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Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

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Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#61

Post by berti »

userbinator wrote: post #51
croes wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t workout with the Boeing 737 Max, did it?

That was basically the first Boeing that went in the Airbus direction.

The 777 and 787 before it are true fly-by-wire designs like the Airbus in question here; the 737 MAX isn't and never was. It just had a computer that was supposed to add artificial inputs under a very specific condition, so it could continue to fly like the older models under the same type certificate and not require extra pilot training. It turns out that the condition could be triggered erroneously, and the logic to determine the artificial inputs was deeply flawed.

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#62

Post by bgwalter »

kergonath wrote: post #32
bgwalter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the airworthiness directive: Affected ELAC: Elevator aileron computer (ELAC) ELAC B L104 Serviceable ELAC: ELAC B L103+ So it's a regression that affects decades old aircraft. Of course Airbus is now also meddling with "AI": https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/digital-transformation/... Obviously there no direct connection here, but it seems that destabilizing perfectly working aircraft could be the pro…

> Obviously there no direct connection here, but it seems that destabilizing perfectly working aircraft could be the product of a culture shift. A culture shift following a fad in the last couple of years that caused "a regression" (whatever you mean by that) in an aircraft that was made years before, and that was designed years before again? How would that work? They can stop selling aircrafts if they have a time ma…

The regression is obviously ELAC B L104 vs. ELAC B L103+. The culture shift (if there was one) would obviously have affected the latest L104.

I begin to revise my opinion about LLMs. An LLM would not have misunderstood the comment that badly.

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#63

Post by nutjob2 »

thisislife2 wrote: post #46

I can understand why this would be priority for Airbus even without the incident of a flight losing altitude - recently read that a major philosophical difference between Airbus and Boeing is that Airbus prioritises the safety of the Aircraft through controls (hardware and software) where as Boeing believes a human should always be the final decision maker and be able to over ride any control. An Airbus rarely allows…

People might talk about it that way but it's not really the case. It's mechanical limits versus software limits, the later being required because it's a software driven system. The limits may seem artificial and set my humans, but they're no different to "natural" mechanical limitations, in the sense they both stop the pilot from commanding what the machine cannot deliver.

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#64

Post by pixl97 »

netsharc wrote: post #36
RealityVoid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my humble opinion, whenever someone dropped the idea... "Maybe it's solar radiation" it never was solar radiation. There was a subtle bug in the system or something. It's just such a cop-out to attribute it to, solar radiation, it's our profession's variant of magic .

https://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/definitions-c/cos...

I can't find any further information on this intel testing like what altitude they perform the tests at.

AMD has perform testing at data centers of different altitudes and there is some statistical significance in SRAM error rates. And that is typically only around 5000-6000 ft msl.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2503210.2503257

Planes are much higher than that in operation so get larger amounts of unfiltered solar flux.

This may be one of the causes of higher cancer rates in pilots, but eliminating other environmental causes may be difficult

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/aviation/prevention/aircrew-cancer...

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#65

Post by inferiorhuman »

berti wrote: post #61
userbinator wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was basically the first Boeing that went in the Airbus direction.

The 777 and 787 before it are true fly-by-wire designs like the Airbus in question here; the 737 MAX isn't and never was. It just had a computer that was supposed to add artificial inputs under a very specific condition, so it could continue to fly like the older models under the same type certificate and not require extra pilot training. It turns out that the condition could be triggered erroneously, and the logic t…

The 737NG already had computer controlled feedback to the control columns, the MAX added computer controlled spoiler deployment (like the 757 and 767) and elevator trim.

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#66

Post by jjcob »

bgwalter wrote: post #62
kergonath wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously there no direct connection here, but it seems that destabilizing perfectly working aircraft could be the product of a culture shift. A culture shift following a fad in the last couple of years that caused "a regression" (whatever you mean by that) in an aircraft that was made years before, and that was designed years before again? How would that work? They can stop selling aircrafts if they have a time ma…

The regression is obviously ELAC B L104 vs. ELAC B L103+. The culture shift (if there was one) would obviously have affected the latest L104. I begin to revise my opinion about LLMs. An LLM would not have misunderstood the comment that badly.

Can you expand on that? Do you have any knowledge about those parts except their part numbers?

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#67

Post by whatevaa »

croes wrote: post #47
thisislife2 wrote: post #46

I can understand why this would be priority for Airbus even without the incident of a flight losing altitude - recently read that a major philosophical difference between Airbus and Boeing is that Airbus prioritises the safety of the Aircraft through controls (hardware and software) where as Boeing believes a human should always be the final decision maker and be able to over ride any control. An Airbus rarely allows…

Didn’t workout with the Boeing 737 Max, did it?

The issue could have been avoided if MCAS was made properly redundant (and not rely on single sensor, wtf) and pilots were trained on it. It was all about the money. The airframe is fine.

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#68

Post by sam1714 »

lxgr wrote: post #56
SteveNuts wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe most A320s can do OTA software updates (including dowgrades)

OTA? That sounds extremely implausible.

It's a thing, but it's not universal on the A320.

Original 1984 critical hardware: the box has an EEPROM module, you swap it on the plane.

FMS (which requires monthly nav data updates) and all modern hardware: the box can be updated over the ARINC 429 serial bus or Ethernet (newer systems/planes), called dataloading

Dataloading had different methods. A320s through the 2000's, most airlines had a 3.5 floppy disk drive on board (Airbus FDDU), and a mechanic fed floppies in. It was slow. Evolution of that was a USB port that took a flash drive.

Most current planes of older models just got rid of on-board dataloading. The mechanic uses a laptop with a cable or purpose-built tablet and plugs into a port. The mechanic can download the software via Wi-Fi or cellular onto the device: https://www.teledynecontrols.com/products/hardware-systems/p...

Airlines can indeed buy a on-board box that connects to Wi-Fi and LTE at the gate which downloads software. This is standard for the latest models that produce more data (A350, 787), but optional for older models. The mechanic still needs to go to the plane and push the buttons to tell it to load.

https://www.teledynecontrols.com/products/dataloading/eadl-x... https://www.teledynecontrols.com/products/hardware-systems/g...

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#69

Post by t0mas88 »

thisislife2 wrote: post #46

I can understand why this would be priority for Airbus even without the incident of a flight losing altitude - recently read that a major philosophical difference between Airbus and Boeing is that Airbus prioritises the safety of the Aircraft through controls (hardware and software) where as Boeing believes a human should always be the final decision maker and be able to over ride any control. An Airbus rarely allows…

It’s an oversimplification to position them as opposites. Airbus uses higher level contol, more a flight path than a control surface movement. But pilots can revert to direct law and have full contol authority when required. Boeing aims for a more traditional control feel, you move control surfaces instead of commanding an outcome. But with layers of substantial augmentation on top of it, up to and including for example the 737 MAX MCAS.

In practice, both approaches blend automation and pilot authority rather than strict philosophical extremes. And the practical difference at the controls is also not as extreme as some people think it is.

Re: Airbus A320 Fly by wire corrupted by radiation in flight

#70

Post by lxgr »

sam1714 wrote: post #68
lxgr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTA? That sounds extremely implausible.

It's a thing, but it's not universal on the A320. Original 1984 critical hardware: the box has an EEPROM module, you swap it on the plane. FMS (which requires monthly nav data updates) and all modern hardware: the box can be updated over the ARINC 429 serial bus or Ethernet (newer systems/planes), called dataloading Dataloading had different methods. A320s through the 2000's, most airlines had a 3.5 floppy disk drive…

Wow, I stand corrected. I thought it was still all floppy disks (or emulators thereof) for software, if not for navigation data etc.

Thank you!

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