"................................We await more information before going beyond the observations made above. I think it’s safe to say; it wasn’t a clear-cut “execute the Trim Runaway” checklist situation for the crew. All 737 MAX crews now know this is the thing to do in the above situation. But these crews didn’t have this information. Secondly, MCAS operating off a single, unverified, AoA signal will not be for long."
Few years back, I commented how C919 was the first to choose the Leap engines forcing the Airbus & Boeing duopoly to offer Leap upgrades to their cash cows, the A320 & B737, when they much preferred to concentrate R&D on their other products like A350 & 787.
I commented how 737 would be the most troubled by the big Leap with its short landing gear.
Years later, it seems not to be the case as A decided to offer PW GTF engines to their A320Neos as well, the problems with which causing headaches for A with groundings & even the launch client Qatar refusing to take the planes.
With C919 facing delays, 737 Max surprised by charging out of the gate with smooth launch & 1000s of orders.
Now we know why. 737Max was indeed troubled by the big Leaps, forcing B to move the engines further forward on the wings disrupting the centre of gravity & thus the stability of 737Max. Meaning 737Max is more prone to stall & harder to recover from one.
Instead of a costly major re-design of the old 737 to solve this, B put in a half baked, band aid 'MCAS' and to top it off, decided to keep quiet about it, saving certification costs/effort & save pilot re-training costs to avoid affecting sales.
This is what you get when an engineering giant gets taken over by bean counters & gets too close with the FAA.
We already had a glimpse of the this with the 787 exploding batteries.