Boeing Officially(ish) Rebrands The 737 MAX

how to spot a max? look at where the engines sit on the wings! the nacelle is slightly higher on the max. they had to move the engines forward & up to make them fit.

@Glenn You must be privy to some information that I do not have. NMA is no longer in design - they have put that puppy on the back burner as far as I have heard. 737 may be certified soon and when it is back in service then perhaps the NMA will become viable. Maybe in 10 years. Not an aircraft designer but they might have been better to re-wing and re-engine the 757 like they did to the 747. Perhaps they chose the wrong product to focus on. I hate single aisle long distance flights so have always abhorred the 757.

The main problem was that Boeing tried to adapt the 737airframe to a size/performance niche that was previously held by the 757. If you have flown a 757, you know that there is no substitute for it except another 757. The smaller 787 overlapped the seating capacity of the 757-300, and so to pay for the outlandish cost over-runs of the 787, Boeing cancelled the 757 line (not withstanding that NUMEROUS airlines wanted the 757 line to continue) to force airlines to buy the 787. Most didn’t. The 787 isn’t nearly as versatile as a 757 - you could never take one out of MDW fully loaded and take it to either coast or do a oceanic crossing with the SAME airplane. To fill the niche the 757 left, Boeing tried to remake the 737 into a cheaper version of the 757. Didn’t work so well... Now Boeing is working on a clean-sheet airplane known as the NMA - New Market Aircraft. Hopefully, it will be as versatile as the original 757 and be as successful. The 737 airframe is tapped out.

@Azamaraal You're still missing an important contributing factor. All previous known incidences of MCAS giving erroneous nose down trim occurred during cruise at high altitude, not within 120 seconds of takeoff. You're also incorrect in blaming Lion Air for only having one AOA indicator. The crash would still have happened if they bought the second one, since Boeing never bothered to tie the system to a second indicator if one was present, as exemplified in the Ethiopian crash. That jet was equipped with two AOA indicators, but the second one was not tied into the system and no AOA indicator disagree message was given despite the two indicators deviating by 59* before the crash. That's entirely on Boeing, without even considering the foolishness of implementing a system that has control over flight surfaces but relies on only a single sensor. You're also completely omitting the jammed trim issue that results from this. The 737 still uses a physical trim wheel, which can be operated with electric motors. However, cutting out MCAS requires cutting the electric motors, which makes it very difficult to correct a severe nose-down trim while maintaining a nose up attitude with the yokes. There's a procedure to correct this, but it hasn't been in the manual or part of 737 pilot training since the 737-200. This also explains why despite the Ethiopian pilots initially initially following the runaway trim procedure, they felt it necessary to turn the trim motors back on. They could not correct the trim by hand while simultaneously keeping the nose up. Yes, it took a "special" set of circumstances for this to occur. That "special" set of circumstances was having this occur immediately after takeoff rather than at cruise, and we are extremely lucky it didn't occur in the US before it occurred overseas. While Lion and Ethiopian having low hour pilots in the cockpit did contribute to the crash, the root cause goes squarely back to Boeing implementing a flight control system that relies on only a single sensor's input (even if more than one sensor is physically present on the aircraft).

@Joe Final thoughts. ALL MODERN AIRCRAFT have computer flight control systems that help the pilot deal with aircraft design quirks. The A320 Neo is a classic example. It is unstable and needs the flight control system to keep it in the air. Invisible to the pilots as it is fly by wire. Guess we should ground all of them at the same time as the 737-8? I just checked and Airbus has a problem with both the A320neo and the A321neo ELAC system. This problem seems to occur on landing with specific centre of gravity configurations etc. Because of this some airlines are flying with less than full airplanes to keep the COG within the specified limits to prevent an angle of attack problem. So Airbus is safe because their "MCAS" is called "ELAC"? Because both the A320 and 321 neo's have a rear centre of gravity design both seem to have a problem. Would you call a rear COG a design flaw? I would. Is it enough to ground the aircraft forever? Depends on the fix. This particular problem appears on landing and could be triggered by a go-around if I read correctly. Might not be the safest design in the world? I digress. The Max has a possible problem of pitch up on takeoff due to the large engines creating lift (if I read the report correctly) which is easily corrected by a pilot or automatically by a computer with correct inputs from the angle of attack sensors. Airbus has a similar problem caused by a rear centre of gravity and possible angle of attack sensors which can be corrected by a computer or by pilot input. I wouldn't call for the grounding of either aircraft once the FAA certification has cleared the planes for safe operation.