411A Wrote:
What is the point? I suspect there isn't any.
Some folks in the IT industry seem to think that their particular expertise is applicable to FBW aircraft types.
These folks are truly....out to lunch, in more ways than one.
Most (ie: 99.999%) of people who say they have "IT experience" have only ever played with Windows computers or maybe done a bit of system admin. I suspect the person here has no idea about how safety critical systems work, are designed, are built etc.
The analogy with the car is misleading in a number of cases, firstly anyone can get into a car and drive it without understand how the various systems on board interact and work under various conditions. Studies in Finland have shown that driving with modern "safety" features such as ABS, ESP etc actually cause more problems for persons who are not trained in their use. How many people here have actually been to an ESP driving course? Answer: NONE.
Compared with aircraft where all pilots who fly the Airbus, Boeing etc are explicitly trained to use and understand those systems. As many posters here have pointed out, operating such aircraft under the given situations (ie: failure, degradation of functionality etc) is NOT a problem.
So, unless the original poster has worked with avionics systems at the level where he has a very deep understanding of the theory and practise safety critical systems then any comment is hearsay.
fc101
E145 driver
* some comments and notes above attributable to a friend who works with such systems (railway and avionics)