Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 6 Jul 2001 15:35:32 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 6 Jul 2001 15:35:21 -0400 Received: from chaos.analogic.com ([204.178.40.224]:20608 "EHLO chaos.analogic.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 6 Jul 2001 15:35:06 -0400 Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 15:34:54 -0400 (EDT) From: "Richard B. Johnson" Reply-To: root@chaos.analogic.com To: Tracy R Reed cc: Ben Ford , jesse@cats-chateau.net, kmw@rowsw.com, J Sloan , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Uncle Sam Wants YOU! In-Reply-To: <20010706115943.G13383@ultraviolet.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, 6 Jul 2001, Tracy R Reed wrote: > On Sun, Jul 01, 2001 at 04:53:25PM -0700, Ben Ford wrote: > > I seem to recall that MS products cannot be used in aircraft control > > rooms for this reason. > > Your statement above is not necessarily true. By control rooms do you mean > control towers or in the aircraft themselves? Inside the aircraft itself > is obviously the more critical situation and NT is being used there so I > don't see why it wouldn't be used in the air traffic control system as > well whether it be in control towers, air route traffic control centers, > or wherever. > > MS products are used in life-critical situations. First, there was the > USS Yorktown. But that was just a test situation. > > Here is an NT system used in a real non-test and FAA certified situation. > It operates the primary flight instruments of a high-performance aircraft. > There are several certified aircraft using this unit. I can't remember the > others I've read about but this is the Lancair Columbia 400. > > From http://www.avweb.com/articles/colum400/ : [SNIPPED most of the rest] It's Windows/CE. It takes a few seconds to boot from NVRAM. It's used in Honeywell Flight Directors (for the FP display). It's not like it was life-critical, you still have (required) steam gages for backup. It is probably more reliable than the mechanical backups because, except for the bugs, it has no moving parts. > Wouldn't want to pull a Kennedy! Don't bet on it. I'm not a Kennedy supporter, but the "rich kid" went to the best and most expensive flight school in America. He had already passed the Instrument written exam. He had more flight instruction than many ATPs and the instruction was modern which means he seldom looked out the window (a pet peeve of mine), doing about everything by reference to instruments. FYI. The horizontal stabilizer was not with the airplane when it was recovered; The damage was impact damage from hitting water dead-nuts vertical; The loss of control occurred while leveling off during a routine descent. Regardless of what the politicians at the NTSB say, this looks to me like the AC shed its tail, resulting in an unrecoverable loss of control. Of course, what do I know. I'm only a commercial pilot/Inst with a little over 3,000 hours over the past 30 years. Cheers, Dick Johnson Penguin : Linux version 2.4.1 on an i686 machine (799.53 BogoMips). I was going to compile a list of innovations that could be attributed to Microsoft. Once I realized that Ctrl-Alt-Del was handled in the BIOS, I found that there aren't any. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/