Personally I'd have no issues at all flying on a MAX-8. The two crashes were caused by Boeing keeping MCAS a secret from the pilots, so when things starting to go haywire their training hadn't included a procedure for correcting the problem. I'd be surprised if any pilot flying a MAX-8 once they return to service has not reviewed the MCAS disable process before getting into the cockpit. As far as I know they've been receiving training, which ironically is what Boeing was attempting to avoid..
Err, not quite. That was only part of the problem.
Even if the pilots had known about MCAS, and known what it did, it is unlikely to have helped them very much because there was no way to disable or turn it off without making the aircraft extremely difficult to trim.
Part of flying the Max 8 without MCAS is the need to turn off the stab trim and
manually trim the nose up using the crank handles on the trim wheels. At say 180 to 200 kts just after take-off, that is difficult but not impossible, however, the dynamic forces on the control surfaces increase exponentially with increased airspeed - there is almost three times the force on the horizontal stabilizer at 300 kts that there is at 200 kts.
This is how hard it is to manually trim the 737 at 300 kts
Note in the first second of the gif, the left seat pilot has got his arms around the yoke, pulling it back as far as he can.
On the 737 NG the left
"Main Elect" switch turned off the electric power to the trim system. This ability is necessary in the event of a
"runaway trim" condition. The right
"Auto Pilot" switch turned off autopilot control of the trim. This means the pilot could still electrically control the trim by leaving the left switch up and the right switch down. However, in the 737 Max 8, these switches were rewired so that they BOTH turned off the power to the trim system, turn off either switch and you remove electrical power from the trim motors. This left the pilots with only two options.
1. MCAS and power trim off so the jackscrews have to be turned manually using the trim wheels.
2. MCAS and power trim on, putting MCAS in 100% control of the trim making the pilot fight for control of his aircraft.
There was NO option for the pilot to turn off MCAS and keep the power trim control on.
AIUI, all they have done to fix this is to hook up the second AoA transmitter to make the error condition less likely, included a full description of MCAS in the AFM, included some additional procedures in the QRH and made some modifications to the MCAS software. There will still be no way for the pilots to turn off MCAS without also losing the ability to use the power trim controls on the yoke to control the trim.
Not good enough IMO. There should never be a system that is designed to take away control from the pilot and autonomously point the nose of the aircraft at the ground with no way for the pilot to turn it off and fly the aircraft himself.