It is laughable that in 2014 we cant get a FI engine to start at a turn of a key !!!
Basicall I am 100% with you on this one, I found out that apparently there was a long lasting dislike of any kind of electronics when designing an aircraft. To me it feels as if the engineers, while designing, constantly had been pestered by the sales guys with questions/requests like this
"and it will not rely on the battery when airborne?",
"naa, do it pnematically, no electrics please",
"jeeez, the ignition advance must be mechanical, if at all necessary"
"does the oil pressure gauge have to be an eletric instument?"
"we'd want the attitude indicator to be suction powered"
....
Now if your BMW or any car had the dramas that we put up with in aviation
*cough* a very bad example
:
Head of IT of one of my customers drives a 320i, nicely upgrading the model every 4-5 years. He told me the story when once the engine simply died while passing, in fast lane, as if switching off the ignition. Wont start up anymore. He had it carried to the BMW mech. "Well known effect, we can fix that, we'll dump your bricked EFI controller and you get a fresh one, costs just 1500 bucks".
University collague of mine (eletronics, redundancy, automotive bus systems) claimed manufacturers see electronification mostly as cost saving feature. They do not like to over engineer their stuff to make it "russian style" bullet prove.
And IIRC the german triple-A (ADAC) once reported, that the majority of car breakdown service calls (ignoring running out of fuel
) nowadays, are electronics related.
So both things seem to hint that there HAD BEEN good reasons to stay clear of computerized systems for vital function that are not engineered with military reserves built in.
But personally I'm happy to see FADECs pop up everywhere. Honeywell has shown how far TBOs can be expanded on an individual case by case basis if something monitors engine data in real time á la HUMS. I'd say counting cycles and hours will be a thing of the past, as will hard TOT limits. The engine monitoring computer will soon output "HSI in 12:51 h from now", and the gentle pilots will be rewarded by longer TBOs.
