The MCAS is a good example, why certain software must not be outsourced. Implementing the software correctly to spec isn't enough, you need enough understanding of the application to question the spec itself.
your comment expresses my feelings exactly on 'was this a software failure?'. No. But software was involved.
I am working as a "software engineer" in the semiconductor industry. By education, I am a physicist. I am in my job for more than 10 years now, and beyond my university education, I have quite a grasp of electrical engineering. Furthermore, most of my colleagues are eletrical engineers. So in doubt, I can just walk over to their desk and discuss any question beyond pure software development issues. And some of the software developers here are just electrical engineers, which expanded their skill profile into software territory.
Doing business this way is quite more expensive than having software developed by a contractor, but it creates safeguards.
In regulatory parlance, this specifically means the airframe (the specific physical assembly of parts that collectively determine the flight characteristics of the object in question) possesses an "instability" that disqualifies it from being certified airworthy as a Civil Transport Aircraft unless the FAA amends or reinterprets the requirement.
The penultimate Lion Air flight only recovered thanks to The intervention of a third pilot; a luxury not universal to every cockpit.
>MCAS should be active only at angle of attacks, which wouldn't be reached at extreme angle of attacks.
The potential for MCAS subroutine activation is active during all phases of manually controlled (Autopilot off), flaps up flight,and is gated only by readings from an AoA sensor; which can fail in flight to catastrophic effect.
>The sole purpose of MCAS is to emulate the exact reactions of the older 737 machines in this domain, as this was required for maintaining the same type rating.
Incorrect. The sole purpose of MCAS is to induce an intentional "mistrim" during certain points of the flight envelope to counter the extra lift generated by the repositioned engines, with the end goal of smoothing out the non-compliant stick force response curve. Note, jury is still out whether this should even be allowed. I've gotten wildly different responses based on who I've talked to. Pilots seem to express horror or extreme discomfort. Aerodynamicsts are disconcertingly quiet, but tend toward hard reconfiguration to obviate the need for a software based solution.
Also, MCAS specifically deviates from oldaircraft behavior in that it removes an override of auto-trim commands activated by heavy back pressure on the yoke. There were also specific reconfiguration of the stabilizer trim cutout switches that removed any capability of locking out the MCAS system's ability to actuate the trim motor, while leaving pilot's thrim switches active.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/the...
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...
Make no mistake: Boeing screwed the pooch. Big Time.
making an airplane is a huge endeavor that crosses across many domains. you have to have competency up and down the 'stack'. Boeing does.
Maybe this will cause a re-look at outsourcing policies.
(edit. yes, this software was not outsourced. but it may add another dimension other than cost for future decisions)
Where did the article say that? To me it explicitly claims it was outsourced:
the McDonnell Douglas influenced Boeing new one tried to patch the problem with software. And it was bad software, written by to engineers paid $9/dollar an hour.
And I am not blaming the software engineers for building it to the specification. In contrary, I clearly stated, that just building it to specification isn't enough for such critical software. Such software needs to be developed in teams where enough team members are senior enough to properly raise concerns where appropriate.
This article (The Coming Boeing Bailout?) wrongly asserts that MCAS was outsourced. There's no corroboration for that.
Mind you, I'm not on Boeing's side. I'm just clarifying what's been reported so far.
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-...
>In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max.
>The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”
1. HCL wrote the code for MCAS; or
2. HCL wrote all the code of the Max.
But again, I'm not defending Boeing. I think they made some (deadly) mistakes. But so far there's no proof that the MCAS software was outsourced.
First, none of the software in question was outsourced to the company.
Second, the Bloomberg article does not describe the problems Boeing had with the software engineers from HCL, beyond a cryptic, "it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly." Was it a genuine misunderstanding of ambiguous language? Was it because the programmers did not have a background in the aerospace problem domain? Or was it because the engineers had a poor grasp of the vocabulary? It seems improper to assume the third situation in the absence of any additional evidence.
Finally, I am not sure what part of "software being outsourced" is considered outrageous. Is there evidence that a software engineer employed by Boeing, rather than by company XYZ, is less likely to produce faulty code? Or is more likely to understand the complex downstream effects of their actions and the equally complex upstream design decisions which informed them? Also, countries don't write code. Companies don't write code. People do. That "India doesn't have a deep background in aerospace" doesn't mean much at the level of individual engineers. I am skeptical that the most highly skilled American programmer has a deep background in aerospace either.
Sorry about the rant: something about the Blookmberg article came across as xenophobic innuendo.