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737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

nytimes.com

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Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#41

Post by elteto »

wvenable wrote: post #29
pinewurst wrote: post #2

The "1990s Computing Power" comment is ignorantly harsh. The MAX (to the best of my knowledge) uses a similar AMD29050-based architecture as the 777 (where it was pioneered) and the 737-800/900. It's amply fast and very very reliable, hardware and software (setting MCAS aside which is new to MAX). Any sane person would prefer the solid well-proven choice over the bleeding edge. People used to make similar comments ab…

> The "1990s Computing Power" comment is ignorantly harsh. I don't think so. You build a plane that's expected to run for decades -- if you put a 2010 computer in there now, it'll be 20 years old in 2030. That 1990's computer was put there in the 90's, does that really make it more reliable?

The amount of processing that those computers do won’t increase over time, it stays the same. So why use something you won’t need?

Also, planes are extremely expensive so they don’t get thrown away, they get constant upgrades. The U2 spy plane is a good example: a 1950/60s airframe running with more modern instruments. So if the need arise they will upgrade those CPUs on the 737s.

Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#42

Post by cryptonector »

kbos87 wrote: post #4

The thing that baffles me - why the hell has there never been any innovation in the form of making it easier to diagnose a problem and move through the necessary steps in a checklist beyond fumbling through a paper manual? In a situation where seconds count, it seems illogical that this has never been improved upon. Didn’t at least one of these planes crash because the pilots are believed to have only gotten X number…

Air France flight 447 had too many alarms go off, and the pilots could not cope. Turns out that getting mid-flight problem diagnostics right is a really difficult problem.

Now, in the Air France flight, part of the problem was the system trying harder than it should have: it would have sufficed to alert the pilots to the lack of air speed indication and let them figure out what to do, but instead the computers cascade alarm after alarm.

You can see the problem: various pieces of the system were engineered separately, and there was no single system that could have suppressed the downstream alarms so that the pilots could focus on first on understanding the first alarm. Then again, that too might not have been a good design: perhaps a stall alarm should take precedence, say, over a frozen pitot alarm.

Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#43

Post by bouncycastle »

ehnto wrote: post #23
ReptileMan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lecturer of mine once said - knowing what kind of people we teach here for programmers, I am scared of going to the doctor. The less software is in something(and less cloudy/iot) the better. And the more I program the more I prefer stupid and mechanical things when reliability is on the line. A paper manual is always there for you.

The app for my bicycle computer will be obsolete before my bike. On the other hand, my car computer has been running flawlessly for 25 years without any updates.

There's an old joke, if Microsoft made cars... https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/pnw/microsoftjoke.htm

Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#44

Post by wvenable »

elteto wrote: post #41
wvenable wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "1990s Computing Power" comment is ignorantly harsh. I don't think so. You build a plane that's expected to run for decades -- if you put a 2010 computer in there now, it'll be 20 years old in 2030. That 1990's computer was put there in the 90's, does that really make it more reliable?

The amount of processing that those computers do won’t increase over time, it stays the same. So why use something you won’t need? Also, planes are extremely expensive so they don’t get thrown away, they get constant upgrades. The U2 spy plane is a good example: a 1950/60s airframe running with more modern instruments. So if the need arise they will upgrade those CPUs on the 737s.

> So why use something you won’t need?

The whole point of this issue that the technology and cockpit design is purposely 30 years old to prevent the need for re-certification not for safety issues.

I'm not suggesting technology be used that isn't needed; I'm just suggesting using the technology to make air travel safer and easier for pilots.

Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#45

Post by [deleted] »

wvenable wrote: post #39
pinewurst wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That so-called 1990s computer is probably a year old, embedded in a Honeywell module that’ll be available new for the next 15 years.

Of course. It's not literally a 1990's computer. But the idea that it's just somehow superior because the design is 3 decades old doesn't make any sense. 30 years ago it would have been new technology; so where was that same argument then?

[deleted]

Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#46

Post by myth2018 »

Mass media in general is stressing too much the fact that 737 MAX is allegedly based on dated designs.

I think it's fair to say that MAX versions present some compromise solutions (like the now-infamous MCAS, which is there to compensate for the "unnatural" bigger engines). But I think that is not the main point. They would be good solutions it they worked as intended.

There are some other more fundamental and more daunting, afaik unanswered questions.

Like, why does such a critical system like MCAS take only a single AoA sensor as input, when there are two sensors available? Specially considering that the inputs from both are hardware-available to MCAS (the new software version is going to take data from both).

Boeing affirmed in its manuals that the elevators would be able to compensate for the trimmed vertical stabilizers. Now the preliminary report in the Ethiopian's crash shows that the pilots wheren't able to perform such compensation, even by pulling the control columns all the way back.

Those and some other issues are much more critical.

Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#47

Post by dclowd9901 »

jonas21 wrote: post #10
kbos87 wrote: post #4

The thing that baffles me - why the hell has there never been any innovation in the form of making it easier to diagnose a problem and move through the necessary steps in a checklist beyond fumbling through a paper manual? In a situation where seconds count, it seems illogical that this has never been improved upon. Didn’t at least one of these planes crash because the pilots are believed to have only gotten X number…

As mentioned in the article, other Boeing jets do automatically present a checklist on the display when they detect a problem: > A second electronic system found on other Boeing jets also alerts pilots to unusual or hazardous situations during flight and lays out recommended steps to resolve them. The 737 is stuck in the past because given the choice, nobody wants to have to retrain their pilots on more modern system…

[flagged]

Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#48

Post by bronson »

wvenable wrote: post #39
pinewurst wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That so-called 1990s computer is probably a year old, embedded in a Honeywell module that’ll be available new for the next 15 years.

Of course. It's not literally a 1990's computer. But the idea that it's just somehow superior because the design is 3 decades old doesn't make any sense. 30 years ago it would have been new technology; so where was that same argument then?

It's had 3 decades of experience and bugfixes.

Re: 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

#50

Post by sleavey »

cryptonector wrote: post #42
kbos87 wrote: post #4

The thing that baffles me - why the hell has there never been any innovation in the form of making it easier to diagnose a problem and move through the necessary steps in a checklist beyond fumbling through a paper manual? In a situation where seconds count, it seems illogical that this has never been improved upon. Didn’t at least one of these planes crash because the pilots are believed to have only gotten X number…

Air France flight 447 had too many alarms go off, and the pilots could not cope. Turns out that getting mid-flight problem diagnostics right is a really difficult problem. Now, in the Air France flight, part of the problem was the system trying harder than it should have: it would have sufficed to alert the pilots to the lack of air speed indication and let them figure out what to do, but instead the computers cascad…

There is a caveat to the Air France 447 crash, that the pilots apparently relied too heavily on the autopilot. When the alarms came on mid-flight, neither pilot was familiar with the current state of the plane and found it more difficult to diagnose the problems. One of the recommendations to come out of that crash was that pilots on long flights should occasionally switch back to manual control to keep themselves synced with the aircraft's state.
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