737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

Why exactly does this author think an airplane needs a lot of computing power? Airplane software does not deal with especially large amounts of data or intense computations. Faster hardware does not provide an inherent safety benefit.<p>There is a large degree of coupling between avionics hardware and software amd updating that software is prohibitively expensive. There&#x27;s just no point in doing it unless you get a tangible benefit.<p>Furthermore, avionics systems take a long time to develop are not often rebuilt from scratch, so the hardware naturally lags far behind the computing power we&#x27;re used to.<p>The recycling of avionics systems is definitely fueled by a desire to reduce costs. However, it&#x27;s also important to note that older, mature systems with a history of service inherently offer a degree of safety compared to something which is untested.<p>The issue this article complains about can easily be seen as a safety feature.<p>To be fair, the author does spend most of the article talking about missing features and design issues rather than harping on &quot;processing power&quot;. It is a poor title.

The &quot;1990s Computing Power&quot; comment is ignorantly harsh. The MAX (to the best of my knowledge) uses a similar AMD29050-based architecture as the 777 (where it was pioneered) and the 737-800&#x2F;900. It&#x27;s amply fast and very very reliable, hardware and software (setting MCAS aside which is new to MAX).<p>Any sane person would prefer the solid well-proven choice over the bleeding edge. People used to make similar comments about the AGC and the Space Shuttle GPCs e.g. that such-and-such-a-PC-was-faster. Yeah, so what?

Kind of unfair. Do they really think that an aircraft should be powered by the same software or hardware that powers a modern computer or smartphone? An aircraft needs incredible reliability. You don’t get that with modern software&#x2F;hardware architectures.

Mass media in general is stressing too much the fact that 737 MAX is allegedly based on dated designs.<p>I think it&#x27;s fair to say that MAX versions present some compromise solutions (like the now-infamous MCAS, which is there to compensate for the &quot;unnatural&quot; bigger engines). But I think that is not the main point. They would be good solutions it they worked as intended.<p>There are some other more fundamental and more daunting, afaik unanswered questions.<p>Like, why does such a critical system like MCAS take only a single AoA sensor as input, when there are two sensors available? Specially considering that the inputs from both are hardware-available to MCAS (the new software version is going to take data from both).<p>Boeing affirmed in its manuals that the elevators would be able to compensate for the trimmed vertical stabilizers. Now the preliminary report in the Ethiopian&#x27;s crash shows that the pilots wheren&#x27;t able to perform such compensation, even by pulling the control columns all the way back.<p>Those and some other issues are much more critical.

Hm. I hesitate to defend Boeing here, but I think the outset of this article is a bit unfair.<p>&gt; Pilots start some new Boeing planes by turning a knob and flipping two switches.<p>&gt; The Boeing 737 Max, the newest passenger jet on the market, works differently. Pilots follow roughly the same seven steps used on the first 737 nearly 52 years ago: Shut off the cabin’s air-conditioning, redirect the air flow, switch on the engine, start the flow of fuel, revert the air flow, turn back on the air conditioning, and turn on a generator.<p>So? What does this have to do with anything? Is the goal to produce an airplane where pilots press a button &quot;fly to destination&quot;, and the plane does it?<p>&gt; The strategy, to keep updating the plane rather than starting from scratch, offered competitive advantages. Pilots were comfortable flying it, while airlines didn’t have to invest in costly new training for their pilots and mechanics. For Boeing, it was also faster and cheaper to redesign and recertify than starting anew.<p>&gt; But the strategy has now left the company in crisis, following two deadly crashes in less than five months.<p>How was it the strategy to keep updating the plane that left to this crisis? The strategy itself is not to blame here, and I very much like the idea to gradually improve a proven model. It was a <i>bad execution</i> of this strategy that left the company in crisis.<p>In Germany, the national train agency Deutsche Bahn (and its predecessors) basically had a policy for nearly a century to order rolling stock that was designed to be produced for around 40 years. During this production run, the model was gradually improved. Some of the rolling stock designed in the 50ies is still in use, and quite reliable at that [0]. During the 90ies, agency and industry switched to a policy where basically every train generation was newly developed from scratch (for example, the ICE high speed trains). Guess what - you can channel <i>a lot</i> of public money into private hands that way, but bleeding edge technology is not what you want or need when you are trying to build a reliable transportation system.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;N-Wagen" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;N-Wagen</a>

When it comes to flight computers it makes sense to be conservative when it comes to computing power - the goal should be simple, proven, and functional. But when it comes to diagnostics why not use more computing power? As the article states <i>A second electronic system found on other Boeing jets also alerts pilots to unusual or hazardous situations during flight and lays out recommended steps to resolve them.</i> Seems better than flipping through a paper manual when you&#x27;ve only a minute or two to save the plane.

The thing that baffles me - why the hell has there never been any innovation in the form of making it easier to diagnose a problem and move through the necessary steps in a checklist beyond fumbling through a paper manual? In a situation where seconds count, it seems illogical that this has never been improved upon. Didn’t at least one of these planes crash because the pilots are believed to have only gotten X number of steps through a list of possible reasons?

Does anyone else here feel aeroplane software should be mandated as being open source? Boeing would have never even dreamed of releasing the 737-Max software in the state it was in and the more eyes you have on things like this the better.

The entire management chain that dictated these design compromises should be surgically removed from Boeing and prosecuted for negligence.<p>Of course, that will never happen.

&gt;In the recent crashes, investigators believe the MCAS malfunctioned and moved a tail flap called the stabilizer,<p>Fact checking at the NYT seems to be dead. The MCAS moves the entire stabilizer -- which is not a &quot;flap&quot; in any sense. Can they not find a pilot or some other knowledgeable person to read through an article like this before publishing it?

I&#x27;d rather take a well tested i386 than a new processor that crashes Linux with microcode errors.<p>Paper manuals actually instill confidence. Should pilots contact Stackoverflow in an emergency?

I guess pilot retraining will always be time consuming, but can anything be done about recertification so that new designs don&#x27;t face this issue?

I&#x27;m sure this conversation will be looked at during discovery in any future lawsuits:<p>&gt; <i>Boeing also designed the system to rely on a single sensor — a rarity in aviation, where redundancy is common. Several former Boeing engineers who were not directly involved in the system’s design said their colleagues most likely opted for such an approach since relying on two sensors could still create issues. If one of two sensors malfunctioned, the system could struggle to know which was right.</i><p>&gt; <i>Airbus addressed this potential problem on some of its planes by installing three or more such sensors. Former Max engineers, including one who worked on the sensors, said adding a third sensor to the Max was a nonstarter. Previous 737s, they said, had used two and managers wanted to limit changes.</i>

Three angle of attack sensors should have never been something that could be overridden by cost savings measures. The engineers wanted three sensors and the management said no without ensuring all planes sold had sufficient mitigating controls. We need justice.

&gt;&gt; “They wanted to A, save money and B, to minimize the certification and flight-test costs&quot;<p>This seems to be the root cause of the problem. Competition is not always good.

Except rumors from media there is no clear explanation about what is going on inside Boeing. I just hope Boeing management is not the old Microsoft management.

While i386 may be enough to run a plane, what other software or hardware of the same age is still in use?

The Windows XP of passenger jets.