Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350 • Hacker News Board

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#101

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

demarq wrote: post #75

tibbydudeza wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because it is 10 year old older hardware but thoroughly tested. Using Chrome/JS/CSS on the latest Ryzen might be neat but when you need to transport 300 passengers daily around there is other sort of concerns then taking up 3 folks to the ISS every 6 months.

spacex already disproved this myth have a look at the last manned mission they did. Glorious touch screen displays with all the bells and whistles.

SpaceX's crewed capsule is 5-10 years newer than the A350.

I imagine SpaceX has a different set of certification requirements (ie Airbus has stronger financial incentives to use existing, approved designs for components).

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#102

Post by FearlessNebula » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

NordSteve wrote: post #98

FearlessNebula wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like the sound of the auxiliary power unit at the back of the plane ;)

No, it really sounds like a server room down there. You don't hear much of the APU, which is at the very back of the aircraft, ~60m away, with the exhaust pointed away.

I’m almost certain it’s the APU. Notice how the sound and volume hardly change when he opens the door from the server room into the cargo area. 60m away isn’t all that far for a big turbine engine. Those things are deafening at idle speed.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#103

Post by p_l » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

netr0ute wrote: post #99

sslayer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dependability and reliability override responsiveness

Ironic, because responsiveness might inherently make it undependable because if you really needed to know where you are right now, that multiple-second delay isn't going to help.

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate, in this order.

And the map isn't even part of the primary navigation method, plus with multi pilot crew usually you can offload slower, less time critical tasks to copilot.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#104

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

FearlessNebula wrote: post #66

lbriner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might mean that what happens if you trespass won't be shown! There might be a gas release system that would neutralise an attacker or perhaps just open the door to the hold so they freeze!

I doubt there’s actually a defense system. The only way inside from within the plane is from the cockpit and if there’s an intruder in the cockpit they can already do more damage without needing to go below.

There's a door from the cargo area into the server/electronics area. Not sure if there's a handle on the cargo-side, but the pilot uses the door in the video (opened it from electronics side). It appeared this cargo area is pressurized (door into electronics area didn't appear pressurized, nor did the hatch into the cockpit).

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#105

Post by aembleton » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #6

> unauthorized persons can not get there for reasons I will not show Not sure what else can be there, I mean it's already a critical infrastructure of the plane what we saw

Might be that you can't lift that hatch as the server room probably isn't pressurised.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#106

Post by scoopertrooper » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #82

chrisseaton wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not why the person you're replying to means - 'move fast' means developing fast.

They move fast and apparently also way overhead.

Well, maybe OP’s head.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#107

Post by formerly_proven » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

jfrunyon wrote: post #49

pjerem wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s because anyway there is space under the cockpit and that’s structural. So there is no reason nor incentives to make those machines smaller while sacrificing fixability. It’s either that or seats or kerosene. There is not enough room for seats, and it’s not an acceptable place to store kerosene (too dangerous in case of crash and can cause stability issues as the volume of kerosene decreases while flying)…

Could be additional cargo space. Airlines would be quite happy, they could accept more cargo = more $.

The extremely wide FoV in the video makes it look far bigger than it is.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#108

Post by durnygbur » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #96

durnygbur wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm truly mindblown because of such a waste of luggage space, of general space, and of electronics. In recent years airlines have started to charge even for the small handbag fitted under the seat, while packing even more obsolete eletronics into it. I guess the lobbying of copyright, media, and entertainment industries simply prevails everything including reason and safety.

Are there really airlines that have both seatback screens and also charge for a small bag that can go under the seat? At least among US airlines, those two things are generally mutually exclusive.

That's rather my collective experience. Cannot tell if a certain airline is simultanously having headrest entertainment system and charges extra for the little luggage. I'm certain though that easyjet and ryanair tightened spaces between the rows and were putting printed ads on the headrests, 40-50cm in front of almost every passenger's eyeballs.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#109

Post by tilolebo » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

I wish I did not see this video. Knowing that the plane I'm flying in relies on an actual server room is super scary...

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#110

Post by RL_Quine » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

lbriner wrote: post #31

ohadron wrote: post #23

Even assuming quadruple redundancy, seven nines uptime and resilience to extreme conditions and cosmic rays, this looks way way bigger than it should be. One explanation could be that the certification process for anything aviation related is so expensive and slow that we're actually looking at tech from 15+ years ago.

If you mean physically bigger than it is certainly true that avionics, like automative, uses larger components with higher ratings and avoids a lot of high pitch integrated circuits. This makes things easier test and likely to be more reliable. It also means you might have a single euro-card just to handle the input from a single airplane sensor even though in the non safety-critical world, we would easily mux them o…

Like in medical gear, avionics also has a lot of redundancy and "useless" circuitry to allow for assurances. I've opened some hardware designed for unsafe environments that was absolutely packed with fuses, for seemingly no purpose other than to assert that limits were being followed in the design. I don't imagine avionics is any different, but I've only seen the inside of 60s-70s aircraft gear.