5 ms·

The old turn it off and on again...

dtgriscom 4y ago
I learned programming in the late '70s on a Wang 2200T. The manual had a procedure it would recommend called "Master Initialization." Yes: turning the power off and on.
dylan604 4y ago
mid-flight though?
- stonemetal12 4y ago
  How many flights last for 51 days?
  - dylan604 4y ago
    If you take off on day 50 23 hours type of thing is more of what I was getting at. It's very easy to just hit skip when presented dialogs like "3 more days to reset password" or "3 more days until scheduled reboot". As long as it doesn't end during your flight, why not push it for someone else? Otherwise, you just make it part of every flight's routine to reboot.
    - bioemerl 4y ago
      > It's very easy to just hit skip when presented dialogs like "3 more days to reset password" or "3 more days until scheduled reboot" This simply does not and cannot happen to an airline. If it does people will be fired and processes revised.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        oh boy, you sound like someone that is big into the brochures. with the current state of Boeing, nothing would surprise me, and there's very little i would accept at face value from them.
        bioemerl 4y ago
        I think this is one of the areas that airlines are super good at. Every single plane needs strict regular maintenance and tons of checklists in order to take off, so something like a 50-day requirement for a reboot would be in that list of items, and if the people aren't following those lists of items you're going to have things like turbine failures, so they get done. Maybe if there's a really badly run airline it might be a problem, but there are much more severe problems than software in a case like that. Boeing gets away with this software issue because it's not really a big issue. The scary point the media can tell you because you don't have context to understand why it's mundane.
        dylan604 4y ago
        >Boeing gets away with this software issue because it's not really a big issue. The scary point the media can tell you because you don't have context to understand why it's mundane. Yes, like the mundane software overriding pilot's intent from software written specifically to not retrain pilots on the system? Yup, sounds mundane to me. When I said I don't trust anything from Boeing, it had little to do with this 50 day reboot, but much more in line with the Boeing is allowed to self certify and has been shown to not do that in a good way. They have ruined that trust because of greed. You might think that's a broad brush? At this point, every little bit is just another instance of death from a thousand cuts.
        warmwaffles 4y ago
        Wrong, planes are powered down often.
- mywittyname 4y ago
  I would hope aircraft have some sort of "glider mode" that allows them time to reboot critical systems in an emergency.
  - anaganisk 4y ago
    Airplane always want to fly, give them enough speed, they will take off on their own. Thats why you have bumpy landings sometimes because pilots didn’t slow down/flare properly to slowdown the aircraft instead forced it to ground. With enough wind some general aviation aircraft are capable of takeoff/land vertically like a chopper.
  - pc86 4y ago
    They do, it's called "being an airplane."
- warmwaffles 4y ago
  Usually these aircraft are power cycled often. There is no way they are flying these planes 51 days straight with no power cycle. Maintenance checks would necessitate a restart.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  I’m pretty sure most of the computers can be reset during flight. You may lose flight protections, but you can fly an airplane on basic instruments. You can even handle unreliable speed by flying at a specific angle of attack and a proper thrust setting. (According to the Air France 447 report) On some (all?) Airbus planes, the basic flight controls don’t require the flight computers to function.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    >On some (all?) Airbus planes, the basic flight controls don’t require the flight computers to function. I would honestly hope that would be true about any airplane from any manufacture. Fly-by-wire makes some of that more difficult when the wires go through the computer, but even then I'd have assumed some sort of 100% manual capability. Like when Y2K nutters were predicting airplanes falling out of the sky because of 2-digit years rather than the logical the planes would behave according to laws of physics for an intact air frame.
    - kayodelycaon 4y ago
      It looks like the mechanical backup for modern Airbus planes is stabilizer trim and hydraulic rudder. https://skybrary.aero/articles/flight-control-laws https://skybrary.aero/articles/flight-control-laws
- trasz 4y ago
  No idea about 787, but usually there’s a bunch of fuses in the cockpit (eg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/fuse-panel-airliner-18627188.jpg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/fuse-panel-airliner-18627188...), and they are made easily accessible for a reason.

I learned programming in the late '70s on a Wang 2200T. The manual had a procedure it would recommend called "Master Initialization." Yes: turning the power off and on.

dylan604 4y ago

mid-flight though?

stonemetal12 4y ago
How many flights last for 51 days?
- dylan604 4y ago
  If you take off on day 50 23 hours type of thing is more of what I was getting at. It's very easy to just hit skip when presented dialogs like "3 more days to reset password" or "3 more days until scheduled reboot". As long as it doesn't end during your flight, why not push it for someone else? Otherwise, you just make it part of every flight's routine to reboot.
  - bioemerl 4y ago
    > It's very easy to just hit skip when presented dialogs like "3 more days to reset password" or "3 more days until scheduled reboot" This simply does not and cannot happen to an airline. If it does people will be fired and processes revised.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      oh boy, you sound like someone that is big into the brochures. with the current state of Boeing, nothing would surprise me, and there's very little i would accept at face value from them.
      - bioemerl 4y ago
        I think this is one of the areas that airlines are super good at. Every single plane needs strict regular maintenance and tons of checklists in order to take off, so something like a 50-day requirement for a reboot would be in that list of items, and if the people aren't following those lists of items you're going to have things like turbine failures, so they get done. Maybe if there's a really badly run airline it might be a problem, but there are much more severe problems than software in a case like that. Boeing gets away with this software issue because it's not really a big issue. The scary point the media can tell you because you don't have context to understand why it's mundane.
        dylan604 4y ago
        >Boeing gets away with this software issue because it's not really a big issue. The scary point the media can tell you because you don't have context to understand why it's mundane. Yes, like the mundane software overriding pilot's intent from software written specifically to not retrain pilots on the system? Yup, sounds mundane to me. When I said I don't trust anything from Boeing, it had little to do with this 50 day reboot, but much more in line with the Boeing is allowed to self certify and has been shown to not do that in a good way. They have ruined that trust because of greed. You might think that's a broad brush? At this point, every little bit is just another instance of death from a thousand cuts.
      - warmwaffles 4y ago
        Wrong, planes are powered down often.
mywittyname 4y ago
I would hope aircraft have some sort of "glider mode" that allows them time to reboot critical systems in an emergency.
- anaganisk 4y ago
  Airplane always want to fly, give them enough speed, they will take off on their own. Thats why you have bumpy landings sometimes because pilots didn’t slow down/flare properly to slowdown the aircraft instead forced it to ground. With enough wind some general aviation aircraft are capable of takeoff/land vertically like a chopper.
- pc86 4y ago
  They do, it's called "being an airplane."
warmwaffles 4y ago
Usually these aircraft are power cycled often. There is no way they are flying these planes 51 days straight with no power cycle. Maintenance checks would necessitate a restart.
kayodelycaon 4y ago
I’m pretty sure most of the computers can be reset during flight. You may lose flight protections, but you can fly an airplane on basic instruments. You can even handle unreliable speed by flying at a specific angle of attack and a proper thrust setting. (According to the Air France 447 report) On some (all?) Airbus planes, the basic flight controls don’t require the flight computers to function.
- dylan604 4y ago
  >On some (all?) Airbus planes, the basic flight controls don’t require the flight computers to function. I would honestly hope that would be true about any airplane from any manufacture. Fly-by-wire makes some of that more difficult when the wires go through the computer, but even then I'd have assumed some sort of 100% manual capability. Like when Y2K nutters were predicting airplanes falling out of the sky because of 2-digit years rather than the logical the planes would behave according to laws of physics for an intact air frame.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    It looks like the mechanical backup for modern Airbus planes is stabilizer trim and hydraulic rudder. https://skybrary.aero/articles/flight-control-laws https://skybrary.aero/articles/flight-control-laws
trasz 4y ago
No idea about 787, but usually there’s a bunch of fuses in the cockpit (eg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/fuse-panel-airliner-18627188.jpg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/fuse-panel-airliner-18627188...), and they are made easily accessible for a reason.