Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 187 posts

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#161

Post by catern »

p_l wrote: post #146
catern wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(several computers running in a setup somewhat similar to statically assigned kubernetes) This description of a server room makes me feel old.

Well, which explanation would you prefer then? JES3, which is the closest extant example of such tech? I'm comparing it to statically assigned k8s not because it's manually assigned applications, but because it's a cluster system where the equivalent of k8s scheduler was run offline to resolve various performance and deadline constraints, both between specific application threads on the cluster, and between devices o…

>because it's a cluster system where the equivalent of k8s scheduler was run offline to resolve various performance and deadline constraints, both between specific application threads on the cluster, and between devices on the AFDX (modified ethernet) network that are managed from said cluster.

Oh, I genuinely didn't know that! I assumed you were just talking about something that had been manually hand-optimized by syadmins/developers, like a traditional Unix server room.

Can you share any more information about these static cluster schedulers? It indeed makes perfect conceptual sense to me with your explanation, I just had never heard of this being actually used!

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#162

Post by Veserv »

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.

Seven 9s for system failure would be horrific. There are ~30-40 million flights worldwide yearly [1], so that would result in 3-4 system failures of life-critical avionics yearly. As far as I am aware, malfunctioning software has not been implicated in any commercial airline fatality in nearly 30 years since the modern standards were adopted, and correctly functioning, though unsafe, software has only been implicated in the 737-MAX crashes. By that standard we have reasonable empirical evidence to conclude that the prevailing rate of system failure is at least 100x better at nine 9s.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/564769/airline-industry-...

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#163

Post by jaywalk »

throwinthisaway wrote: post #118
jaywalk wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never been proven (as far as I'm aware) that the guy was actually able to send commands to a real plane. It's no surprise that he was able to read data, because the seatback screens have to get the flight data they display from somewhere. But actually sending commands that will reach real systems is a pretty big leap.

Throwaway account to remain anonymous because these aren't nice words. I worked with Chris Roberts for a period of time. Making things up to scare companies into dumping cash on him is kind of his 'thing'. I never once actually saw him perform any real exploits or produce anything of value except scary/funny looking powerpoints and lots of trash talk. In this case he just stepped a little bit too far with his made up…

The whole thing seemed very weird, so none of what you said is surprising. Glad to have that background info.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#164

Post by 7952 »

mastax wrote: post #112
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.

In an emergency situation, an unresponsive and unintuitive GUI may be very dangerous. Especially if pilots forget how to use it because they're using the iPad day to day but right now it's rebooting to install an update. Like, I get the argument for certification but maybe the requirements should have a minimum level of performance. If that's not possible maybe we should find a different equilibrium.

That assumes that deep navigation of a UI is necessary or desirable in an emergency. I think most of the important stuff is done with the main controls, dedicated switches, and screens/dials that are always on and ready.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#165

Post by 7952 »

p_l wrote: post #149
mastax wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an emergency situation, an unresponsive and unintuitive GUI may be very dangerous. Especially if pilots forget how to use it because they're using the iPad day to day but right now it's rebooting to install an update. Like, I get the argument for certification but maybe the requirements should have a minimum level of performance. If that's not possible maybe we should find a different equilibrium.

There are requirements for performance - appropriate to the function. The electronic flight bag interface is not used in emergencies, one of its main uses is in planning and submitting flight plans before takeoff, and it's generally not used for actively flying the plane.

Exactly. In an emergency the last thing the pilot wants to do is navigate a map interface for anything. Better to just select the alternate flight plan that was setup hours ago during flight planning.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#166

Post by wolverine876 »

brunooo wrote: post #159
wolverine876 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of iPads always surprises me. What happens if they run out of power? Do they bring a redundant iPad? BTW, are you a pilot or in the airline industry? > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178C is a good starting point to understand certification requirements OT: People's faith in Wikipedia seems to be increasing on HN, which is odd for a sophisticated audience in the era of misinformation.

Non-airline pilot and generally curious, plus work on viability of new ground up stack for vehicle vs Garmin or Honeywell. Rules for my own small GA plane flights if it’s in one without glass cockpit are: two fully charged devices with latest data on both (iPad and phone), flight plan on both (ForeFlight syncs automatically), plus two means of charging (larger Anker pack, and dashboard USB or 12V outlet).

Thanks. Have you ever had a failure of your devices? Do you know anyone who has?

I could see tablets as being far more efficient and thus effective in a crisis - no searching through thousands of pages, no juggling large volumes, just hold a tablet and search or click a bookmark. I'm just trying to get the full picture.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#167

Post by dzhiurgis »

penguin_booze wrote: post #71

I always wondered: what would it take me to fly in the cockpit? I'm not a pilot, but I'm willing to be subjected to any amount of security/background check that'll let me witness the machine in action, end-to-end.

Not in flight, but you can ask to come in after. Depending on airline you get to seat the captain chair (Air NZ pilot suggested themselves, Air India pilot had a mortified face when I asked).

But yeah you won’t get a real experience… i always wondered why they don’t put front windows in double decker first class cabin.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#168

Post by alfalfasprout »

FearlessNebula wrote: post #86
durnygbur wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional Garmin equipment is already orders of magnitude more expensive though.

Foreflight on an iPad is fully certified

Not for instrument flight it's not. You can view charts on it. You cannot use it as your primary instrument (except in an emergency).

That said... in practice it's a FAR better experience than crappy built-in avionics.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#169

Post by t0mas88 »

aivisol wrote: post #85
p_l wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need very good contacts inside an airline. Personal contacts with captain and the like. Sometimes you still can get jump seat flights (a rather uncomfortable seat used for ferrying extra crew) in the cockpit.

I very much hope that is not the case. As a passenger I would not be very happy seeing pilot's friends going in and out of cockpit during the flight.

It's still allowed, the passenger gets a temporary airline ID to wear around their neck so passengers don't get confused. And typically you close the forward galley curtain before opening the door, same as for crew entering and leaving the cockpit for in flight rest etc.

Edit: I'm in Europe, not sure how American airlines handle it.

Re: Tour of the server room in the Airbus 350

#170

Post by t0mas88 »

midasuni wrote: post #9

“First time OBE been here” Shouldn’t a pilot have been everywhere during training, before he takes charge?

The avionics bay is for maintenance, pilots don't get to touch any of it ever.

And pilot training covers the systems not in a physical sense but in a logical "power is supplied to this system via the secondary avionics bus which is fed via this breaker from the generator on the left engine or via another breaker from the main avionics bus" so you can debug and understand what it means when some bus fails or you loose a generator. But we really don't know where the actual wire is or even whether the schematic we learn about different buses is really wired that way or only behaves that way.

Post reply on HN