Comment by geoduck14
2 years ago
My understanding of the situation is this: When there is a new plane released, the FAA determins what type of training the (existing) pilots need to undergo to be certified to fly on it. If the plane is new or very different from existing planes, then the pilots have to go through long and expensive training- this training includes flight simulators. If the plane is "mostly the same" as an existing plane, the pilots go through shorter and cheaper training.
Boeing wanted the pilots to take the cheaper training, because it ment that the buyers could save a lot of money. So they convinced the FAA that the cheaper training was appropriate. They convinced the FAA that the MCAS system wasn't a "big difference." This was a mistake
Sure, Boeing’s desperate attempts to “grandfather” in this plane under the original type certificate constituted the root cause for all this.
My question here though was specifically whether, as the article alleges, MAX-specific simulator training (whether required or not) would have exposed this problem in time to prevent the accidents. And I don’t think it would.