Re: Boeing 737 and 737 MAX software

[Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 16:45:44 -0700, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
declaimed the following:

>Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>> 	Unless things have changed severely -- GE Aviation (formerly Smith's
>> Aerospace, formerly Lear Siegler) produces the 737 FMS software (and also
>> the processor boxes).
>
>Don't know if this is the FMS but it sounds like things may have changed:
>
>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers
>

	Note that the article emphasizes 

"""
Based on resumes posted on social media, HCL engineers helped develop and
test the Max’s flight-display software, while employees from another Indian
company, Cyient Ltd., handled software for flight-test equipment.
"""

	Flight displays are separate processors that receive "instructions"
from the FMS on what to display (and flight-test equipment, to me, is not
flight software/hardware itself, but instead may be a ground-based console
to emulate flight sensors and inputs). Overly simplifying -- it's like the
ubiquitous 2line x 16character LCDs... the display has to interpret the
drawing instructions sent from the main application processor, but is not
controlling the aircraft itself..

	I'll concede I don't know who actually built the display/keyboard units
used for input to the FMS (and the other displays of the "glass cockpit"
are another matter -- during my short four years the "autopilot" and other
displays were simulated on Windows boxes for testing FMS software and
flight boxes. [I envied those testers -- they got to use a TCP "dataloader"
to the test boxes... I had to test the "bootrom" using the floppy disk
"field" dataloader -- which took hours just to load the FMS software; a
full test took two 5 hour sessions to load FMS, databases, verify it
wouldn't load oversize database on older flight boxes, verify dataload
option disappears from menu system when (simulated) aircraft is in the air
(no load on suspension)...])


-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
	wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/