Paper Mate in the late 1960's used to advertise that their pens (pressurised cartriges) were used by NASA in space. These were the same pens that they sold on the street.
Just because the system relies on an airborne database component does not mean that the system is unhackable. Where does the data come from in the first place? Airborne databases for flight management systems are updated every 28 days. These are compiled from numerous data sources held by different agencies. There are numerous points were this system could be approached including the transfer at the aircraft itself. To make the system unhakable would mean certifying a system form beginning to end includin data acquisition, processing, verification, assembling and finally delivery to the aircraft. This means every component on the ground and in the air would need to be "unhackable" - certainly an impossible task given the number of M$ components involved in the "ground based" portion of aeronatical data.
Additionally, any system that could not be overridden or disabled by the pilot would need to be certified to proven levels of reliablity and fault tolerance tthat would far exceed the most reliable comonents on current generation aircraft.
If an autopilot fails or otherwise experiences a "hard-over" the pilot disengages and can disable the errant system by pulling the circuit breaker. If this proposed systemhas a glitcg or a failure what would be the recourse?
Such a systen would have safteyb applications thyat would go far beyond protecting attractive targets (protection from controlled flight into terrain) but the technologies to attain that are still just a gleam in the eye of alot of avionics engineers.
This is not really a new idea.
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Paper Mate in the late 1960's used to advertise that their pens (pressurised cartriges) were used by NASA in space. These were the same pens that they sold on the street.
Just because the system relies on an airborne database component does not mean that the system is unhackable. Where does the data come from in the first place? Airborne databases for flight management systems are updated every 28 days. These are compiled from numerous data sources held by different agencies. There are numerous points were this system could be approached including the transfer at the aircraft itself. To make the system unhakable would mean certifying a system form beginning to end includin data acquisition, processing, verification, assembling and finally delivery to the aircraft. This means every component on the ground and in the air would need to be "unhackable" - certainly an impossible task given the number of M$ components involved in the "ground based" portion of aeronatical data. Additionally, any system that could not be overridden or disabled by the pilot would need to be certified to proven levels of reliablity and fault tolerance tthat would far exceed the most reliable comonents on current generation aircraft. If an autopilot fails or otherwise experiences a "hard-over" the pilot disengages and can disable the errant system by pulling the circuit breaker. If this proposed systemhas a glitcg or a failure what would be the recourse? Such a systen would have safteyb applications thyat would go far beyond protecting attractive targets (protection from controlled flight into terrain) but the technologies to attain that are still just a gleam in the eye of alot of avionics engineers. This is not really a new idea.