Re: OT: This system must have been written in Ruby...

Thomas A. Russ wrote:
Kenneth Tilton <kentilton@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

"At 1950 feet (around 700 meters) the airplane's left altimeter suddenly
and mistakenly registered an altitude of 8 feet (about 2 meters) below
sea level and passed the reading on to the automatic control system, Van
Vollenhoven said.
...

What system acts on an impossible data discontinuity, let alone one that
has the plane below sea-level? And then fails to fly the plane?

Well, when landing in the Netherlands, I imagine it might actually be
possible to be flying at 8 feet below sea level.

And a check with data about Schiphol airport confirms it. The runway at
the airport is at an elevation of -11 feet. So the reading was, in
fact, a legal and even expected data input value for a landing aircraft.

Nice research! But I was aware dry land existed below sea level so that was not my big problem with the software.


http://www.world-airport-codes.com/netherlands/amsterdam-schiphol-225.html?page=5

Why is anyone but me allowed to program computers?!!!

Hmmm. I wonder what Kenny's flight control software would have done
when a plane came in for a landing at that airport? What would happen
when it encountered the "impossible" input?

Shudder.

Sorry, Charlie. My software would have known where it was (bless GPS) and the geography (bless whatever) and the low-altitude warning would have been silent anyway because it never would have seen the input.

Your imagined code needs a new layer, dude.

Ordinary good code would have identified the physically impossible altitude change as, um, impossible, rejected it altogether, and fallen back on extrapolation. The auto-pilot would have enjoyed a smooth flight.

Why do I have to explain such trivialities to a developer as astute as yourself?

Trust me, we have not heard the end of this. I wager the software could not possibly have been so bad and ... I'll stop there. They do say the autopilot shut down the power...oh, my...

We need to get the altimeter a lawyer fast!

hth,kxo


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Relevant Pages

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