Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data

Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by mtnGoat on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:18PM (#19627871)

I too have hundreds of flights and am also a programmer, but I would not assume having both skills would make you anything more then an armchair quarterback. If you have not written code that runs planes, what knowledge are you basing your idea off of. IMO.

i too also play games, but i wouldn't assume to tell a game developer how to write their code.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by MFLoon on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @05:25PM (#19628949)

I agree - being a pilot and a programmer is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for being able to diagnose and solve an issue in a system as complex as a modern airliner. In fact I don't think any individual is capable of doing so on their own; maybe the sole exception being someone like the engineering lead of avionics for the 737 Max, who is probably not a pilot, and probably only a programmer in so far as it was a component of their engineering education.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by sk5t on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:39PM (#19628061)

Honest question, is his experience in small aircraft applicable at all to jetliners? How much carryover, beyond core theory of flight dynamics, is there from piloting a single prop to an Airbus or even a regional jet?

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by scarhill on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @04:15PM (#19628361)

His resume includes:

- FAA ATP AMEL and ASEL certificate with CL-65 SIC rating and Part 121 experience; CE-510S rating (single pilot, Cessna Mustang)

- Helicopter ATP

- single-engine seaplane rating at the commercial level

- FAA Flight Instructor certificate with airplane single-engine, airplane multi-engine, helicopter, instrument airplane, and instrument helicopter ratings

He has also worked as a commercial pilot for Delta/Comair. See https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/resume

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by VBprogrammer on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @04:10PM (#19628327)

He part owns a Pilatus PC-12, which is pretty much a single engine regional jet. It isn't your grandfather's Cessna.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by et2o on Thursday April 11, 2019 @08:59AM (#19633970)

Turboprop

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by js2 on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @04:14PM (#19628352)

He has first officer experience flying a CL-65 Canadair Regional Jet.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by fixermark on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:11PM (#19627806)

He doesn't seem to be an experienced owner of a home outdoor thermometer though.

Or if he is, I need to know where he found one that goes to 452 degrees and why he even needs that much range. ;)

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by squarefoot on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:27PM (#19627954)

The thermometer sensor and circuitry might be perfectly ok, still the 452 number might be a single digit gone bonkers in the panel, so that data being transmitted (maybe also recorded?) is ok while the readout is plain wrong. A human acting according data being shown there might react very differently from someone reading the temperatures log. Sometimes software problems can be awfully subtle.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by navila17 on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:26PM (#19627945)

Digital thermometers usually have triple digits to be able to display numbers in the low 100's. I could see one of them failing in a weird way and displaying 452.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by depressed on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @09:28PM (#19630333)

I was as confused as the other commentators by this post until I realized that fixermark is thinking of analog thermometers with a physical dial, while we (and probably the author as well) are envisioning electronic thermometers with digital displays.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by lepton on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:27PM (#19627949)

BBQ lid? Many have thermometers that go higher than this (say, 700F), and they're often outdoors.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by darkpuma on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:34PM (#19628019)

How else would you know there is a wildfire outside?

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by falcolas on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:11PM (#19627807)

A pilot is not a programmer. A minor, but important distinction.

EDIT: Aaaand I'm an idiot. My bad.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by Zak on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:13PM (#19627839)

Philip Greenspun is, in fact a programmer. He's probably best known in these circles for the quote "Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."

It is possible to be both a pilot and a programmer.

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by fixermark on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:18PM (#19627875)

This is referred to in the industry as a "Dr. McNinja scenario."

(... nobody refers to it as that ;) ).

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by adolph on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:15PM (#19627856)

Are you claiming Greenspun is not a programmer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArsDigita

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Re:Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data by supergauntlet on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @03:15PM (#19627854)

https://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/

not only is he a programmer, but he has opinions on teaching programming.

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