Cost of Cockpit Instruments

On Sep 19, 9:14 pm, "Morgans" wrote:
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in ...

Morgans wrote:

How about overhead to make all of this stuff, for a market of perhaps
2% of your Dells. Same with the designing of the software.

2%, surly you jest. Try 0.02%

chuckle Yep, that is probably more like it.

It's a catch 22. Market would probably increase dramatically if, say,
prices for electronics were cut in half. But as someone else pointed
out, it would have to be an industry-wide change in attitude, not a
little tweak here and there. Manufacturers would have to take it on
faith, for example, that if they were to make a reasonably-priced USB-
based OEM altimeter unit, it would find its place in an overall
system.

Those building experimental aircraft could lead the way by building an
entire system based on commodity components, as many as possible, and
maintaining a record of costs, etc. The resulting system would likely
not be something for mass market, but it would be a start.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

Morgans wrote:
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrote

Now here's the kicker. Just because that certified engine and prop
were mounted and flown in an experimental they can never be
considered certified again.

That is not consistant with what I have read.

If you keep the original data plate on the engine, and do all repair
work and follow all of the directives for the engine, and the work is
done by an A&P, then what you mount it in is not important. When you
take it out, if all work (engine maintenance and rebuilds) as been
done up to FAA standards by or supervised by an A&P, you can indeed
put the engine back into a certified plane. AS far as the prop goes,
I am not up with the requirements on them, but I "believe" the same
standards apply for it.

The problem arises that if ANY alterations or work has been done to the
engine not by an A&P or supervised by one the certification is in doubt. In
the real world once it is in an experimental you'd be hard pressed to get
anyone to believe that it is still a certified engine.

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

It's a catch 22. Market would probably increase dramatically if, say,
prices for electronics were cut in half. But as someone else pointed
out, it would have to be an industry-wide change in attitude, not a
little tweak here and there. Manufacturers would have to take it on
faith, for example, that if they were to make a reasonably-priced USB-
based OEM altimeter unit, it would find its place in an overall
system.



Apple sold 1.8 million Macs in the first quarter of 2007. There are only
245,000 aircraft registered in the US. So if an item were sold and installed
in every single aircraft registered in the US you would still be shy by 1.55
milion as compared to the freaking Mac.

You really need to understand how small the market really is.


Those building experimental aircraft could lead the way by building an
entire system based on commodity components, as many as possible, and
maintaining a record of costs, etc. The resulting system would likely
not be something for mass market, but it would be a start.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

We could but we also like the safety of having things we are pretty damn
sure are going to work in flight. Most of us use AN bolts and aviation grade
parts for just that reason. I could save a ton by going to Home Depot and
buying bolds there. But I'm not going to.

On Sep 19, 5:18 pm, Bob Noel
wrote:
In article .com,
Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
Note that it comes with 17inch, LCD color monitor, $160GB hard drive,
"in-flight movie viewing system" (DVD drive and Windows Media
Player). I would want two of these machines in my airplane, so let's
say cost is $1058.

problem: the hard drive won't survive high altitude flying. Do you want
your computer to die just because you fly at 13000'?


It's true...I didn't bother to check the specs on typical hard disks.
I remember checking back in 1995, and it was over 5,000 feet.

I'd probably go with hard disks made to run at that altitude, or if
those turned out to be too expensive, a solid-state drive. Memory
available would drop dramatically though, to only a few GB. I have an
8GB model that I bought for $14, so the price is not too bad.

There would also be the cost trade-off for pressurization.

Even with hard-disk limitation, my gut feel is that the commoditized
approach would still come out cheaper. But again, this depends on
taking a wholistic approach, where most of the components are selected
from the outside with a commodity-mindset.

I _do_ agree that a company attempting to make a profit by selling,
say only USB-based altimiter sensors would have a hard time making a
profit.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
news:ihatessppaamm-

And do you have any concept of what it would take to put a commodity
OS like windows into a safety-critical application?

I toured a Navy cruiser within the last several years that had Windows
running at various stations around the bridge.

*cringe*

-c

Gatt wrote:
I toured a Navy cruiser within the last several years that had Windows
running at various stations around the bridge.

Jeez. "Blue screen of Death" takes on new meaning.

--
Message posted via AviationKB.com
http://www.aviationkb.com/Uwe/Forums...ation/200709/1

On Sep 21, 3:27 pm, "Kloudy via AviationKB.com" u33403@uwe wrote:
Gatt wrote:
I toured a Navy cruiser within the last several years that had Windows
running at various stations around the bridge.

Jeez. "Blue screen of Death" takes on new meaning.

--
Message posted via AviationKB.comhttp://www.aviationkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/aviation/200709/1

Yes, just ask the Iranian A-320 passengers...

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
So a different approach might be to stop making finished systems and
instead focus on components. Manufacturers would make controls in
sensors in wide variety, all conforming to USB standard. A (cheap)
commodity PC would be able to control everything. And (licensed)
software developers could do their part.

Since when are software people licensed? Who does the licensing?
What are the exams? What is the followup to maintain it?

I just came back from a business trip and found my WinXP box dead.
As with every trip, I had shut everything down, disconnected the
power from the wall (actually, the UPS but that's another story).
Got home, reconnected everything, hit the power switch. Nothing.
Dead. I've already spent a couple hours diagnosing with no luck.

I can see your scenario of a cheap, COTS PC running the systems in my
cherokee crashing on my at night in IMC. Sure. Right. And my lawyers
will be in touch with your lawyers.

Do I like paying $675 for a new AI? Nope. Or $3400 for a new NAV/COM?
Or $6000 + installation for a 430? Nope. But in spite of what we think
of the FAA bureaucracy, the engineering and related groups really are
quality-driven. When I get a TC/STC/TSO/Certified item, I have a warm,
fuzzy feeling that it will do what it's supposed to do, have a reasonable
MTBF, and that under day-to-day circumstances, I won't have any
surprises.

At no time in my professional career (very large software systems in
aerospace) have I *EVER* had that feeling
with a COTS software or hardware system in a mission-critical environment.

On Sep 22, 1:15 pm, (Blanche Cohen) wrote:
Since when are software people licensed?

The products would have to be licensed.

Who does the licensing?

Same agency that approves products containing software in say, Boeing
777.

What are the exams? What is the followup to maintain it?

Oh, I see what you mean. The products would be certified, not just
the people who make them.

I just came back from a business trip and found my WinXP box dead.
As with every trip, I had shut everything down, disconnected the
power from the wall (actually, the UPS but that's another story).
Got home, reconnected everything, hit the power switch. Nothing.
Dead. I've already spent a couple hours diagnosing with no luck.

Hmm...should be something simple if it's not coming on. I'd pop the
case and take a look. Cheap voltmeter set to 15v DC will allow you
to check voltages at various points on board. I'd start with output of
powers supply.

I can see your scenario of a cheap, COTS PC running the systems in my
cherokee crashing on my at night in IMC. Sure. Right. And my lawyers
will be in touch with your lawyers.

Do I like paying $675 for a new AI? Nope. Or $3400 for a new NAV/COM?
Or $6000 + installation for a 430? Nope. But in spite of what we think
of the FAA bureaucracy, the engineering and related groups really are
quality-driven. When I get a TC/STC/TSO/Certified item, I have a warm,
fuzzy feeling that it will do what it's supposed to do, have a reasonable
MTBF, and that under day-to-day circumstances, I won't have any
surprises.

At no time in my professional career (very large software systems in
aerospace) have I *EVER* had that feeling
with a COTS software or hardware system in a mission-critical environment.

I can at least sympathize with the reservations that you and others
have about using COTS components (thanks, that's term I was looking
for). However, I once went to the dentist to get XRAY's by fancy new
machine that moves in an arc around entire face, and it malfunctioned
and started to crush my skull until dentist ran in and stopped it.
There is also that minor matter of Space Shuttles blowing up every few
years, despite being undergoing what is arguably one of the most
rigorous certification processes around.

The point is that I that think that the "beware the danger of COTS"
attitude is too extreme for the actual risk involved. There is always
some risk.

I ride my motorcycle 150 m.p.h. during Sunday rides, and each time I
mount, I know that an engineer at Dunlop might not have done his job,
so I say a little prayer.... Even though full blowouts are rare, it
could happen, and if it's the front wheel, in a turn, I'm almost
guaranteed a quick death. Some unfortunate riders have already
experienced this fate. Does that stop me from riding? No, because I
looked at the statistics. I look at the likelihood that I will die
from a poorly engineered part, and it's so low relative to other bad
things that can happen to me that I take the risk. So do many other
people.

So I think the same thing could happen in aviation. There is a trade-
off between pain and pleasure of assumption. There is probably a
point where the cost would be so low from using (well-engineered) COTS
components that the risk of using them is superseded by the value that
they would bring.

This is true for non-critical components in an aircraft, and might be
true for many critical components.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

"Blanche Cohen" wrote

I just came back from a business trip and found my WinXP box dead.
As with every trip, I had shut everything down, disconnected the
power from the wall (actually, the UPS but that's another story).
Got home, reconnected everything, hit the power switch. Nothing.
Dead. I've already spent a couple hours diagnosing with no luck.

Check your onboard bios (or is it cmos) battery. The little
watch/calculator sized flat battery.

If you do this often (unplug it) and it is more than a couple years old, it
may have forgotten that it is _not_ a coffee maker.
--
Jim in NC