8
Debate: Has avionics gotten too smart for its own good?
I grew up wrenching on late 90s Cessnas where a bad alternator meant swapping a regulator and moving on. Last week I spent 4 hours troubleshooting a Garmin G1000 just because a software update glitched the AHRS alignment. Are we gaining reliability or just trading mechanical gremlins for digital ones, and which side do you guys prefer working on?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
xena37318d ago
Respectfully I gotta disagree with @robertgreen on this one. Those truck infotainment systems are notoriously bad compared to modern aviation avionics that run certified software with real redundancy built in. When my G1000 took 4 minutes to align the other day it was because the magnetometer needed recalibrating from a lightning strike nearby, not some random bug like a car radio. You're comparing a consumer grade touchscreen that plays Spotify to a piece of equipment that has to pass DO-178C level C or better. I'd rather wait 10 minutes for a system that won't drop my navigation data mid flight than swap a mechanical gyro every 500 hours just to keep the attitude indicator from tumbling. The real problem is manufacturers pushing out updates to fix problems nobody asked for in the first place.
7
Yeah, its the same story with my truck's touchscreen radio taking ten minutes to boot up just to play FM.
3
christopher_sullivan28d ago
Gotta say though, ten minutes sounds real extreme. My work truck's screen takes maybe a minute or two, but ten feels like something's bugging out or the unit's just dying.
10