Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: zack1234 on June 11, 2015, 01:48:49 AM

Title: Engine software
Post by: zack1234 on June 11, 2015, 01:48:49 AM
So A400ms engines are controlled by software?

One crashed in spain because important files were deleted.

Are commercial planes engines controlled by software?
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: artik on June 11, 2015, 02:11:58 AM
So A400ms engines are controlled by software?

One crashed in spain because important files were deleted.

Are commercial planes engines controlled by software?

Virtually every modern engine is controlled by a software (FADEC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FADEC)) and also all of latest airliners flight controls controlled by a software (Fly By Wire).

And it already happens for a loooooooong time.

Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: PR3D4TOR on June 11, 2015, 02:20:22 AM
If you have a car that's newer than 25 years old its engine is also "controlled by software."
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on June 11, 2015, 04:55:28 AM
If you have a car that's newer than 25 years old its engine is also "controlled by software."

Car engines usually have fail safe defaults if sensors give illogical information. I wonder why thats not the same with airplane engines. Probably a bit more complex operating environment.
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: jeep00 on June 11, 2015, 08:43:18 PM
My guess is the failsafes on something that if stalled can plummet 30000 feet are somewhat more sophisticated than something that can sputter to the side of the road
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: Busher on June 11, 2015, 09:55:46 PM
Virtually every modern engine is controlled by a software (FADEC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FADEC)) and also all of latest airliners flight controls controlled by a software (Fly By Wire).

And it already happens for a loooooooong time.

Yes you are right but as you also probably already know, if the digital engine control fails, the fuel delivery reverts to a mechanical schedule.
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: Serenity on June 13, 2015, 08:44:51 PM
Car engines usually have fail safe defaults if sensors give illogical information. I wonder why thats not the same with airplane engines. Probably a bit more complex operating environment.

Properly installed equipment and software DOES have failsafes for bad (read: illogical) input.
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: DaveBB on June 13, 2015, 09:28:34 PM
My truck has never crashed because of bad software inputs.  However, at least TWO Airbus aircraft have.
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: pipz on June 13, 2015, 10:24:32 PM

Shut up!
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: guncrasher on June 13, 2015, 11:10:05 PM
My truck has never crashed because of bad software inputs.  However, at least TWO Airbus aircraft have.

were you around when the japanese brake software was accentuating and crashing cars?

semp
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: artik on June 14, 2015, 02:22:01 AM
Car engines usually have fail safe defaults if sensors give illogical information. I wonder why thats not the same with airplane engines. Probably a bit more complex operating environment.

Aircraft engines usually have double to triple redundancy of the computers... But if software is wrong on all 2 or 3 of them. There is no way to help.

Now about mechanical failsafe - the problem is that jet engine fuel control unit is very complex stuff - it has many inputs that very the amount of fuel to put put into the engine: altitude, airspeed, pressure, temperature, rpm and their sudden changes and more...

Once there were hydro-mechanical computers that did the job and flameouts were much more frequent. Today digital system allow to run the engine in much more hard conditions - the conditions that older fuel control systems would fail.
Title: Re: Engine software
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on June 14, 2015, 11:25:01 AM
Aircraft engines usually have double to triple redundancy of the computers... But if software is wrong on all 2 or 3 of them. There is no way to help.

Now about mechanical failsafe - the problem is that jet engine fuel control unit is very complex stuff - it has many inputs that very the amount of fuel to put put into the engine: altitude, airspeed, pressure, temperature, rpm and their sudden changes and more...

Once there were hydro-mechanical computers that did the job and flameouts were much more frequent. Today digital system allow to run the engine in much more hard conditions - the conditions that older fuel control systems would fail.

Yeah thats what I thought. It's much easier to revert to defaults when you know you're going to be somewhere about sea level. But even then my car sputtered and jumped when cold when I had a broken MAF. Once it warmed up you hardly noticed the MAF was missing.