Congress has approved an amendment to a 2020 law that will allow the FAA to certify Boeing's 737 MAX 10 and 7 models without updating the crew alerting systems. Those systems will have to be updated eventually, but the exemption allows certification to continue in the face of a 2020 rule that gave manufacturers to the end of this year to bring the alerting systems of new aircraft up to modern standards. Without the amendment, the FAA would not have been able to certify the last two models and Boeing had warned that those programs might be scrapped.
I believe Boeing is already working on an override or cutout feature for the persistent warning systems. I don’t understand the European fascination with adding a third AOA sensor. To get the MAX back from grounding, Boeing already had to invent a feature the resolves if one of the two AOA are failed. So why add a third sensor? Also, the sensors are LEFT and RIGHT so where do you put a third one to be “center”?
The intent is to use a synthetic AOA sensor. It uses accelerometers to calculate the AOA without having to use an analogue sensor vane in the airflow.
The computer then cross references all AOA inputs and rejects the one that is different from the other 2. This system would have PREVENTED both the Lion Air and the Ethiopian 737 MAX crashes.
It is outrageous to me that after everything that has happened, Boeing is still resisting retrofitting all MAX’s
The F-16 had four + flight control computers; the F-117 has four special pitot-static probes sticking out of the front of the jet. Scrapping a program because an extra system had to be installed; sum ting wong with THAT story …
While I don’t agree with many Boeing decisions as of late, I think “sum ting” may be limited as to your understanding of designing complex avionics, integrating those designs into an airframe, testing it all, and then getting the result past the FAA for certification. The last part is particularly prickly when a legacy platform is involved, and even more so again when the FAA is primed to make an example of the process, for the benefit of all the lawyer-turned-engineer politicians that are providing “oversight”. Simpler programs of all kinds of companies are scrapped for less every day, you just don’t hear about them.
I think I see the point you are attempting to make. And I certainly think that Boeing (and the FAA overlords) have dropped the ball on the Max design process. But, to your mind, exactly what is it that the nearly-indistinguishable-from-it competition offers that makes the max so inferior in your mind? I mean, the practical differences are clearly pretty marginal considering that the Max has continued to sell right along with the Airbus birds.