Re:Boeing delays 737 MAX software fix delivery
by yason on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @03:31PM
(#19557770)
There is some cognitive limit of how many variants of procedures pilots can be expected to memorise and execute.
Detecting a classic constant runaway trim is an old drill for pilots.
Detecting a trim that gradually runs away, then stops to make the situation look normal, then runs away again until the plane is way off level flight is a new failure pattern.
It works for non-critical software where users can learn workarounds for only those problems they happen to encounter. But it doesn't, in the long run, work for cases like aviation where there is a known but growing set of special conditions that the pilots need to learn and remember even if they don't ever bump into them.
Detecting a classic constant runaway trim is an old drill for pilots.
Detecting a trim that gradually runs away, then stops to make the situation look normal, then runs away again until the plane is way off level flight is a new failure pattern.
It works for non-critical software where users can learn workarounds for only those problems they happen to encounter. But it doesn't, in the long run, work for cases like aviation where there is a known but growing set of special conditions that the pilots need to learn and remember even if they don't ever bump into them.