Monday, November 25, 2013

Picky software reduces dispatch reliability of 787 Dreamliners

The 787 has more powerful computers than anything flying, more sensors for temperature and pressure and such than ever before, and the software checks all the sensors and keeps issuing warnings to the crew when there is really nothing wrong.  But the crew has to do something when the computers are crying "Failure". Especially, when the computer issues an alarm before takeoff, the aircrew will call maintenance to check it out before they taxi out, leading to late departures.  Boeing claims a dispatch reliability of 97.5% which sounds pretty good, but it means that out of 100 departures, 2 or 3 will be delayed by computers crying wolf. 
   Any how Boeing is updating the software to make it less hypochondriac.   They want to get dispatch reliability up to 99.2%
   Dunno how we ever flew anywhere back in the '60s and '70s before microprocessors.

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