I don’t think it’s a mistake that the headline is intended to make Boeing sound uncaring and wrong-headed. The headline is intended to provoke discussion. However, if you pick almost any problem in any industry, the solution invariably is less human / more automated. It’s not hard to see how we got here - I can imagine when Boeing asks pilots what they need the answer is something like reduce distractions so we can fly. How do you do that? More automation. Take almost any operational role - everyone is asking to reduce distractions and highlight things that need focus. I’m not arguing to absolve Boeing from fielding the Max. But I can also see a logical argument here.
Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
21–30 of 50 posts
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#22Way to introduce a false dichtonomy into the public conversation to save the company from scrutinity. More or less automation is irrelevant to the conversation and even with all goodwill, was never the motivating factor for Boeing designing the MAX system as it did. Don't be blended by this PR spin!
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#23My knee jerk reaction to this is "more automation after an automation failure? Huh?". But whenever I think someone is being that stupid, it's always worth a second look, and it turns out the reality is more complex. This article[1] linked off of the OP goes into detail about their crashes. It describes a design philosophy that pushes robustness fully onto the pilot, expecting him to flawlessly stitch together indepen…
As a student pilot in a Cessna, I kept thinking how much even simple automation could help. Why do I need to deal with carb heat for example. The answer in almost every case is that things are simpler and probably safer the way they are. Once you start down the automation path, you also want fail-safe redundancy and systems that cooperate with each other when there is a problem. I can see how it can quickly get out of hand. The more complex something gets, the harder it is for human to intervene when there's a problem. I can now argue either way about it.
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#24There are tons of math majors produced every year. Would be a viable business model to offer factory-style program-correctness-proving-as-a-service. Current proof services are mostly niche static analysis for stuff like Ethereum contracts and occasionally a wannabe legal-tech company. I think aerospace could use more proofs. You can't use Ada for everything, eventually you will have to code in C/C++.
Algorithmic correctness won't necessarily help you if the root problem is bad sensor data.
Everyone knows what bad sensor data is until they have to write software to identify it.
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#25"Our automated system crashed several planes, when the pilots were not able to disable it before it could erroneously trim the vehicle into terrain.
"Clearly, we need to remove the human pilots and double down on the automation."
[This is where the people using shallow analysis go nuts. But wait.]
Because the flawed system was only installed for the purpose of avoiding the expense of retraining human pilots to a new model of aircraft! In a fully-integrated automated piloting system, there is no separate trim-compensating subsystem. The trim parameters are plugged directly into the aircraft model, and the automatic pilot has access to all the sensors in the craft to make its trim decisions, instead of just the angle-of-attack sensor.
Instead of re-certifying hundreds of pilots, you just validate one new aircraft data model.
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
The auto system failed because they a) were band-aiding a flawed mechanical design b) under-designed the compensating software (only provided a single AOA sensor by default) to obscure the fact the plane was significantly different to avoid training costs. These are management problems, not technical problems. More automation would be subject to the same issues.
Crap I meant to make the above comment as a top level comment, not a response.. Somehow it came through twice. Anyway, in response to your comment: perhaps I'm conflating these, but a commitment to robustness seems like it's included in the newer philosophy? It just extends that notion beyond the sensor-level to the system level. Sure, you can frame an inadequate emphasis on robustness as a "management problem" inste…
I would say that framing a business problem in engineering terms will lead to an unclear understanding of the problem. The executives were attempting to thread the needle of a potentially business killing competition with Airbus and were willing to make compromises to safety to save their skins. No engineering methodology can save you from motivated reasoning and systems level problems like that because management will force exceptions to whatever process is in place.
The only thing that would be an appropriate counterweight is if the engineering staff refuses to put a defective design into production. A robust engineering process can make violations and exceptions clear, but if the staff still does what management says, it won't help.
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#27For the life of me, I have absolutely no idea how you can look at what has happened with the Max and believe that more entrenched automation is the answer.
What's the logic behind this statement? Airbus is known for its automation, they had some rough times but now they are doing very well. If anything, the most prominent crash that comes to mind from recent history of 737s equivalent a320 is the suicidal pilot of Airberlin.
I would love it when the planes are as easily operated as an elevator. It's probably more realistic than self-driving cars.
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#28Their automated systems caused two crashes and their solution is to automate more systems? Have they literally gone insane?
This article[1] linked off of the OP goes into detail about their crashes. It describes a design philosophy that pushes robustness fully onto the pilot, expecting him to flawlessly stitch together independent automated systems and unreasonably rapidly interpret and react to their error modes. In the case described in the article, separate automated systems had contrasting views of the world, and shouted their contrad…
The problem is we don't trust Boeing to develop these automated systems, considering they developed a system with enough authority to crash the plane into the ground. essentially 0 sensor redundancy (alternating between sensors is non-redundant)
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#29There are tons of math majors produced every year. Would be a viable business model to offer factory-style program-correctness-proving-as-a-service. Current proof services are mostly niche static analysis for stuff like Ethereum contracts and occasionally a wannabe legal-tech company. I think aerospace could use more proofs. You can't use Ada for everything, eventually you will have to code in C/C++.
Proof of correctness would be nice, but it looks like they failed at fault tree analysis or FMEA - both of which are common in aerospace.
Re: Max Crashes Strengthen Resolve of Boeing to Automate Flight
#30For the life of me, I have absolutely no idea how you can look at what has happened with the Max and believe that more entrenched automation is the answer.
The argument goes something like this:
It’s the disconnect between pilots mental models of what’s going on and what’s actually going on that caused the Max‘s and several other related crashes on different aircraft. As such software designed based on how the system actually works may actually be both simpler and safer than increasingly abstracted fly by wire systems trying to safely intuit what the pilots want.
An example from 10 years ago: https://www.fastcompany.com/1669720/how-lousy-cockpit-design...