no need to reinvent the wheel..
personally think, that pitots as they are , are good enough, or let's better say, should be good enough..
it worries me a bit that we do find in today's highly sophisticated airplanes pitot / statics sensors, maybe also TAT probes that may not conform to specs..
what I do not find ideal is that such a vital system component, considering that a lot of the airplane's flight control system and pilot interface depends on correct pitot / static / tat probe data, that, first, the most modern designs seem at times to be defect by design ( i mean that technology has been out there for a long time, what happened in the engineering departments of the suppliers and OEMs??,) and second, it may not be ideal that OEMs use more than one supplier and obviously design for such an important subsystem..
seems on the A330 for instance, and I am not fluent on that aircraft, so please correct me if I'm wrong, there are two suppliers of those probes. Only one of the suppliers probes obviously may have a problem at times, that's why upgrades are available,...
So while its fine if an airline can chose powerplants, if I were an aircraft OEM, I would limit myself to one supplier and one model of such probes.
Why?, simply stated, I would like my statistical sample rate as big as possible, to find out rather sooner than later if there may be a glitch..
I mean considering how far reaching the consequences are to my flight control system, if that basic probe goes south ( by design..ice, humidity whatever, you name it)..
and, OK, in hindsight, it surprises me a bit, that the upgrades had not been implemented by a "mandatory" SB, reviewing the history of actual and possible malfunctions..and considering what it does to the flight control system, and what difficulties a crew may face by being forced to fly a plane in alternate law in the flight levels....( probably already highly demanding in smooth air, but may be near to impossible in weather conditiions which actually may "fail" those probes..)
So from a total system integrity point of view, that may not be OK..
any opinions on that??