Computers in aviation

[YakYak]

Hi there folkes

I'm an undergraduate student curently researching a project entitled: "Computers in Aviation" for a 45 minute presentation.

I'm having difficulty finding online resources (or any resources at all) on this topic. Does anybody have any ideas on where I can find infomration about this topic. The presentation is aimed at non-pilots and non-engineers so does not have to be particularly technical - it just needs to be a broad overview of the concept of computers in aviation and the repercussions to society.

Any help (at all) would be much appreciated.

Regards

Yakkers :O

[ICT_SLB]

Any modern aircraft seems to be a collection of computers flying in formation - the latest designs have so few normal switches that it makes the BMW I-drive simplicity itself! Try these links for Honeywell & Rockwell-Collins:

www.honeywell.com/en/aerospace/index.jsp

www.rockwellcollins.com

Plus try typing "computers" into the FAA's search engine.

Hope this helps.

[safetypee]

http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publications/Incidents/
http://flightdeck.ie.orst.edu/FDAI/issues.html

[northwing]

The biggest issue is whether you need to rely on the output of a particular computer. If it is flight safety critical you have a monster problem because you have to prove that it will not let you down more often than once in every ten milion flying hours, which is a hell of a long time. It can be done, more or less, but you have to design the computer and it's software from the outset with this in mind and then have all sorts of independent analysis of the software done. (Even then you can never really be sure about the software.) This has been done recently on the Flight Management System software on a 4-engined transport aircraft of my acquaintance. Just the independent assessment cost £1.5 M and that only gave the S/W a cleanish bill of health. (They found all sorts of dead code in there, including the S/W writer's CV.)