> There's some people who say that because the longer 737 is less stable in pitch it should have never been built, and I think that's over the top.
I know that aerodynamic instability requiring continuous correction by fly-by-wire systems has become common on fighter jets because it's necessary to achieve some of the maneuvering characteristics necessary to make them competitive. These are, of course very different priorities from commercial passenger aircraft.
Has a jetliner been certified before the 737 MAX that is aerodynamically unstable in any of the tests that it's required to pass without control inputs made by the computer without direct input from the pilot, or in contravention of the pilot's input? I know Airbus is fond of its "do what I mean" system, but that in some circumstances, Airbus flight control systems revert to essentially emulating an analog airplane. Would their flight characteristics pass certification in that mode?
Concorde's Safety Flight System is in some ways similar to MCAS, in that it'll nudge elevons itself.
I don't know if Airbus would meet certification requirements in direct control law. I suspect not. Definitely not in mechanical control law.
Just like more conventional jetliners wouldn't meet certification guidelines without all of their control rigging, counterweights, and trim systems. It's just now tempting to make adjustments to those systems with software instead of fiddling with everything else.
I thought of a much better answer to your question:
Many airplanes require functional (electronic) yaw damping to be safe in various flight conditions, because of dutch roll. There are also e.g. electronic control feel systems in some aircraft that must be operational to exceed certain speeds and/or altitudes and not be excessively vulnerable to PIO, etc.
My understanding of dutch roll (from watching a few flying videos on youtube and reading the wikipedia article) makes it seem like dealing with it is basic flight control coordination that shouldn't give a pilot experienced in a given aircraft any trouble.
Is it harder than I'm imagining in big jets, or in specific aircraft due to peculiarities of their handling characteristics?
Dutch roll is an oscillatory mode resulting from delayed cross-axis coupling and different axis stability. There's not really much a pilot can do about it other than trying to avoid exciting it.
Aircraft with swept, low wings exhibit dutch roll worse than other types (e.g. airliners). It's also worse at high speeds and high altitudes.
Yaw dampers vary based on aircraft and flight regime to "attenuating somewhat that annoying-bouncing-back-and-forth-feeling in the back of an airliner during cruise (imagine how bad it would be without active damping!)" to "preventing an oscillation from building in 2-3 cycles to a point where it will cause structural failure".
I think some of my confusion here was related to some notable youtubers misusing the term to mean a roll-on-heading exercise. When I wrote my last question, I was thinking "there's too much, or an unpredictable amount of adverse yaw", but I now understand the problem as "the aircraft enters a self-reinforcing oscillation in response to certain poorly coordinated control inputs", which doesn't sound like a good thing at all.
Thanks for all your input in this discussion. I find both flight in general and the case of the 737 MAX fascinating. Previously the implementation of MCAS sounded absolutely insane to me, but I can mostly understand how they got there after reading your comments.
I know that aerodynamic instability requiring continuous correction by fly-by-wire systems has become common on fighter jets because it's necessary to achieve some of the maneuvering characteristics necessary to make them competitive. These are, of course very different priorities from commercial passenger aircraft.
Has a jetliner been certified before the 737 MAX that is aerodynamically unstable in any of the tests that it's required to pass without control inputs made by the computer without direct input from the pilot, or in contravention of the pilot's input? I know Airbus is fond of its "do what I mean" system, but that in some circumstances, Airbus flight control systems revert to essentially emulating an analog airplane. Would their flight characteristics pass certification in that mode?