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Re:Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Addresses the Ethiopian Airl... by Aloha on Thursday April 04, 2019 @07:37PM (#19578219)
you just rename it I guess.

Like, Fly-by-wire is not new, airbus has been flying this way for 30 years, and had some bad early accidents because of it. The name of the system doesnt matter very much, so I fail to understand how the name would ground the airplane forever

Re:Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Addresses the Ethiopian Airl... by zaroth on Thursday April 04, 2019 @08:09PM (#19578403)
That’s not what I meant. I mean a background system pushing the nose down without any active control input from the pilot while autopilot is off.

Versus Airbus which moderates pilot input to keep within the flight envelope, but I don’t think it steers without inputs when autopilot is off?

Re:Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Addresses the Ethiopian Airl... by mmzdnp on Thursday April 04, 2019 @08:41PM (#19578559)
MCAS was designed to only activate in extreme flight conditions (e.g. AoA being abnormally high). The reason why they decided have MCAS activate even without autopilot can probably be traced to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447.
Re:Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Addresses the Ethiopian Airl... by calecon323 on Thursday April 04, 2019 @08:47PM (#19578588)
The Airbus system certainly does override pilot commands. It doesn't matter if the autopilot is disengaged. There are situations even outside of normal law where the system will prevent the pilot from entering a stall.