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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNewly stringent tests spur major software change for 737 Max
SEATTLE While conducting newly stringent tests on the Boeing 737 Max flight control system, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in June uncovered a potential flaw that now has spurred Boeing to make a fundamental software-design change.
Boeing is changing the Maxs automated flight-control systems software so that it will take input from both flight-control computers at once instead of using only one on each flight. That might seem simple and obvious, but in the architecture that has been in place on the 737 for decades, the automated systems take input from only one computer on a flight, switching to use the other computer on the next flight.
Boeing believes the changes can be accomplished in time to win new regulatory approval for the Max to fly again by October. Significant slipping of that schedule could lead to a temporary halt in production at the Renton plant where 10,000 workers assemble the 737.
After two deadly crashes of Boeings 737 Max and the ensuing heavy criticism of the FAA for its limited oversight of the jets original certification, the agency has been reevaluating and re-certifying Boeings updated flight-control systems.
https://www.heraldnet.com/business/newly-stringent-tests-spur-major-software-change-for-737-max/
Redundancy
RainCaster
(10,976 posts)It scares me to think how many other software design flaws there are in those airplanes.
Nobody is doing design work as if lives depend upon it, and management doesn't seem to care. Deadlines and budgets are the priority here.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)That the airframe itself is so poorly designed as to need the software and what appears to be an endless series of patches is to me much more disturbing.
Yavin4
(35,459 posts)in order to save money. Gotta maximize those shareholder profits now.
rickford66
(5,540 posts)I have seen some "quick" or "dirty" fixes in flight control software, and slight changes require loads of redundancy testing and new tests need to be added. I've never "flipped bits" within a processor, but did introduce malfunctions of the inputs. When we found glitches or bugs with any avionics, we reported such data to the proper manufacturer. Most modern avionics have an input to let the box know it's on a simulator, otherwise the software could get confused when we would do something impossible, but it also allows introducing scenarios as outlined in the article.
harumph
(1,928 posts)they're attempting to "fix" with software. The plane is unbalanced which can
result in a bad situation that human pilots can't react to quickly enough - hence the attempted
software fix to preempt said bad situation. Structural additions were rushed into the 737 without
taking it back to zero in order to compete with Airbus which spent the money to substantially retool
a thus did better job at engineering a flight worthy plane.
The 737 Max isn't the regular 737 (which is a dependable plane). In other words, the 737 Max is structurally
distinct (the software is to fix the inherent instability they introduced with the structural changes).
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)A human needs a computer making adjustments to keep it in the air. But that is by design and allows for incredible performance. Not sure how true that is.
But it seems a bad scenario for a passenger plane. After all, they are not going into combat or anything. The main thing they need to do be safe.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,632 posts)https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk
dalton99a
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