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Boeing Told To Replace Cockpit Screens Affected By Wi-Fi
Rambo Tribble writes The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered Boeing to replace Honeywell-built cockpit screens that could be affected by wi-fi transmissions. Additionally, the FAA has expressed concerns that other frequencies, such as used by air surveillance and weather radar, could disrupt the displays. The systems involved report airspeed, altitude, heading and pitch and roll to the crew, and the agency stated that a failure could cause a crash. Meanwhile, the order is said to affect over 1,300 aircraft, and some airlines are balking, since the problem has never been seen in operation, that the order presents "a high, and unnecessary, financial burden on operators".
They are ordering that a manufacturer actually do something to make it's product safe rather than just ban wifi? It's not April 1st! Where did this new FAA come from?
Pretty sure this is the same kind of conversation that was had at GM before the fatalities and subsequent massive recall took place. Cut your losses Boeing and fix this now.
I think that's between Boeing and Honeywell, no? Honeywell didn't supply the jets with the displays in them - Boeing did. Now if the displays weren't up to the spec under which they were sold, then Boeing probably has a good case to go back to Honeywell and demand compensation. On the other hand, if being unaffected by wifi was never part of the specs or the deal, then that's Boeing's fault and they should have to eat it.
Either way, the airlines should have to deal with Boeing and not with Honeywell.
Dear Airline,
Please fix your cockpit system.
We, the passengers, LOVE our WiFi gadgets so much that even our kids have WiFi enabled Fisher Price tablets. With the Internet of Things, practically everything has WiFi in it: cameras, phones, tablets, laptops, kids toys, kid tracking devices, etc. And if you think that every single one of these are turned off during the flight, you are fooling yourselves.
Just because there have been no public reports that the system has been interfered with, doesn't mean that it hasn't happened or won't happen. It just means that you have been lucky so far. Take a page out of the car manufacturer's handbook. They had known issues that they didn't fix and look at all of the trouble that they have been in!!! This could be you, only 100x worse.
So, do the right thing, stop complaining, fix your system, and let us get back to our margaritas...
Airline Passenger