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Boeing 787s To Create Half a Terabyte of Data Per Flight
Qedward writes "Virgin Atlantic is preparing for a significant increase in data as it embraces the Internet of Things, with a new fleet of highly connected planes each expected to create over half a terabyte of data per flight. IT director David Bulman said: 'The latest planes we are getting, the Boeing 787s, are incredibly connected. Literally every piece of that plane has an internet connection, from the engines, to the flaps, to the landing gear. If there is a problem with one of the engines we will know before it lands to make sure that we have the parts there. It is getting to the point where each different part of the plane is telling us what it is doing as the flight is going on. We can get upwards of half a terabyte of data from a single flight from all of the different devices which are internet connected.'"
What could go wrong?
dave@console:~ ssh dave@hal-787
[dave@hal-787 ~]$ echo "1" >
echo: I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that.
[dave@hal-787 ~]$ sudo echo "1" >
dave@console:~ Connection to hal-787 lost.
Connecting flight controls to "The Internet" would be the stupidest of all ideas. If they do this, anyone getting on board would be a candidate for the Darwin awards.
I'm sure they meant to say that all these systems are networked together, using ARINC or other aviation network technologies.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Sources say it's an XML dump. Maybe 100KB of actual data in there.
Sufficient data for playing back flights in simulators has been recorded by the black boxes for a couple of decades already. It's done to evaluate the crew's actions (and compare those with what they've been trained to do) as well as to test if alternative actions could've prevented the accident. A good example was Swissair 111 (in 1998) which had a fire on board and crashed before the crew could land the aircraft. The crew didn't even try to get it to the nearest airport as fast as they could because they wanted to dump fuel, prepare the cabin and were reluctant to land at the very closest airport at first since they wanted one with Swissair mechanics. As part of the investigation crews in simulators got exactly the same fire scenario at the same point and among other things tested if they had been able to reach the airport if they didn't dump fuel and land overweight. In those scenarios too, however, it would've taken too long from the point the fire was first detected.
They'd be better off using Monster Cables.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I don't know that it's all that frivolous.
Your average airline is running on razor-thin margins. They do NOT want a plane grounded for any longer than is absolutely necessary - because a grounded plane isn't earning any money. If an airliner can signal any faults several hours before it lands, the maintenance crew have advance warning so they know exactly what to look at (and maybe even have parts available) the instant it touches down rather than have it sitting on the tarmac waiting for parts to arrive.
Have been doing this for years. They constantly stream data to RR HQ and theres a team of highly experienced people watching the data. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPIYBgZNrsg&sns=tw
"We can get upwards of half a terabyte of data from a single flight". Well, provided they're actually able to fly, which is not the case, last time I checked.
Another quick search on ARINC 664 yields the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avionics_Full-Duplex_Switched_Ethernet
So both the Airbus 380 and the 787 use COTS hardware and Ethernet, as does the Internet. Although slightly sloppy, describing the network as an "internet" is technically correct. Asserting that the data is "bloated XML" or that their is bad scripting, spam or cookies involved is grossly stupid.
I have worked with previous ARINC formats, and the data is very compact. It fact, it is positively cryptic, and generally you use software to turn it into a more human friendly form, like a line graph. So if there is a half terabyte per flight, it is all "real" data. Any of the posts that assume otherwise are a combination of arrogance and ignorance, which is typical for what passes as comments on Slashdot these days. Hence my sig:
Why is Snark Required?
I would prefer it if my aircrafts sensors weren't censored.
/I'm so very sorry, I'm not normally a Grammar Nazi
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
...could a discussion about plane travel and safety descend into a bickering about the correct use of the Linux console...
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