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Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

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Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#51

Post by bsder »

KaiserPro wrote: post #34
bsder wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It may be stuck in the 60's but HF radios work Really? When you have to worry about things like "Squelch" in order to deal with voltage supply ground noise? You are on thin ground. The real problem with modern technology is that the pilot can't rely on it. Sure, a digital radio is $1,000 (or less). However, the digital radio that is FAA certified will be expensive and nobody is going to develop it because the FAA w…

Squelch adjusts the noise floor, and in modern radios can be automagical. Also there is nought wrong with digital over HF, as other posts will attest.

There are lots of solutions.

But nobody is going to front the money to get it FAA certified so that it can be a required solution given that the most you will sell is 1,000 a year.

This is the real reason why air technology is so far behind. There is no profit in it.

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#52

Post by jkaljundi »

adrinavarro wrote: post #18

Most modern airliners have satellite links (data and voice) with their dispatch centers. They also use the ACARS system to send and receive clearances (they can acknowledge by pushing a button). The old SELCAL+HF radio is no longer in use, except for backup. Planes have GPS trackers. Not only their company knows where they are, the control center can too. In the case of the north atlantic track system, air control ke…

FYI, the author of the post owns and pilots a modern jet plane, and is a seasoned pilot. His post was not just about airliners, but any planes up in the sky. And he is right, that the technology in many cases is outdated and prone to errors.

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#53

Post by jarek »

greyskull wrote: post #33
frik wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just fail to see the point of this post. Haven't you read about the missing aircraft? Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is a missing international passenger flight operated by a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370 At least two of the passengers were travelling using false identities (stolen passports, tickets bought at the same time). Edit: last known position: http://w…

Oh wow. If it's straight-up missing they could be anywhere in Asia right now... nuts.

"Missing" is an euphemism for "very likely crashed" here. They won't say crashed just in case it is later found with people alive, but not communicating and gone from radar over the sea usually ends only one way.

It could be hijacked, landed, and held hostage, but it's incredibly difficult to hide a 777 anywhere in the world where it can safely land. It's possible it was hijacked with intention of being held hostage but crashed, hence no claims of responsibility.

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#54

Post by jbg_ »

mikeash wrote: post #50
bruceb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or not a bomb, just some maintenance problem. No group claims responsibility. The point of bombing seems to be to strike fear and send a message. The passport thing is curious but stolen/fake passports can be of use for other things that are nothing to do with terrorism.

Indeed. My money is on "bomb" just because it's hard to come up with a maintenance problem that causes such a rapid disaster at altitude. It would have to be something that caused a massive explosion like TWA 800. Possible, but unlikely. The lack of a claim makes a bombing less likely too, but IMO less so than the improbability of a mechanical problem.

Sudden explosive decompression?

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#55

Post by agumonkey »

KaiserPro wrote: post #2

It may be stuck in the 60's but HF radios work sure you can create an automated dispatch system on an iPad. How do you authenticate it? how do you tell if its not working? does it fail safe? Making safe software is hard, and well beyond the wit of your standard programmer. After all, can you gaurentee your software when the CPU is at 100%? can you say with certainty what happens when your CPU is hammered by all the i…

More than the 'dated' technology they rely on, it's the overall system and protocols that have been crafted and polished. New tech often result in unknown regressions.

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#56

Post by al2o3cr »

"Imagine if you had a telephone system in which you had to listen to everyone else’s conversations until somebody finally spoke to you."

Now imagine that everybody on the alternative secret phone system is flying around hundreds of passengers who'll be killed if somebody misdirects a call with important instructions.

I've found that, in general, if one's reaction to a practice is "WTF, is literally everybody else in this industry stoopid?" it usually means the opposite...

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#57

Post by greyskull »

mikeash wrote: post #41
greyskull wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow. If it's straight-up missing they could be anywhere in Asia right now... nuts.

Not likely. It was at cruising altitude and then vanished off the radar screen after sudden maneuvering. If it had diverted it would have continued to be tracked on radar. Even if they had shut off transponders and such, primary surveillance radar would have continued to see them. It almost certainly experienced a sudden catastrophic failure in flight (and I would bet due to a bomb).

That makes sense. Ignore my ignorant comment.

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#58

Post by nawitus »

RogerL wrote: post #47

I am by no means an aviation expert, but my career was largely built on things like putting GPS and modern radios into military aircraft, writing flight planners, and so on. I ask you to envision the logistics of a simple change. You want to implement X, and gee-whiz do I have some cool, new technology that makes it easy!! Okay. Let's start. If we make mistakes people die, and careers end. I'll let you draw your own…

If bureaucracy prevents new technology of being adopted quickly, then that bureaucracy actually decreases safety, even if it's goal is to increase safety. Yes, adopting new technology increases some risks, but also decreases others. The good thing is that usually you can have both systems on at the same time. If the internet connection and GPS fails, it's not difficult to fall back to the existing technology.

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#59

Post by adrinavarro »

jkaljundi wrote: post #52
adrinavarro wrote: post #18

Most modern airliners have satellite links (data and voice) with their dispatch centers. They also use the ACARS system to send and receive clearances (they can acknowledge by pushing a button). The old SELCAL+HF radio is no longer in use, except for backup. Planes have GPS trackers. Not only their company knows where they are, the control center can too. In the case of the north atlantic track system, air control ke…

FYI, the author of the post owns and pilots a modern jet plane, and is a seasoned pilot. His post was not just about airliners, but any planes up in the sky. And he is right, that the technology in many cases is outdated and prone to errors.

He owns a plane which he does not fly as a pilot and got a PPL which allows him to fly light aircraft in visual conditions but refuses to fly unaccompanied. I would not say that he is a seasoned pilot…

There are planes and planes. Security in airliners and in light aircraft are two matters of their own. You don't expect people who own a Cessna to have a black box and a satellite data link.

Re: Aviation is stuck in the 60s – a reflection on MH 370

#60

Post by batbomb »

nawitus wrote: post #58
RogerL wrote: post #47

I am by no means an aviation expert, but my career was largely built on things like putting GPS and modern radios into military aircraft, writing flight planners, and so on. I ask you to envision the logistics of a simple change. You want to implement X, and gee-whiz do I have some cool, new technology that makes it easy!! Okay. Let's start. If we make mistakes people die, and careers end. I'll let you draw your own…

If bureaucracy prevents new technology of being adopted quickly, then that bureaucracy actually decreases safety, even if it's goal is to increase safety. Yes, adopting new technology increases some risks, but also decreases others. The good thing is that usually you can have both systems on at the same time. If the internet connection and GPS fails, it's not difficult to fall back to the existing technology.

Arguably, this is likely only the second crash of a 777 that's not attributable to pilot error, and the first catastrophic crash in nearly 19 years.

It's almost like this blog post is suggesting that safety of large airliners is in some sort of massive disarray that could be fixed by an iPad and a few apps.

The second thing that we fail to think about is statistics. Systems like hadoop are very popular because is because failure ALWAYS scales, so we just buy lots of things and assume the embrace the risk of failure. For commercial plane, even a 0.1% failure rate would affect 25 flights out of O'Hare every day. Square had some information that 10% of customers that used an iPad 2 had one fail within a year.

So, the idea of expediting unproven technology with unknown failure rates to a system as reliable as a 777 sounds utterly preposterous to me.

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