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A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

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Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#61

Post by DougWebb »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #51
DougWebb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem so unlikely to me. Supply chains are long and parts are bought in bulk. I think it's likely that the parts for the ECUs, including boards with chips containing the older firmware, are warehoused where the ECUs are assembled. The ECUs are probably then bought in bulk and warehoused where the planes are assembled. The paperwork for the plane probably includes the ECU serial numbers, but it probably does…

I think you underestimate the tracking done in commercial airplane manufacture. I believe the source of every rivet is well-known. And how many planes do they make? Many parts are likely manufactured as needed, one at a time.

I'm sure the tracking is a lot more detailed than, say, consumer products, but it's probably not as detailed as it is for space hardware. There's a cost to that tracking, and the commercial airplane industry needs to be cost-competitive. So I'm assuming they track well enough to meet their own and government-imposed safety standards, but perhaps not well enough to be able to look up the chip firmware for each circuit board on every in-service airplane in a database.

As far as JIT manufacturing, that's certainly the case for bigger parts and systems, but it sounds like the ECTs are replaceable so they probably have backup replacements stocked near most major airports. (Assuming it's a part that can be replaced during routine pre-flight maintenance.) And the components that go into the ECTs are almost certainly produced in large batches rather than continuously.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#62

Post by tedunangst »

TeeWEE wrote: post #60
alandarev wrote: post #18

Software contractor for Airbus and Rolls-royce here. All safety critical software (every piece of code ran on-board is safety critical the least) in aerospace needs to pass the DO-178 standard [1]. That is far more serious than standard unit tests you are used to in node.js applications. Generally speaking, to develop a piece of code under that standard it takes 20% of time to write the code, and 80% to testing, and…

I'm quite baffled at the fact that this standard does not include formal verification of the software models used. Formal verification and state space analysis can prove that the software "model" will not fail. State space exploration of the actual implementation is actually often not feasible due to the enourmous amount of states. So my question: Are you doing formal analysis of the software models/designs? I know t…

What is the largest piece of code you have formally verified?

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#63

Post by tedunangst »

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #36
lexy0202 wrote: post #29

I have done a quick and rough translation of the German article into English. Hopefully this is better than the Google Translate version: https://gist.github.com/alexcoplan/0018e3320f99a612c737

Much more readable than the Glenglish version -thank you. I still don't understand "The crash is the worst accident since the development of the A400M", though. To me that implies there was a pretty devastating accident during the development.

That may be reading too much. Another reading is that Prior to development, the plane didn't exist.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#64

Post by bhaak »

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #36
lexy0202 wrote: post #29

I have done a quick and rough translation of the German article into English. Hopefully this is better than the Google Translate version: https://gist.github.com/alexcoplan/0018e3320f99a612c737

Much more readable than the Glenglish version -thank you. I still don't understand "The crash is the worst accident since the development of the A400M", though. To me that implies there was a pretty devastating accident during the development.

This is not a translation error. This sentence has the same puzzling meaning in the German version.

I think it's sloppy journalist writing for the worst accident that happened with the development of the A400M.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#65

Post by jonnycowboy »

alandarev wrote: post #18

Software contractor for Airbus and Rolls-royce here. All safety critical software (every piece of code ran on-board is safety critical the least) in aerospace needs to pass the DO-178 standard [1]. That is far more serious than standard unit tests you are used to in node.js applications. Generally speaking, to develop a piece of code under that standard it takes 20% of time to write the code, and 80% to testing, and…

I also work in aerospace software. Following DO178 certainly does not guarantee that there will be no software bugs. The point of DO178 is to follow a process that will _minimize_ the number of bugs by having adequate peer review processes throughout the requirement definition, coding, integration phases, in addition to the testing you mention above. Testing DO178 only tests that the code follows the requirements. If your requirements are fucked, so are you.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#66

Post by ExpiredLink »

agumonkey wrote: post #31
alandarev wrote: post #18

Software contractor for Airbus and Rolls-royce here. All safety critical software (every piece of code ran on-board is safety critical the least) in aerospace needs to pass the DO-178 standard [1]. That is far more serious than standard unit tests you are used to in node.js applications. Generally speaking, to develop a piece of code under that standard it takes 20% of time to write the code, and 80% to testing, and…

I've seen this first hand, unfortunately this doesn't escape the hiring market reality. Many documents and source files are littered with (very) bad code from an 3 months employee that couldn't do better before leaving considering the extreme size of the project. I wonder if someone can pull an #ElonMusk on the DO-178 to slim things down in order to have better control. ps: planes fly with bugs, see the DreamLiner, A…

> I guess they travel by train

The train brake control systems are written in ... C.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#67

Post by agumonkey »

ExpiredLink wrote: post #66
agumonkey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this first hand, unfortunately this doesn't escape the hiring market reality. Many documents and source files are littered with (very) bad code from an 3 months employee that couldn't do better before leaving considering the extreme size of the project. I wonder if someone can pull an #ElonMusk on the DO-178 to slim things down in order to have better control. ps: planes fly with bugs, see the DreamLiner, A…

> I guess they travel by train The train brake control systems are written in ... C.

Yeah but usually when two trains collide, you don't have the time to see it coming.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#68

Post by tirant »

bottled_poe wrote: post #19
tirant wrote: post #7

I am not surprised at all. There are a lot of contractors involved in the development of the software for the A400M, and they are basically competing for price and employing undergraduates making below €18K/year, which they replace every few months due to burnouts and bad working conditions. Projects get continuously delayed, and key people barely stay more than a couple of years.

Have you been involved with the engineering of aircraft control systems, or are you just speculating?

I was not speculating. I've been working in one of the contractors. The same situation applies to Railway Control Systems and other Telecommunication Infrastructures.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#69

Post by snom320 »

[deleted] wrote: post #55
alandarev wrote: post #18

Software contractor for Airbus and Rolls-royce here. All safety critical software (every piece of code ran on-board is safety critical the least) in aerospace needs to pass the DO-178 standard [1]. That is far more serious than standard unit tests you are used to in node.js applications. Generally speaking, to develop a piece of code under that standard it takes 20% of time to write the code, and 80% to testing, and…

[deleted]

Did you work specifically on the engine controllers? Have you considered speaking to the accident board about this?

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#70

Post by peeters »

userbinator wrote: post #52
alandarev wrote: post #18

Software contractor for Airbus and Rolls-royce here. All safety critical software (every piece of code ran on-board is safety critical the least) in aerospace needs to pass the DO-178 standard [1]. That is far more serious than standard unit tests you are used to in node.js applications. Generally speaking, to develop a piece of code under that standard it takes 20% of time to write the code, and 80% to testing, and…

The target catastrophic failure rate there is 1 in a billion hours, which doesn't seem all that high to me... there are over 100000 flights a day[1], and the average length of one is well over an hour, so in one day all the aircraft in the world have accumulated a total of over 2.4 million hours in operation. If each flight was only an hour long, that's 417 days to 1 billion total hours, and if the failure rate reall…

Where is the "actual failure rate" number coming from?
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