FADEC = complex

Greg Farris wrote:
I am not aware of accidents cause by software failure of Fadecs - perhaps
there have been - but these are certainly rare compared with mechanical
failures of linkages.

Bell Helicopter(s):

http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/letters/2004/A04_68_69.pdf

Osprey:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2...200104093.html

Chinook Helicopters:

Unknown if its FADEC caused actual accidents, but is a suspect.
Uncommanded engine excursions, and false failure indications in early
software revisions.

Airbus:

The most famous of all, the Airbus "low pass" at the French air show,
when the FADEC throttles refused to power up (thinking the plane was
landing) and the plane settled into the trees. Not a bug per se, but
certainly poor software planning and it resulted in changes in fly by
wire thinking.

So in general, yes the failures resulting in deaths seem to be rare.
Failures that result in pilots needing a new set of underwear are a
little less rare. IFSD (In Flight Shut Downs) happen. In one case,
the ECC software kept flopping between power supplies and shut down the
engine. The software was fixed.

There are not enough small plane FADECs out there yet to judge for GA.
Hopefully the software is better tested than, for example, the G1000
that almost messed up NW_Pilot's recent Atlantic crossing!

Kev

Kev,

The most famous of all, the Airbus "low pass" at the French air show,
when the FADEC throttles refused to power up (thinking the plane was
landing)


Oh? Please quote the passage from the accident report that says this.
I'd be really interested. All I know is the passage where it losely
says: The pilot actively and consciously set up the system to
circumvent all the safeguards built into it to make the plane do the
stupid unapproved show-off-maneuver (sp?) instead of preventing an
accident like this as it was designed to. And after doing that, WTF did
he expect?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

In article om,
says...


The most famous of all, the Airbus "low pass" at the French air show,
when the FADEC throttles refused to power up (thinking the plane was
landing) and the plane settled into the trees.


It is anything but demonstrated that the aircraft systems did anything
unexpected in this accident. The pilot tried to make this claim at the
outset, but ended up being saddled with responsibility for his show-off
manoeuver. The official result of the investigation is that it was the
pilot's fault, and the aircraft has been exonerated of any failure.



Not a bug per se, but
certainly poor software planning and it resulted in changes in fly by
wire thinking.

Much more to change thinking on matters of pilot training. the claim of "poor
software planning" is unsubstantiated.




So in general, yes the failures resulting in deaths seem to be rare.

Yeah, really.

Greg Farris writes:

It is anything but demonstrated that the aircraft systems did anything
unexpected in this accident. The pilot tried to make this claim at the
outset, but ended up being saddled with responsibility for his show-off
manoeuver. The official result of the investigation is that it was the
pilot's fault, and the aircraft has been exonerated of any failure.

I'd be wary of any "official" evaluation of this accident, given that
the flight recorders were tampered with.

Much more to change thinking on matters of pilot training. the claim of "poor
software planning" is unsubstantiated.

It was a combination of both. Airbus had already issued engineering
bulletins on anomalous FADEC behavior in the aircraft.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Greg Farris wrote:
In article om,
says...
The most famous of all, the Airbus "low pass" at the French air show,
when the FADEC throttles refused to power up (thinking the plane was
landing) and the plane settled into the trees.

It is anything but demonstrated that the aircraft systems did anything
unexpected in this accident. The pilot tried to make this claim at the
outset, but ended up being saddled with responsibility for his show-off
manoeuver. The official result of the investigation is that it was the
pilot's fault, and the aircraft has been exonerated of any failure.

LOL. If you believe official investigations all the time, then I've
got a bridge for you. Of course the pilot was blamed. But they
changed the software afterwards, and Airbus officials had this to say:
"Until the crash, there was a genuine psychology around Airbus that it
had designed a crash-proof airplane because of the hard protections.
The repercussions from that accident continue to reverberate,"

Not a bug per se, but certainly poor software planning and it resulted in
changes in fly by wire thinking.

Much more to change thinking on matters of pilot training. the claim of "poor
software planning" is unsubstantiated.

Hardly wry grin. The pilot did what he was told to do, but had two
hits against him. First, he was told to fly by at 100'. He did so,
not knowing that Airbus had a bug in the Atlimeter software, and he was
really at 30'. This screwed him, since he also didn't know that
Airbus had issued an bulletin the month before the crash, stating that
the engines sometimes didn't respond to throttles at low altitudes.
The pilots had not gotten the notice yet. The engine software was
modified after the crash.

Kev

Kev,

If you believe official investigations all the time,


Oh yeah, conspiracy theories are so much better.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Oh yeah, conspiracy theories are so much better.

Are you always such a snotty child?

I worked in Intelligence and for NSA. I have always said, "Never look
for a conspiracy when it can be explained by sheer stupidity or
bureacracy."

But in this case, it's obvious that France was not about to let Airbus
get blamed. Not much different from blaming the co-pilot for ripping
off that Airbus rudder.

Kev

In article . com,
says...



Thomas Borchert wrote:
Oh yeah, conspiracy theories are so much better.

Are you always such a snotty child?

I worked in Intelligence and for NSA.



This gets better and better!:
Was that in the "embedded" period - or still rebuilding car engines?

"Greg Farris" wrote in message
...
In article . com,
says...



Thomas Borchert wrote:
Oh yeah, conspiracy theories are so much better.

Are you always such a snotty child?

I worked in Intelligence and for NSA.



This gets better and better!:
Was that in the "embedded" period - or still rebuilding car engines?

Was that an NSA simulator?

Greg Farris wrote:
In article . com,
says...

I worked in Intelligence and for NSA.

This gets better and better!:
Was that in the "embedded" period - or still rebuilding car engines?

*laughing* Yeah, it's interesting isn't it? There's not much I
haven't done in 50+ years. I used to say that I"ve been a tinker,
tailor, soldier, spy. All are true. I worked as a mechanic and body
repairer/painter. I've faced down a white tiger alone in the Korean
DMZ, got shot at, rewrote tactical Intelligence gathering procedures,
and worked with the most secret NSA equipment. I was promoted for
making a secret project succeed that stopped the Soviets in a certain
region. My first computer, I designed and handbuilt in 1979 from chips
and wires. It had 4K and I wrote 3D rotation and voice analysis
programs on it in assembly language. I was a sysop on CompuServe back
in the early days when it cost $1,000 a month to support 16kbps
uploads. Later I wrote a book on an embedded operating system that's
used in satellites and military apps, and gave seminars that were
infamous for their attendance. I've written many types of realtime
drivers and applications. I designed and programmed electronic casino
equipment that many of you probably have wasted money on. I was head
of one of the first labs designing settop boxes. For the past 13
years, I've had a quarter mill yearly income as one of the top embedded
systems designers. Many of the friends I grew up with are high
officials and state attorneys in NC. I've also watched the Exorcist
about 150 times and it just gets funnier each time I see it! (oops,
sorry, that was Betelguese ;-)

Last Christmas I was diagnosed with a vicious cancer and given four
months to live. Much chemo, rad and a rather brutal operation that
removed my esophagus later, I'm still around.

In any case, yes sir, I have a little experience here and there, and I
really don't like people who attack others.

Kev