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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Going off your quote it just looks like they're describing the symptom?
It’s a completely neutral statement, and air travel has a strong culture of not accepting “just don’t screw up” as a solution.
I hope people are beginning to understand that the presence of software in any system is a liability.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There should be manual override. What if this happened in-AIR?
You really, really do not want the reverse thrust to turn on in-AIR. That would be way worse then then engine shutting down.
I'm not sure this is a bug. It sounds like pilot-error to me (I am not a pilot): "In the bulletin, Boeing said that selecting full reverse too quickly upon landing before the aircraft has fully transitioned to ground mode could cause the system to activate."
Regardless of cause, regardless of if the pilot activated the thrust reverser too early, this is an incredibly dangerous defect that Boeing (or Rolls Royce) needs to fix before more people are put in danger.
Let me phase it this way: Even when the engines are literally on fire, they don't automatically shutdown, because doing so is considered too dangerous (since the systems don't know the circumstances, and even an engine on fire can generate thrust, and it might be your only engine).
Even if the defect was DISCOVERED due to a pilot error, it is still a defect and a safety critical one at that.
Boeing’s answer seems to say if you accidentally pull the thrust reverser lever before the aircraft is on the ground it just force shuts down the engines. That sounds like an odd safety override. Surely a better solution would be to just not activate reverse thrust. Unlike car engines a jet engine can’t just be quickly restarted if it accidentally shuts down. It typically takes 30-60 seconds to get going. This and ea…
How do you restart the Boeing 787 in mid-air? With the lack of an APU (they use li-on batteries, I think?), what's the mid-air engine restart procedure?
Boeing’s answer seems to say if you accidentally pull the thrust reverser lever before the aircraft is on the ground it just force shuts down the engines. That sounds like an odd safety override. Surely a better solution would be to just not activate reverse thrust. Unlike car engines a jet engine can’t just be quickly restarted if it accidentally shuts down. It typically takes 30-60 seconds to get going. This and ea…
I hope people are beginning to understand that the presence of software in any system is a liability.
I think the problem is one of simplicity vs complexity. New systems today rely on dozens - hundreds even - of packages and libraries - many of which are not written by the implementer. How can you ensure reliability in all these components?
This is why engineering from first principles - even in today's software development environment - is important. Unfortunately, the trends are in the other direction.
Sort of off topic, but reverse thrust sort of boggles my mind. If you're sucking air in from the front of the aircraft and ejecting it out the front, don't those forces counterbalance each other?
Boeing’s answer seems to say if you accidentally pull the thrust reverser lever before the aircraft is on the ground it just force shuts down the engines. That sounds like an odd safety override. Surely a better solution would be to just not activate reverse thrust. Unlike car engines a jet engine can’t just be quickly restarted if it accidentally shuts down. It typically takes 30-60 seconds to get going. This and ea…
Talking about an odd safety override. It's kind of a self-destruct button.