Originally Posted by
fergusd
What surprises me is that they don't have a full simulator, which simulates the aircraft to the control system (not the same as the simulator the fly-boys sit in and play). In this day and age it is criminally inept not to do so. 30 years ago we fully simulated trains to the train control systems to ensure that when the control system hit the tracks in a train it worked, including everythng from signalling systems to wheel slip on wet rails, same goes on today in the automotive industry, down to the simulation of the chassis/road/surface/tyre, etc, etc. I have never delivered a control system capable of killing people which was not substantially tested on a full capability simulator whch could inject any fault or situation possible to the software to ensure it dealt with it, however impossible to believe.
A commercial aircraft is not any more complex than a modern fly by wire train . . . probably not even an order of magnitude more complex than a modern car . . .
Surely . . Boeing don't do this on a real plane . . . like people used to do in the stone age . . .
Edited to add : testing as described is only a small part of the testing required, factor the cost of testing being >2-4x the cost of writing the software in the first place . . . and that is conservative . . . which answers the java programmers question of why it's taken so long to get round to testing it on an aircraft . . .