So, what do you have? NO TRAINING on this airplane, a bugged software system, poor aerodynamics, poor design choice, stress on elevator, etc. The ethiopian airlines plane had such force that pilots were not able to manually turn the trim control wheel. Do you know how much force that plane had to have that the jack screw couldn't be operated manually? THAT is a severe design flaw. THAT is what is being investigated. Who is investigating Boeing? Boeing is investigating Boeing. Boeing on 5/7/19 admits it knew they had a severe problem but it can still be fixed. Who certified the fix? Boeing. But now the FAA is investigating that fix which was promised by April. Again, this is a severe design flaw with still many unknowns yet to be found.
Do you have any personal experience with or references for this claim?
Personally I won't fly on one in my lifetime.
I'll leave the analysis of why to others to figure out why I fly on other airplanes.
Incidentally I have seen pilots argue that the max is inherently unsafe on this forum which is probably why people are reiterating it.
What is your area of expertise and what is your opinion?
It's perfectly rational to look at the results, regardless of "why", and decide that the risk is just too great.
In this plane which is not "fly-by-wire" the pilots are part of the safety loop and are given a certain short amount of time to respond to an emergency.
Troubling to me is the footnote in the manual which there are times where the manual wheels for the trim require 80 lbs or 100 lbs or more of force. This amount of force would potentially preclude female pilots on these planes to handle these sorts of emergencies.
This is completely false. The 737 MAX does not have relaxed static stability in the manner of a fighter jet. It just has different handling characteristics than earlier 737s at high angles of attack -- a region of the flight envelope that the pilot should never take the plane into in the first place.
Fighter jets of the kind you're referring to require continuous and precise adjustments of the flight control surfaces merely to avoid departing from controlled flight. This is absolutely not the case for the 737 MAX.
The parent comment and entire thread is 100% correct. There is nothing inherently unstable or unsafe about the MAX 8. It has a pitch-up characteristic that's mild compared to some other commercial jets like the 757.
The only reason MCAS was put on that plane was to allow the MAX 8 to share a type rating with the rest of the 737 family, to make it so that it handles like any other 737 despite the pitch-up characteristic.
Go ask any commercial pilot, go watch any of the commercial pilots on youtube who have commented on this, go look on stackexchange. The notion that the MAX 8 is inherently unstable, or unsound, or dangerous, is a laughable myth to anyone in the industry. I get that the news cycle is financially rewarded for fearmongering, but I really expected people who frequent HN to know better and do some cursory research into the topic rather than posting comments that perpetuate bullshit.
There are several major issues with what boeing has done, such as the alleged failure to reclassify MCAS as a critical system after flight testing. But instead of discussing these legitimate issues, public debate seems to have been directed towards a bullshit myth about the airframe being inherently unstable. This has been eye-opening and dispelled my notion that HN had above-average quality of discussion on technical topics.