FROM
THE EDITOR
This week, I took delivery of a new airplane and found my hobby crashing into my career. By upgrading my ride, I've added millions of lines of embedded software and some undetermined number of embedded processors to my leisure life. Our latest feature takes a look at the impact of embedded computing on the operation and safety of light aircraft.
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Kevin
Morris – Editor
Embedded Technology Journal
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Flying Embedded Technology
When Business and Pleasure Overlap
My hobbies and my work are starting to overlap.
I’ve been flying small planes all my life, and I’ve owned one for the past 17 years – a rare, mint condition, 1970 Aero Commander Lark. It’s a cute and sturdy little plane – carries four people for real (lots of “four place” airplanes really only have the weight carrying capacity to realistically schlep two or three people across the country), and trundles along at the relatively slow pace (in airplane terms) of 100 knots. This airplane does a wonderful job of getting from point A to point B faster than you can drive (usually). It is safe, simple, and easy and fun to fly.
As delivered from the factory it contained exactly zero microprocessors and no lines of software whatsoever. The only intelligence embedded in my Lark was mine and that of the aeronautical and mechanical engineers that designed the thing – an almost invisible slant to the right to offset the “P-factor” and other torque related effects that make it want to turn left under power, a bit of dihedral angle to the wing to make it tend toward stable, upright flight if you release the controls. A number of other elegant design decisions that built intelligence into the very fabric of the craft.
Unlike automobiles, airplanes have a very long service life. My 1970 Lark is more valuable and more viable as a personal aircraft today than it was new in 1970. I have upgraded it significantly from its original avionics (aircraft electronics) and have renewed the interior and paint, but it is otherwise just as designed in the late 1960s. [more]
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