Boeing Dreamliner: Reboot Once Every 248 Days to Keep Flying

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
Messages
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The next time you fly and happen to draw the Boing Dreamliner, make sure you ask the Captain when was the last time the plane was rebooted. The FAA has warned that findings show that Dreamliners powered continuously for 248 days can lose power and fall from the sky due to a software glitch.

Most importantly, the company's already working on an update that will patch the software vulnerability -- though there's no word on when its jets will receive it.
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After you ask the captain that, will he land the plane and have the authorities remove you?
 
Let's hope the update is not some auto reboot code ..Plane reboots in mid flight?
 
Dreamliner Maintenance Manual: Close all Windows and reboot the system ... I wonder if they have a giant Control-Alt-Delete switch in the maintenance bay :D
 
Not to be picky here, but being as these planes do not operate 24 hours a day, how about a computer shut down when they do their last flight of the day, then reboot that bad boy a couple hours before their first flight in the morning?

Seriously though, planes are powered 24/7? Even when sitting on the ground? I'm calling some schenanigans on this
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not to be picky here, but being as these planes do not operate 24 hours a day, how about a computer shut down when they do their last flight of the day, then reboot that bad boy a couple hours before their first flight in the morning?

Seriously though, planes are powered 24/7? Even when sitting on the ground? I'm calling some schenanigans on this
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They probably store them in sleep mode thus it never reboots.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not to be picky here, but being as these planes do not operate 24 hours a day, how about a computer shut down when they do their last flight of the day, then reboot that bad boy a couple hours before their first flight in the morning?

Seriously though, planes are powered 24/7? Even when sitting on the ground? I'm calling some schenanigans on this
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cageymaru said:
They probably store them in sleep mode thus it never reboots.
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Not the entire planes, just the electrical generators.


Either way...talk about amateur hour coding. Anyone want to take bets on there being SQL injection bugs too?
 
schizrade said:
Yep. I bet a full systems reboot is a bitch on a 787.
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Why?..
I bet is because nobody wants to wait.. you know RUSH.
also probably because you would get more diagnostics failures... just like the computers that run fine while up, but don't want to quite come back.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not to be picky here, but being as these planes do not operate 24 hours a day, how about a computer shut down when they do their last flight of the day, then reboot that bad boy a couple hours before their first flight in the morning?

Seriously though, planes are powered 24/7? Even when sitting on the ground? I'm calling some schenanigans on this
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how do you know these plans do not operate 24 hours a day? The airliners dont make money by not flying
 
caddys83 said:
how do you know these plans do not operate 24 hours a day? The airliners dont make money by not flying
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Uh, follow their flight logs on something like Flightradar24 it is pretty easy to see when they are flying and when they aren't.
 
Clearly not running windows or it would be much more frequent. Where I worked almost all production systems got rebooted once every 90 days or less. Web servers were weekly.
 
This is a total non-issue. Airliners have periodic maintenance every 250 flight hours and longer maintenance periods that last anywhere from 1-5 days every 6 months.
 
Burticus said:
Clearly not running windows or it would be much more frequent. Where I worked almost all production systems got rebooted once every 90 days or less. Web servers were weekly.
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Hehehe... Reminds me in Montreal, the geniuses responsible for running the underground metro system had the brilliant idea of running it on Windows...

And yes, it crashed freezing the entire grid and trains. Oye...
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not to be picky here, but being as these planes do not operate 24 hours a day, how about a computer shut down when they do their last flight of the day, then reboot that bad boy a couple hours before their first flight in the morning?

Seriously though, planes are powered 24/7? Even when sitting on the ground? I'm calling some schenanigans on this
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Well the things hanging off the main 28V (flight computer, FADEC, GCU) might not be actually powered down. Equally the b787,a350,a330,b737 are quick turn around airplanes so while the aircrew might change... the plane will lane, disembark, get cleaned, refueled and a log check and a preflight check and bam off it goes again

YourTrialPeriodIsOver.jpg
 
caddys83 said:
how do you know these plans do not operate 24 hours a day? The airliners dont make money by not flying
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Well you see the question marks in my original post, those represent an uncertainty in my statement, not me making a statement of fact.

But to go a bit further, I have been an airport overnight, I have been at an airport on a flight where it is literally the first plane to take off that morning. So yeah, I have seen planes that do not operate 24 hours a day. But you're right I don't keep track of every single plane in existence, so perhaps me wondering if these do is based on my observations that many(most) do not.
 
Grahamkracka said:
This is a total non-issue. Airliners have periodic maintenance every 250 flight hours and longer maintenance periods that last anywhere from 1-5 days every 6 months.
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Maybe my math is wrong, but it says in 248 hours the plane will experience problems which is 2 hours before the 250 hour maintenance window...
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not to be picky here, but being as these planes do not operate 24 hours a day, how about a computer shut down when they do their last flight of the day, then reboot that bad boy a couple hours before their first flight in the morning?

Seriously though, planes are powered 24/7? Even when sitting on the ground? I'm calling some schenanigans on this
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APUs and ground power. Commercial airliners almost never shut down their computers.
 
Yakk said:
Hehehe... Reminds me in Montreal, the geniuses responsible for running the underground metro system had the brilliant idea of running it on Windows...

And yes, it crashed freezing the entire grid and trains. Oye...
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actually, it's not about the OS, it's about the expertise of the team in charge of it. If you have a good group, the OS won't matter.
 
248 days = 248*24*60*60 = 21,427,200 seconds

Multiply that by 100, you'd get 2,142,720,000

2^31 = 2.147 billion or there abouts.

Looks like someone is still using 32bit hardware and/or coding, and forgot to take integer overflow into account.
 
chenw said:
248 days = 248*24*60*60 = 21,427,200 seconds

Multiply that by 100, you'd get 2,142,720,000

2^31 = 2.147 billion or there abouts.

Looks like someone is still using 32bit hardware and/or coding, and forgot to take integer overflow into account.
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I'm sure it is 32 bit. These type of systems are embedded/industrial real time systems. Probably 32 bit RISC running QNX or something.
 
And yes, it's a 32 bit system...like pretty much every other industrial control system in existence. All of this is moot, as every plane goes through at least 8 maintenance periods before the 250 day mark is even hit. It's likely a simple patch, the validation/certification process is what's gonna delay it's implementation.
 
I haven't read the article, so I don't know if it says anything about it... but some info here:

I recently was dealing with an Equallogic SAN that had a similar issue... I found out from the vendor that every 248 days the controllers reboot. The tech said it was an issue with the BSD kernel used in the controllers and that it is fixed in a firmware update. I'm sure this is something similar.
 
Database said:
I haven't read the article, so I don't know if it says anything about it... but some info here:

I recently was dealing with an Equallogic SAN that had a similar issue... I found out from the vendor that every 248 days the controllers reboot. The tech said it was an issue with the BSD kernel used in the controllers and that it is fixed in a firmware update. I'm sure this is something similar.
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I can 100% guarantee you it is NOT using a bsd kernel. It's going to be a NIST/DOD real time system that's mathematically proven to be complete.
 
People here have latched onto the fact that the plane should not reach 250days without some level of maintainance that would cycle the 28v bus.

The issue is that there is code that can turn off the engines. What else could trigger it? What about a SEU stomping on the msb of this counter
 
Grahamkracka said:
And yes, it's a 32 bit system...like pretty much every other industrial control system in existence. All of this is moot, as every plane goes through at least 8 maintenance periods before the 250 day mark is even hit. It's likely a simple patch, the validation/certification process is what's gonna delay it's implementation.
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Including some Podunk airline in some podunk country that managed to get their hands on one? Or some richie rich charter service plain? And nothing ever falls though the cracks?

Who says cycling power is part of maintainance?


I work with industrial equipment, indirecly, that over 5 years old. Contrary to the experience with pure computer equipment, old large scale interwoven stuff doesn't like being restarted. It's not the computer its the electronics in controller boards. From what I can surmise, you have a startup sequence because some things start coming up at different times than when they were first made, other things start timing out and things won't talk. And when you're 10 years down the road, there's no replacement hardware. Long story short, its easier to never turn it off.
 
I wonder how long it takes to fully power cycle the onboard computer on a Dreamliner. Could be ages, I'm not familiar with aircraft computer systems.
 
jpm100 said:
Including some Podunk airline in some podunk country that managed to get their hands on one? Or some richie rich charter service plain? And nothing ever falls though the cracks?

Who says cycling power is part of maintainance?


I work with industrial equipment, indirecly, that over 5 years old. Contrary to the experience with pure computer equipment, old large scale interwoven stuff doesn't like being restarted. It's not the computer its the electronics in controller boards. From what I can surmise, you have a startup sequence because some things start coming up at different times than when they were first made, other things start timing out and things won't talk. And when you're 10 years down the road, there's no replacement hardware. Long story short, its easier to never turn it off.
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I know the electrical generators are checked during the B check (every 180 days) and must be powered down during that process. Most planes don't make it 180 days (and definitely not 248) without the electrical generators being totally powered down for a multitude of reasons.

Can some podunk airline shirk maintenance? Sure, but that would introduce a ton of larger risks than the generators dying.
 
OEM said:
APUs and ground power. Commercial airliners almost never shut down their computers.
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Well it sounds like they're in for a bit of a policy change. How long does it take for a computer on a plane to reboot? Is it really that hard that after the last flight of the day, when the plane is "parked" and hooked up to ground power than someone can reboot the computer, then they clean it all, then someone double checks to make sure it all booted up correctly again.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Well it sounds like they're in for a bit of a policy change. How long does it take for a computer on a plane to reboot? Is it really that hard that after the last flight of the day, when the plane is "parked" and hooked up to ground power than someone can reboot the computer, then they clean it all, then someone double checks to make sure it all booted up correctly again.
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Well I have a Win7 laptop with an HDD that on hot or cold boot takes about 30-60 minutes to stop drive thrashing and be idle ;)
 
OEM said:
APUs and ground power. Commercial airliners almost never shut down their computers.
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Every aircraft has a break of several hours in a 24-48hr period where they go cold and are completely shutdown. Even the large wide bodies running 12 hour flights. It can be due to scheduling (crew or a/c schedule), maintenance, or best care practices to limit failures.

APU's, GPU's, and ground service power all cost money to run which the airlines do not want to spend. Keeping an aircraft powered 24hr a day, 7 days a week is a waste and not needed. Plus it adds unnecessary wear to components which in turn adds to maintenance costs. Everything the airlines do now is to save money.

Airbus airframes have been around for decades and you often see them cold while sitting on the ramp. Especially late at night. Makes zero sense to keep power on an aircraft at all times.

Go to DEN or IAH and you will commonly see a Dreamliner parked on the ramp or at the gate cold.

Reboots are nothing new with "electric" airliners. It is not uncommon to hear an airbus request a delay on the taxiway or pull off into another taxiway to reboot.

The article is much ado about nothing.
 
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