Re: Disobeying jet engines - why?

In message <ueqhp39dlakdtrbkcdm1h7ag47nk9pdp58@xxxxxxx>, John Larkin <jjlarkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:18:35 -0600, Damon Hill
<damon1SIX1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Didi <diditgi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in news:f121757f-1671-4ebe-892d-625ea1c236b6
@h11g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7206596.stm

Windoze is NOT qualified for critical applications like this. It's
something pretty specialized and focused for the application. I
suspect the investigation will either find a hardware fault or
operator error (misconfigured autopilot).

Since they went to manual (but still fly-by-wire) when the autopilot failed to deliver and the copilot who landed the plane gliding with the limited thrust and forward velocity he still had available just got over the boundary fence I somehow doubt this one is down to pilot error.

Thanks to him the investigation team has a complete aircraft to examine since he landed it more or less in one piece and with no loss of life.

Conjecture about why both engines failed to respond included quite a long list including fuel waxing, bird strike, software errors, and mechanical failures. We have to wait for the final report to find out the root cause.


I know some of the guys who do the engine control computer firmware
for the Pratt&Whitney engines. They use our gear to simulate engine
sensor signals to the control computer, and run weeks/months of
scripts to verify the firmware in all sorts of situations.

Their ECC's use no OS at all, just basic bare-metal state machines.

Which is exactly how it should be. I trust properly designed hardware state machines a lot more than even the best commercial software.

I don't believe most software development today is actually good enough for civilian fly-by-wire. I have a bad feeling that some 777 code is in C++ and about 60% in the more robust Ada language. Hopefully non of it is anywhere near the mission critical stuff.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

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