Retro Button Would Further Automation On the Boeing Max & Ev

[default]

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 15:41:20 -0700 (PDT), Bret Cahill
<bretcahill@aol.com> wrote:

Put a retro or "my kingdom for a horse" switch on anything that seems unnecessarily over automated or when the additional sophistication is of a minor advantage.

If anything doesn't seem perfect, tap the retro switch and you are back to flying by the seat of your pants or at least something that is less complicated / more proven technology.

It may seem counter intuitive but this would actually _further_ automation and sophistication by taking some of the pressure off the designers trying to get every unanticipated situation right the first time.

It may also reduce some of the concerns about AI.

It's astounding this isn't SOP in every design engineering dept.

Not sure of the hold up here. Has anyone heard of any active patents on retro buttons?

"The issue, which surfaced during FAA simulator testing, concerns the ability of pilots to quickly reassert control of the plane if an automated flight handling system pushes the plane downward, said a person familiar with the matter."

https://news.yahoo.com/us-faa-boeing-must-address-issue-737-max-052756185.html

Just put the retro button in and call it a day.


Bret Cahill

Yeah that's all pilots need. Half of them are barely able to keep up
with the technology they use and you'd add another button that would
change the whole configuration of how the plane behaves to control
inputs?

You are forgetting that the flawed system was an effort to correct a
very real problem with large engines mounted forward of their usual
location changing the characteristics and forcing a nose up stall. The
real criminal action was to put profit before safety and that is the
result of corporate greed and a faulty response to competition.

 

[jfeng@my-deja.com]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 2:42:52 AM UTC-7, default wrote:

You are forgetting that the flawed system was an effort to correct a
very real problem with large engines mounted forward of their usual
location changing the characteristics and forcing a nose up stall. The
real criminal action was to put profit before safety and that is the
result of corporate greed and a faulty response to competition.
I think their problems started when the bean counters took over the company and moved the HQ to Chicago. The company was no longer being run by the engineers/pilots who had jet fuel in their veins and who knew what they were looking at when they walked around the manufacturing plant.

 

[default]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 06:48:59 -0700 (PDT), "jfeng@my-deja.com"
<jfeng@my-deja.com> wrote:

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 2:42:52 AM UTC-7, default wrote:
You are forgetting that the flawed system was an effort to correct a
very real problem with large engines mounted forward of their usual
location changing the characteristics and forcing a nose up stall. The
real criminal action was to put profit before safety and that is the
result of corporate greed and a faulty response to competition.
I think their problems started when the bean counters took over the company and moved the HQ to Chicago. The company was no longer being run by the engineers/pilots who had jet fuel in their veins and who knew what they were looking at when they walked around the manufacturing plant.

I agree. Boeing sacrificed their reputation in an effort to boost the
short-term value of their stock.

Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas, and imported their management culture
then managed to alienate their core group of engineers and committed
workers. The 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas set in motion the
accidents that cost the lives of 350 people.

The same thing is happening in other companies and will likely result
in other poor choices and more deaths.

 

[Bret Cahill]

Put a retro or "my kingdom for a horse" switch on anything that seems unnecessarily over automated or when the additional sophistication is of a minor advantage.

If anything doesn't seem perfect, tap the retro switch and you are back to flying by the seat of your pants or at least something that is less complicated / more proven technology.

It may seem counter intuitive but this would actually _further_ automation and sophistication by taking some of the pressure off the designers trying to get every unanticipated situation right the first time.

It may also reduce some of the concerns about AI.

It's astounding this isn't SOP in every design engineering dept.

Not sure of the hold up here. Has anyone heard of any active patents on retro buttons?

"The issue, which surfaced during FAA simulator testing, concerns the ability of pilots to quickly reassert control of the plane if an automated flight handling system pushes the plane downward, said a person familiar with the matter."

https://news.yahoo.com/us-faa-boeing-must-address-issue-737-max-052756185.html

Just put the retro button in and call it a day.


Bret Cahill

Yeah that's all pilots need. Half of them are barely able to keep up
with the technology they use and you'd add another button that would
change the whole configuration of how the plane behaves to control
inputs?

You are forgetting that the flawed system was an effort to correct a
very real problem with large engines mounted forward of their usual
location changing the characteristics and forcing a nose up stall. The
real criminal action was to put profit before safety and that is the
result of corporate greed and a faulty response to competition.

Designing a high volume plane from scratch is not a trivial undertaking. A lot of modifications are safe, like adding tip winglets. Some like engine size and position, maybe things get more complicated.

But whether the original design or after thought jerry rig proves to be difficult to fully predict in every situation, it's _always_ smart in _any_ industry or product to have over rides so the user has additional last ditch options.

It is curious that there aren't more over rides in consumer products designed in from the git go.

The philosophy of over rides should be a mandatory 3-hour course in every engineering dept. Crowd source www.retrobutton.com for every day and not so common over rides as well as a list of places where they are needed but lacking.

Sorry. jerryrig.com has already been taken.


Bret Cahill

 

[default]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 09:47:50 -0700 (PDT), Bret Cahill
<bretcahill@aol.com> wrote:

Put a retro or "my kingdom for a horse" switch on anything that seems unnecessarily over automated or when the additional sophistication is of a minor advantage.

If anything doesn't seem perfect, tap the retro switch and you are back to flying by the seat of your pants or at least something that is less complicated / more proven technology.

It may seem counter intuitive but this would actually _further_ automation and sophistication by taking some of the pressure off the designers trying to get every unanticipated situation right the first time.

It may also reduce some of the concerns about AI.

It's astounding this isn't SOP in every design engineering dept.

Not sure of the hold up here. Has anyone heard of any active patents on retro buttons?

"The issue, which surfaced during FAA simulator testing, concerns the ability of pilots to quickly reassert control of the plane if an automated flight handling system pushes the plane downward, said a person familiar with the matter."

https://news.yahoo.com/us-faa-boeing-must-address-issue-737-max-052756185.html

Just put the retro button in and call it a day.


Bret Cahill

Yeah that's all pilots need. Half of them are barely able to keep up
with the technology they use and you'd add another button that would
change the whole configuration of how the plane behaves to control
inputs?

You are forgetting that the flawed system was an effort to correct a
very real problem with large engines mounted forward of their usual
location changing the characteristics and forcing a nose up stall. The
real criminal action was to put profit before safety and that is the
result of corporate greed and a faulty response to competition.

Designing a high volume plane from scratch is not a trivial undertaking. A lot of modifications are safe, like adding tip winglets. Some like engine size and position, maybe things get more complicated.

But whether the original design or after thought jerry rig proves to be difficult to fully predict in every situation, it's _always_ smart in _any_ industry or product to have over rides so the user has additional last ditch options.

It is curious that there aren't more over rides in consumer products designed in from the git go.

The philosophy of over rides should be a mandatory 3-hour course in every engineering dept. Crowd source www.retrobutton.com for every day and not so common over rides as well as a list of places where they are needed but lacking.

Sorry. jerryrig.com has already been taken.


Bret Cahill

You should watch the series Mayday Air Crash Disasters (or something
like that) When they attribute crashes to pilot error it is often
because the pilots don't understand how the machines they fly are
supposed to work.

The 737 Max relied on a single sensor with no redundancy to tell the
aircraft attitude, the pilots had no idea that the software could and
would take control in the event the computer determined the attitude
was too steep. The computer was programmed to reassert itself without
the pilots knowledge if the sensor was still giving a nose-up
indication, it did this periodically. Pilot input at the controls was
ignored while the computer tried to correct what it saw as a steep
angle of attack.

You are right about over-ride in the sense that the pilot should be
the last and ultimate arbiter of flight surface control - not the
machine.

The plane could be aimed at the ground, but as long as the one sensor
said it was nose-up, it was still going to force the nose down.

 

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <e1bcff94-6e86-4c7e-8f76-31132f45b1fa@googlegroups.com>,
jfeng@my-deja.com says...

I think their problems started when the bean counters took over the company and moved the HQ to Chicago. The company was no longer being run by the engineers/pilots who had jet fuel in their veins and who knew what they were looking at when they walked around the manufacturing plant.

Many companies have been ruined by the bean counters. They may do a
good job of counting, but can not cook with anything.
Another thing is hiring some fresh out of college engineers. They do no
t understand how things work.

I had an argument with an engineer where I worked. She wanted me to
tear into a control valve because of a problem because of a probelm I
had already fixed. A regulator up line had went bad. I told her I did
not care what her damn old data on the computer said, if the valve is
not getting any thing to it, the valve can not control it.

 

[jfeng@my-deja.com]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 12:03:02 PM UTC-7, Ralph Mowery wrote:

Many companies have been ruined by the bean counters......
I think of corporate raiders and other financial vultures like Carl Icahn whose sole purpose was to use leveraged buyouts to siphon the assets out of a company before the rest of the system realized what had been done and to leave the lenders holding the bag.

 

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <b03ea7ae-78d1-4402-a67e-241997dbcc9d@googlegroups.com>,
jfeng@my-deja.com says...

Many companies have been ruined by the bean counters......
I think of corporate raiders and other financial vultures like Carl Icahn whose sole purpose was to use leveraged buyouts to siphon the assets out of a company before the rest of the system realized what had been done and to leave the lenders holding the bag.

What was the final nail for the company I worked for was another company
bought us out. They did not spend any money on updating or ever
overhauling any of the equipment. Just ran it and when it broke, would
do the minimum to get it running, even if it ment robbing parts off old
equipment that may be needed later. When the plant was almost ready to
fall down so the speak, they sold it to another company that did not
know how bad of shape the plant was in. During the years it went from
over 3000 people to about 300 before it finally shut down.

 

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <vikchelgk0nvnf68slgm2q0fj9rr1vs45f@4ax.com>,
default@defaulter.net says...

You are right about over-ride in the sense that the pilot should be
the last and ultimate arbiter of flight surface control - not the
machine.

The plane could be aimed at the ground, but as long as the one sensor
said it was nose-up, it was still going to force the nose down.

Reminds me of a problem at work. The process is controlled by a
computer . The operator put one control valve in manual, but the
computer would not let it go but to 20 % closed. There was a sensor
that the computer looked at that was bad and the software would not let
the valve close, so it over filled a vessel, shut a production line down
and cost about $ 100,000 before it could be restarted.

 

[Bret Cahill]

What was the final nail for the company I worked for was another company
bought us out. They did not spend any money on updating or ever
overhauling any of the equipment. Just ran it and when it broke, would
do the minimum to get it running, even if it ment robbing parts off old
equipment that may be needed later. When the plant was almost ready to
fall down so the speak, they sold it to another company that did not
know how bad of shape the plant was in. During the years it went from
over 3000 people to about 300 before it finally shut down.

It's always interesting to see how degraded/off spec machinery can get and still run.

I put 7,000 km on a chain and cassette in addition to the high mileage already on it when I acquired the MTB. I used WD-40 every few months even though the heat and dust caused it to start squeaking after 3 weeks. Maybe 20% of the time it was lubricated. The performance dropped off slowly enough it was like the frog in boiling water. I never really noticed how bad it had gotten. Eventually the chain "stretched" -- actually the pins wear -- so much that it would skip under any force at all.

When I finally put a new chain and cluster on it was a life altering experience. I went 50% faster and further. On the down side I've been afraid to go into the dirt ever since.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

Shades of grey for over riding the software:

"We do, however, know that Boeing has made one significant change to the MCAS. It has decreased the “authority” of the system, so that if it is triggered it no longer has sufficient power to override input from the pilots and force down the nose, as it did in the two crashes. Many analysts were surprised that MCAS had that degree of power in the first place.."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/anybody-flies-boeing-737-max-095934811.html

Put a retro or "my kingdom for a horse" switch on anything that seems unnecessarily over automated or when the additional sophistication is of a minor advantage.

If anything doesn't seem perfect, tap the retro switch and you are back to flying by the seat of your pants or at least something that is less complicated / more proven technology.

It may seem counter intuitive but this would actually _further_ automation and sophistication by taking some of the pressure off the designers trying to get every unanticipated situation right the first time.

It may also reduce some of the concerns about AI.

It's astounding this isn't SOP in every design engineering dept.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

More software problems:

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-defective-software-doomed-boeing-crew.html