Why Not Use PC To Make Glass Cockpit?

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-


Because avionics have standards. PCs don't. A good PC is one that crashes
every month or so. On an airplane, that will get you killed.

The software industry, for which I work, is in a tragic state at the moment.
We are very much like the building trades in the early 1800's. If buildings
fell down on occasion, well, thats too bad. %98 of buildings stayed up,
and the 100 or so people who were killed on occasion were expendable
anyways.

Like the building trades, this will change, as at some point users become
intolerant of %98 "working" software. The software business has become
quality control unconcious, and has been progressively shipping jobs
offshore where software goes from mostly to completely unverifyable.

Now we have everything from cable modems to DVD players that lock up,
with customer service reps who must tell you, with a straight face,
that the answer is to unplug the unit, wait, then plug it back in.

As a software author, I am embarrased by the state of our industry. I do
carry a tablet with Jeppesen flight software on it, and yes, I have
seen it crash. I also have a Garmin 430 in panel. There is no way,
no how I would trust my airplane and life to any way, shape or form
of the unmitigated disaster of quality control that the PC industry has
become.