[dogman144]

I was professionally close with an engineer who used to work on a (rapidly dwindling headcount) team responsible for the programs and related QA for mission critical flight safety systems. Think one of the big manufacturers.

The eng dealt with:

The standard was scripts with mutable variables such as `G == , B == , C == , redefine G as something else later` responsible for the processes around pretty critical airplane innards.

QA down to 1 or 2 headcount, and those 1 or 2 also doing the above program writing.

Zero hand-off once leaving the job on the mission critical QA the eng was responsible for, not for lack of effort on the engs part. Managers not aware the eng was leaving until day-of.

I could go on and on, but the point: I'm not sure how I feel about the safety of airplane travel after the above, but at least the engines were internal combustion so somewhat tied to physics vs. programming logic. A future with electric airplanes scare me a bit though. The software in them is aggressively, poorly done. I know airplanes are designed w/ fail-safes on the fail-safes and that eng had their own limited view of a complex system. But, it was bad.

[whoisthemachine]

Most of your point is well made, but electric engines are just as tied to physics, unless I'm missing something? Doesn't mean quality of the control software is still not concerning.

[karagenit]

I think what they're trying to say is that the types of electric motors used in vehicles (like switched reluctance motors[1]) typically require a computerized controller that someone has to program, and therefore has an additional point of failure from a software standpoint.

However, I'm pretty sure any modern internal combustion engine will have a highly advanced ECU computer too, so this is sort of a non-issue (though I'll admit I don't know much about aircraft engines specifically).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_reluctance_motor

[dogman144]

Ya poorly worded on my part.

Gist is going from internal combustion with a ton of supporting or fully necessary tech to fully electric, fully SW-driven, really skeeves me out given the above testimonial and others like it.

I openly allow it's quite possible that airplanes can't fly these days but for software though.

[aerospace_guy]

Modern turbofan/turbojet/turboprop (really, any engine) has a ton of SW involved. Engine controllers [1] literally control the engines. Your point is completely wrong, I've worked on this software and they go through many forms of verification for things to work. Look at the failure rate of avionics and compare that to other industries.

Sure you or your friend may have had a bad experience at that company, but the big players generally won't let software bugs through.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FADEC

[dogman144]

Eh,I did say it was only that eng's view of the world, but the big players certainly do let bugs through.

Boeing code leaked in '20 [1] and it was ugly, however it was ~network vs. app layer so unclear how it worked at the engine level.

Add in the track record of CAN bus security difficulties and knowing airplanes use similar tech, "generally won't let bugs through" when paired with the footnoted security leak is a gross overstatement.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/boeing-787-code-leak-security-fl...

Before you write it off as an overhyped wired article, it was also a presentation at blackhat [2], so vetted by a fairly rigorous CFP.

[2] https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Wednesday/us-19-Santamarta-Arm...

[whoisthemachine]

My assumption was modern ICE's also had software controllers. You could go with a fully hardware controlled electric motor (electric motors significantly pre-date computers!), but that of course would come with the same kind of trade-offs as fully hardware controlled ICE's (a couple I can think of off the top of my head are inability to change and inconsistent or degrading behavior over time).

[IshKebab]

I would be shocked if modern turbofan engines don't have at least as much software in them as electric engines. Maybe more.