[brunooo]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178C is a good starting point to understand certification requirements, and Wind River has a lot of documentation around VxWorks, which is actually quite modern supporting Rust etc.

The issue is that even a slight overlap with other cockpit functions puts you in a much stricter regime, and thus a simple modern map rendering framework doesn’t work, because its components and dependencies have never been sufficiently dissected - you rather have a 5 second lag, terrible as it sounds from a pragmatic safety perspective, than having anything, especially your own position, misplaced only once in a billion map redraws.

The practical solution is that most airlines by now fly with iPads, Jeppesen Flight Deck Pro but even GA stuff like ForeFlight, which is also owned by Boeing, is popular for quick lookups like taxi instructions etc.

[fatnoah]

>Wind River has a lot of documentation around VxWorks, which is actually quite modern supporting Rust etc.

Wow. I remember spending 3 weeks in Alameda CA to get trained and certified on VxWorks for a project...in 1999!

[wolverine876]

The use of iPads always surprises me. What happens if they run out of power? Do they bring a redundant iPad?

BTW, are you a pilot or in the airline industry?

> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178C is a good starting point to understand certification requirements

OT: People's faith in Wikipedia seems to be increasing on HN, which is odd for a sophisticated audience in the era of misinformation.

[dekhn]

On a flight once I saw the person next to me was looking at topo maps on an ipad and we started a conversation. They were a pilot for United and said all the training and much of the data is on ipads, if one breaks you just get handed a new preloaded one, and it's not used for anything flight critical.

[brunooo]

Non-airline pilot and generally curious, plus work on viability of new ground up stack for vehicle vs Garmin or Honeywell.

Rules for my own small GA plane flights if it’s in one without glass cockpit are: two fully charged devices with latest data on both (iPad and phone), flight plan on both (ForeFlight syncs automatically), plus two means of charging (larger Anker pack, and dashboard USB or 12V outlet).

[wolverine876]

Thanks. Have you ever had a failure of your devices? Do you know anyone who has?

I could see tablets as being far more efficient and thus effective in a crisis - no searching through thousands of pages, no juggling large volumes, just hold a tablet and search or click a bookmark. I'm just trying to get the full picture.

[brunooo]

Sure: no failures myself yet, although battery is an issue on 4 hour+ flights, and tapping into a layer of redundancy by charging always feels a bit odd.

The iPad is actually mounted on the yoke right in front of you, some people mount it to the side with suction cups against the window, and starting to fiddle with the backup phone is already a distraction if the main hands free one goes down. Issues friends had were heat shutdowns in summer, plus one already cracked screen where the backlight then suddenly failed.

You rarely use the iPad in critical flight stages anyway, it’s more a navigation aid and displaying other traffic, and good practice to (see battery point above) keep the screen switched off for longer to stay proficient in the traditional approaches anyway.

The arguably number one case were an iPad with the fast updating screen is helpful in a crisis is an engine failure or similar emergency where you need to find a place to land fast, and as it knows the airplane you’re flying in, terrain underneath, winds etc it literally draws and uneven (different terrain) circle around your current position and shows you what is probably realistic. Another one is as potential fallback if one of the actual instruments fails, once had a stuck compass for example.