tailcone were a concern here. Glad to hear that it feels good to fly.

BEC,

You guys done did good!

OverTheTop said:

I am glad you have had a good experience on the new Max. Let's hope Boeing have got the engineering and human factors right this time around.

When do you think you will by flying one for real? Covid must be causing a few plans, and planes, to be rejigged.

Click to expand...

We get our 1st MAX this month. Route proving runs will be done in February. They will be in passenger service in March. My base is the 1st to fly them. They will stay CONUS for the 1st few months, then will move to the Hawaii and international routes.

I expect I will be flying one early in March. Sim's never fly like a real plane, they get close.

We also have A321NEO's, and the initial numbers look like the MAX-9 is about 5-10% more efficient than NEO, and the NEO is about 5-10% more efficient than the 737-900NG. As an aside, my airline just bought 68 MAX-9's with options for 55 more.

mach7 said:

We also have A321NEO's, and the initial numbers look like the MAX-9 is about 5-10% more efficient than NEO, and the NEO is about 5-10% more efficient than the 737-900NG. As an aside, my airline just bought 68 MAX-9's with options for 55 more.

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If your airline is the one it appears to be based on news reports of those purchase/option numbers (Alaska), it's the airline I fly if I have any choice in the matter. It's worth paying a hair more for non-stop routes from home and better service on the ground and on board. (And obviously the best pilots in the business! )

I'm glad to hear that boatgeek! Thanks!

We do have the best flight attendants in the world, I think.

And, this might be an odd thing to say, but I think we have the best passengers in the world also! I'm always amazed at how nice 99.5% of our passengers are, even during long delays and unforeseen issues.