Why Not Use PC To Make Glass Cockpit?

wrote:
Are you ready to bet your life on Windows XP and some $200 disk drives made
in China and designed to operate in an office?


Actually yes. Of course, I would take into the account of
altitude/pressure/temp problems. As a matter of fact, I would be more
comfortable with commodity components than something that's customized,
unless the customization were very very trivial.

Regards,

-Chaud Lapin-

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
wrote:

Are you ready to bet your life on Windows XP and some $200 disk drives made
in China and designed to operate in an office?

Actually yes. Of course, I would take into the account of
altitude/pressure/temp problems. As a matter of fact, I would be more
comfortable with commodity components than something that's customized,
unless the customization were very very trivial.

If you do that, don't ever plug the machine into the Internet. Also
remove IE.

I take care of about 250 computers, and there's no way I'd bet my safety
on a desktop Windows installation. A customized/embedded/trimmed
version that runs off a ROM might be acceptable if it's been through a
*very* rigorous testing process -- but after you've seen the difference
in performance between a clean machine and a machine after it's been out
in the real world (even with Mozilla Firefox, AdAware, Spybot S&D, *and*
Symantec Corporate Anti-Virus 10 running on it), you won't want to trust
your @$$ to what most people think of as Windows either. A
trimmed/embedded/customized Linux would work too, although I think I'd
be most comfortable with a device running something like VxWorks[0].

As for the disk drives, I recommend a pair CompactFlash storage modules
wired up as IDE devices[1] set up in a RAID mirror setup. That way, the
system is more resistant to things that damage moving parts, and with
the RAID setup, it will continue to run if one of the CompactFlash
devices fails. Use three or four if you don't feel lucky. Of course,
you couldn't run desktop Windows on this because the swapfile would
quickly wear out the CompactFlash (they can only be written a finite
number of times[2]).

-Luke

[0] In one of my earlier jobs, my task was to make VxWorks run on a
single-board-VME Sun clone. I got to read some of the source code, and
it's some of the most carefully documented/commented and sanely designed
C code I've ever seen.

[1] CompactFlash is electrically similar enough to IDE that they can be
wired into an IDE bus without the need for a chip.

[2] I don't remember exactly what the number is -- I seem to remember
that a USB keydrive could take about 500k writes, but it wouldn't
surprise me if that has been extended to a couple of million. Also,
most Flash devices will remap data internally to avoid repeatedly
writing a particular block -- so that the device will last longer.

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
Standard disclaimer applies: I still have my copy of Flight Training
next to the porcelain throne. Ahem.

The Garmin (originally Apollo) MX-20 is a highly specialized PC.
It runs Windows NT 4.0. If you look carefully at the datacard
you'll find a stripped down verion of Windows there (and if you
look really carefully when it boots up you'll see the kernel
startup message appear (updside down at the bottom of the screen
in the current incarnation...older versions came right side up).

The MX20 has yet to blue screen or otherwise exhibit any software
related failure.

Not quite true. I've received the blue screen of death on an MX20. I
could not reboot after that. It required a software upgrade. Since that
time, Garmin AT has re-done their entire system, with new (3rd
iteration) display hardware and software. {I've had my display replaced
3 times now: I'm keeping my fingers crossed}

Discussions with Garmin AT engineers have led me to believe that
hardware-wise this ain't your mother's motherboard. For one thing, it
is (supposedly) able to withstand temperatures well over 100 F.

wrote:

Not quite true. I've received the blue screen of death on an MX20. I
could not reboot after that. It required a software upgrade. Since that
time, Garmin AT has re-done their entire system, with new (3rd
iteration) display hardware and software. {I've had my display replaced
3 times now: I'm keeping my fingers crossed}

Discussions with Garmin AT engineers have led me to believe that
hardware-wise this ain't your mother's motherboard. For one thing, it
is (supposedly) able to withstand temperatures well over 100 F.

The more I hear of this type stuff, including similar problems in "high
end" biz jets, it seems only Boeing and Airbus have really gotten it right
for advanced displays and nav systems.

wrote:
The more I hear of this type stuff, including similar problems in "high
end" biz jets, it seems only Boeing and Airbus have really gotten it right
for advanced displays and nav systems.

Hmmm... you have never seen the video of the Airbus A320 flying through
the trees prior to crashing at the Paris Airshow several years ago, have
you. So much for advanced electronic nav and display systems!

john smith wrote:

wrote:
The more I hear of this type stuff, including similar problems in "high
end" biz jets, it seems only Boeing and Airbus have really gotten it right
for advanced displays and nav systems.

Hmmm... you have never seen the video of the Airbus A320 flying through
the trees prior to crashing at the Paris Airshow several years ago, have
you. So much for advanced electronic nav and display systems!

That was an anomoly. But, in any case, that was a auto-flight/flight controls
design and operations issue. My previous comment, as you can see, was about
flight instrument displays and navigation systems.

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

Standard disclaimer applies: I still have my copy of Flight Training
next to the porcelain throne. Ahem.

However, as I flip the pages of this magazine, I cannot help but think
that companies like Garmin are getting off a bit easy.

Being a software developer, I am very suprised to discover that not
every aicraft costing over $30,000 has a full-featured glass cockpit.
Unless I am missing somethnig, it appears that everything that a pilot
needs can be made with very very cheap hardware.

A PC can be had for under $500 easily, the mother board for even less.
There are software programmable radios that can be made for under $100
that can tune into any frequency under 1GHz (in other words, if it's
there and not encrypted, you can get it). There are USB sensors of all
sorts (altitude, humidity, wind speed, etc.) And good software
engineers can write pretty much any piece of software that is required
so long as they receive guidance about what is supposed to do what,
with pictures of twirly things to on the display to keep the pilot from
getting bored.

So I am wondering, why isn't anyone doing this on a grander scale. Are
they?

-Chaud Lapin-

What do you believe is in the glass cockpit equipment? Yup. PCs.

Why would any company put out a pice of equipment for $500 when the
market will bear $10,000 ? They are not in business to do pilots a favor.

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
Being a software developer, I am very suprised to discover that not
every aicraft costing over $30,000 has a full-featured glass cockpit.
Unless I am missing somethnig, it appears that everything that a pilot
needs can be made with very very cheap hardware.

Already been done.
10-15 years ago Burt Rutan had one of his aircraft (Catbird?) completely
controlled by an Apple laptop computer with custom coded software.

On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 23:02:25 GMT, john smith wrote:

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
Being a software developer, I am very suprised to discover that not
every aicraft costing over $30,000 has a full-featured glass cockpit.
Unless I am missing somethnig, it appears that everything that a pilot
needs can be made with very very cheap hardware.

Already been done.
10-15 years ago Burt Rutan had one of his aircraft (Catbird?) completely
controlled by an Apple laptop computer with custom coded software.

His asymetric twin, Boomerang used a laptop for much of the
instrumentation.