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Comment by atharris | Hacker News Reader

Ah - I didn't say Boeing's ability to write and test that control software was particularly good (in fact, I think their current track record says exactly the opposite.) I just hate when non-domain experts make judgements about things being 'fundamentally flawed.'

Insufficiently tested and documented? Sure. Bad UI/UX? Most definitely. Irredeemable 'because of aerodynamics' according to some private pilot that flew a 737 once in sim? Absolutely not.

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>> because of aerodynamics

But yes. MCAS was put in place due to concerns over aero. If that was just to avoid the need for extra pilot training then it should have been scrapped since new training will be required now anyway. But since great effort has been made to fix MCAS we can conclude that the root problem is aerodynamic.

Can aerodynamic issues be compensated for with software? Sure. I need to read up on the final hardware/software/instruction solution before passing Judgement.

You're completely ignoring that flying the 737 MAX without MCAS is not an automatic death sentence. Meanwhile a malfunctioning MCAS is actually an automatic death sentence.

The big flaws are in the software, not in the hardware. So stop focusing on that.

The qualifier of 'automatic' on death sentence is fun.

Would the software even be necessary if the airframe was better designed?

Amen. If we don’t focus on the root cause it will be harder to solve the problem. And understand that we have actually solved it.

(Student Pilot and Mechanical Engineer here)

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