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Fly-by-Wireless Plane Takes to the Sky
galactic_grub writes to tell us that engineers in Portugal have built and flown a plane with no wires or mechanical connections between the major systems, only a wireless network. From the article: "Tests flights carried out in Portugal have shown that the system works well. Cristina Santos, at Minho University in Portugal, who developed the plane, says the aim is primarily to reduce weight and power requirements. 'Also, if you do not have the cables then the system is much more flexible to changes,' she says."
A WiFi card and a copy of MS Flight Simulator and YOU, yes YOU are in charge.
BWAHAHAHAHA.
A 'wireless' plane! My first thought was why the hell would you want to do that?
Do you have any idea how hard it is to hang the CAT5 all the way up there in the sky?
Great. Now how am I going to keep my cold pizza?
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
but this is just plane silly!
Because you can - or because you should?
Americans are no longer allowed to make jokes about other people.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Or the pointy-haired boss trying to land the plane using the Excel Flight Simulator...
But think of the benefits, this way you can still control the flaps in the wing, even after the wing has broken off!
I guess the pilot could just take his laptop with him when he went to the bathroom and fly the plane from there.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Unless you generalize about white men.
This point reminds me of a diversity meeting at college where our female african-american (tridadian to be exact) resident director said that the students at the school didn't understand racism because we were priviledged white men. I brought up the point that she was generalizing about my background and feeding a stereotype.
Then I went to lacrosse practice (: D)
It's all good.
The FAA, after completing their investigation of the Flight 489 wireless hijacking, released their report today on commercial "fly-by-wireless" (FBW) systems currently used by all commercial aircraft carriers today. Flight 489, the latest in a string of 7 wireless hijackings this year (5 of which resulted in fatal crashes), has the airline industry on its heels as commercial passengers continue to weigh the potential dangers of flying on planes susceptible to violent technical terrorist hijackings as well as "prank" hijackings such as the fatal Flight 59 hijacking that took place in Russia this year where the plane was taken over and crashed by an 19 year old freshman from Moscow University.
The FAA now admits that 60% of the commercial carriers still do not enable VIWsec security (Virtually Impentratable Wireless security) on their wireless systems. The airlines state that systems integration with their subsystem and component suppliers is easier when VIWsec is turned off and that commercial customers are not able to buy and operate the 802.32c wireless transmitters used in commercial airline equipment operating in the 7.22 Mhz band. Possession of these transmitters, punishable as a felony under federal law, may be used in hacking into and hijacking airplanes. Labor, training and internal maintenance costs associated with configuring and insuring subsystem and component interoperation using VIWsec are simply too high to justify the cost of turning it on, the airlines state.
But the fact that the latest hijacking took place from the airline supplied integrated lap computer used to surf the Internet 2, select and play movies and games, and order drinks has commerical passengers, the FAA and the FCC in an uproar. While the airline supplied integrated lap computers operate using the public 802.13x standard, it was not confirmed until this fatal accident that airlines, in a cost-cutting move, have been using the 802.32c wireless system as a backbone for carrying 802.13x and routing traffic. This allowed the Flight 489 hijacker to attack and hack the FBW system from his seat after locating and hacking a router (a networking device that routes traffic between disparate networks) on the plane, funneling his hijacking attack from his lap computer into the FBW system. The FAA theorizes that the passenger/hijacker mistyped a routing command intended for the tail section of the plane to the pressurization system resulting in the crash.
A spokesperson from the FAA as well as the State Department, in spite of the report, still vehemently denies that it's possible for terrorists to obtain the 802.32c wireless equipment capable of launching a wireless attack and hijacking inspite of the fact that remnants of 802.32c equipment were found in 3 of the 5 wireless hijacked crashes this year. The fact that FBW is still not used on military aircraft was dismissed as a mere coincidence by the State and Defense departments who state that federal laws regulating 802.32c equipment insures the security and safety of FBW. Lobbyists from Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and GE Aircraft Engines stated they were not able to comment.
Great! This will make hijackers obsolete!