Note that for the aircraft holding pattern example, whatever timings being used are completely overruled by the very live non-blind pilot's discretion as necessary.

Take a sheet of white paper. Hold it in front of your face so it is just touching your nose. Now you see what the pilot sees flying in a cloud. Technically that isn't blind, effectively it is.

That completely ignores the overriding point:

For that nil-visibility aircraft holding pattern example, there are multiple other continuously alive checks that can override the blind timing if circumstances change or if conditions do not check out ok. For that example we have the pilot, instruments feedback, and air traffic control with their own instruments and checks, ready to say moment by moment 'get safe' if needed.

You assume RADAR, not all of the world has RADAR coverage. No RADAR and no eyeballs on the ground. (Much of Africa, Canada, Alaska, Outback, Ocean - no RADAR)
The pilot. He is the one looking at the timer. I suppose you can think he is going "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" and acting as the timer, but no. He is in the cloud, he can't see the ground. He has a compass and a timer. He has an airspeed indicator. He has a VSI and an altimeter. He has a ball. If he is lucky his gyroscopic instruments are working (he has to demonstrate he can fly safely without some of them to get a license to fly instruments - they fail more often than the non-flying public knows.) So he may have an artificial horizon, a gyroscopic compass and a turn and bank indicator. That is what he has to reckon with.

A holding clearance: "Hold as published at TUNA, 2 minute legs, expect further clearance in 24 minutes."
Obviously all the instructions given require a timer, the timer is a primary instrument.

Pilot knows he would not have been told to hold at TUNA unless he was already headed for TUNA, a way point along his route of flight. He looks at his chart and sees that the published holding pattern is say Left Turns.
As he arrives at TUNA he starts his timer and notes the time. He was told 2 minute legs so in exactly two minutes he begins a standard rate left turn. A standard rate turn takes 2 minutes to turn 360 degrees.
He times his turn for one minute and stops. He also verifies with his compass he turned 180 degrees. As he stops turning he begins another two minute leg in the opposite direction. Again after two minutes, standard rate left turn for one minute.
He is back at TUNA headed the same way as when he started. Check, has it been 24 minutes? No, do it again. Of course the controller can radio him to stop sooner or extend the hold, but if he doesn't hear another word from the controller at 24 minutes he continues his flight plan.

There are no other way points for this holding pattern. You might think each of the places where the turn begins is a published way point. No. They are defined by how far the aircraft flies in two minutes. If you fly slower they are closer, if you fly faster they are farther. Which by the way means a GPS can't tell you where to make those turns because it doesn't know where those turns are supposed to begin or end. They don't exist on a RADAR scope either. They only exist because of a timer and an indicated airspeed. Yes, you can program an auto pilot to use its internal timer to fly it. But no matter if you fly by hand or by auto pilot, a timer is a primary instrument and you have to dead reckon the legs and the turns. No other way to fly a holding pattern and why I picked this.

One thing for understanding IFR. All IFR clearances are given in a manner that if radio communications are lost, the pilot has instructions to reach his destination. That takes the form of in/at "X time" expect "Instruction." This makes the timer/clock a required flight instrument. Not working and you can't fly IFR. Amazingly IFR is still backed up by 1950's navigation methods, because that is all there is if you have radio or electric failure.

However this overlooks the simple fact that the timer is a necessary primary instrument for all navigation. The VOR receiver uses a timer. A TACAN receiver uses a timer. A DME receiver uses a timer. A RADAR uses a timer. A LORAN uses a timer. A GPS receiver uses a timer. A Sextant uses a timer. A transponder uses a timer. An autopilot uses a timer. You can not navigate without a timer. If fact you can't have a radio without a timer, frequency is time. You know you can't have a computer without a timer, the clock. A timer is so primary it gets overlooked.

For pilots, yes a no wind example, and yes I know wind always blows and real world it is much more complex. That complexity isn't needed to show the holding pattern is a dead reckoning maneuver.

A standard rate turn takes 2 minutes to turn 360 degrees.

I think this is one of the first things a pilot learns during his book training, he must the learn the control intputs required to achieve that on each type of aircraft he flies. It's great fun standing in a field watching pupil pilots and pilots doing type conversion practice doing rate-one turns to both left and right until they are confident they have got both the hand-foot co-ordination right, but also found the guide marks on the type that enables them to check they are in the right ballpark.
Even airline pilots have to know how to hand-fly using mark one eyeball, because instruments do go out, as do ground-based aids, for safety much of this is done on simulators these days - sims have the advantage that it is possible to replay a section of a flight where you got something wrong and see exactly where you went wrong and the what/when to do it right. (aside - I'm still waiting for my B737 sim session, its been delayed by all the investigation work and resultant developing new training materials etc.)

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

NYT - ‘It’s More Than I Imagined’: Boeing’s New C.E.O.

FLORISSANT, Mo. — In his eight weeks on the job, Boeing’s chief executive, David L. Calhoun, has come to one overriding conclusion: Things inside the aerospace giant were even worse than he had thought.

In a wide-ranging interview this week, Mr. Calhoun criticized his predecessor in blunt terms and said he was focused on transforming the internal culture of a company mired in crisis after two crashes killed 346 people.

To get Boeing back on track, Mr. Calhoun said, he is working to mend relationships with angry airlines, win back the confidence of international regulators and appease an anxious President Trump — all while moving as quickly as possible to get the grounded 737 Max back in the air.

“It’s more than I imagined it would be, honestly,” Mr. Calhoun said, describing the problems he is confronting. “And it speaks to the weaknesses of our leadership.”

Possibly too much news is hiding the latest on Boeing, so here's some latest stories
U.S. FAA proposes fining Boeing $19.7 million over 737 airplane sensors

Congress Blasts Boeing Missteps, FAA Blunders on Max

Coronavirus means airlines don’t need those grounded Boeing 737 Maxes after all

NASA shows it’s lost confidence in Boeing’s ability to police its own work on Starliner space capsule

Boeing hit with 61 safety fixes for astronaut capsule

... That complexity isn't needed to show the holding pattern is a dead reckoning maneuver.

Phew!

Wikipedia gives an easier answer: Holding (aeronautics)

Note for your example, indeed 'dead reckoning timing' can be and is used to time an expected amount of turn. However, there is still some check to make sure you stay real against the outside reality, by using some frame of reference or some check.

And indeed throughout our high tech world, blind timers are used with complete cheap abandon. However, there is a big however with all that:

For anything concerning safety or life or for just anything 'important', there should always be checks included.


The example for the Boeing Starliner is exactly an example of how things can go all too dangerously wrong if the design blindly trusts a free-running timer/clock without any checks against reality...


All in our deadly greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
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Here's a good summary that parallels some of the discussion here on this forum thread:


Catastrophic software errors doomed Boeing's airplanes and nearly destroyed its NASA spaceship. Experts blame the leadership's 'lack of engineering culture.'
wrote:

... The Starliner's clock was 11 hours ahead. It was following the steps of a phase of the mission it had not yet reached, firing small thrusters to adjust its position...

... it turned out to be a very good thing that nobody was onboard...

All in our deadly greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Possibly too much news is hiding the latest on Boeing, so here's some latest stories
U.S. FAA proposes fining Boeing $19.7 million over 737 airplane sensors

Congress Blasts Boeing Missteps, FAA Blunders on Max

Coronavirus means airlines don’t need those grounded Boeing 737 Maxes after all

NASA shows it’s lost confidence in Boeing’s ability to police its own work on Starliner space capsule

Boeing hit with 61 safety fixes for astronaut capsule

Thanks for those. They all add up to a very big 'Ouch!'...


To add to those, I've stumbled across:

YouTube: Boeing Blamed For 737 MAX Incident?

YouTube: 'Culture of Concealment' - Boeing report. - Prof Simon



What next and where next??

All in our deadly greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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Ethiopian Interim official report on 737 Max ET-AVJ ET-302 has been released.
http://www.aib.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2020/documents/accident/ET-302%20%20Interim%20Investigation%20%20Report%20March%209%202020.pdf 138 pages.

The Ethiopian investigators’ assessment differs from Indonesia’s final investigation report on the Lion Air crash. The Indonesian report cited a number of factors, including aircraft design, the flight crew’s response and a lack documentation on the plane’s flight and maintenance history.

In Ethiopia’s case, investigators found that the aircraft had “a valid certificate of airworthiness,” had no known technical problems before departure, and had weight and balance “within the operating limits.”

But they said faulty sensor readings and automatic commands that did not appear “on the flight crew operation manual” had left the crew unable to control the plane, resulting in the fatal crash. The report also said that Boeing’s reliance on a single sensor for the 737 Max “made it vulnerable to undesired activation.”

The interim assessment corresponds with a preliminary report that Ethiopia released last April, in which investigators said that the pilots had “repeatedly performed all the procedures provided” by Boeing to bypass the automated system.

After the crash, concerns surfaced that the plane’s captain had not practiced on a flight simulator for the 737 Max 8 — even though the airline had installed a simulator two months before the crash. The airline has denied those accusations, and Ethiopian officials insisted that the pilots had obtained the necessary license and qualifications.

Fm NYT Ethiopian Report on 737 Max Crash Blames Boeing

The example for the Boeing Starliner is exactly an example of how things can go all too dangerously wrong if the design blindly trusts a free-running timer/clock without any checks against reality...

It wasn't the timer that was bad or even the concept of a timer. It was starting the timer at the wrong time, so it correctly measured the wrong interval.

What appears to have been missing was a sanity check on the start time. After all you expect your watch to tell time even a few weeks after you set it. It isn't timers that are the issue. The issue is knowing when "zero" is. So having five timers and having them all start at the wrong time and they all give the same wrong result. That's not a cross check.

IIRC the reports said the capsule read a wrong time from the booster. No detail on how. Don't know if that means it sent a command for the wrong timer value from the booster. Don't know if there was some kind of spike on the timer line from the booster, perhaps a power up event, or precisely what, but it does indicate that zero was set wrong.

As to dead reckoning, INS or Inertial Navigation System, only dead reckons. Used very successfully on everything from aircraft to Pluto flybys. The more accurate the starting point/time the more accurate they can keep track of position. Yes, there is error and it accumulates. It is up to the designer to be sure that the error is kept small enough for the intended use. If you ave several to cross check, all of them may drift the same and the same direction. Not a cross check on a bad start position, just a cross check on mechanical failure. By the way if your car has an onboard GPS is uses dead reckoning. In the car park it can't get a GPS signal but it still shows you where you are and which way you are facing. How? It counts rotations of your tires and knows the circumference of your tire so it dead reckons your position from that.

No excuse for not having a sanity check, that's like reading a file with "gets" and over running your buffer. Everyone does it sometime, doesn't make it any less stupid.

NASA’S MANAGEMENT OF SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM PROGRAMCOSTS AND CONTRACTS (pdf, 57 pages)

WaPo story about this, say's Trump's moon mission could cost a staggering $50 billion.
Lax oversight by NASA and poor performance by Boeing have led to delays and cost overruns
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/10/nasa-boeing-trump-moon-cost/

Ghost Flights... How to make use of airport slots...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVzMXQ8Qx_s

Ghost Flights... How to make use of airport slots...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVzMXQ8Qx_s

Indeed, all for airport profits regardless of all good sense!


All in our silly greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

A selected roundup of the week's news for Boeing:


Boeing proposal to avoid 737 MAX wiring shift does not win US support
wrote:

... Last month, Boeing told the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) it does not believe it needs to separate or move wiring bundles on its grounded 737 MAX jetliner that regulators have warned could short circuit with catastrophic consequences...

... the FAA told Boeing on Friday that it did not agree with the planemaker's argument that the planes' wiring bundles meet safety standards and now it is up to Boeing to decide how to proceed...

... Boeing has noted in talks with the FAA that the same wiring bundles are in the 737 NG, which has been in service since 1997 and [has] logged 205 million flight hours without [killing people so far].

New safety rules on wiring were adopted in the aftermath of the 1998 Swiss Air 111 crash...

Boeing's 'culture of concealment' led to fatal 737 Max crashes, report finds
wrote:

A “culture of concealment”, cost cutting and “grossly insufficient” oversight led to two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max aircraft that claimed 346 lives, a congressional report has concluded...

Ethiopia report blames jet crash mostly on Boeing software
wrote:

... there were design failures and inadequate training...

... the pilots fought back on their control columns, but the nose of the plane sank even more and the jet flew even faster. Shortly before impact, the jet plummeted toward Earth at 575 mph (925 kph) — at the rate of more than 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) per minute — with its nose tilted down at a 40-degree angle...

Broken Boeing airplanes are going to the military thanks to corruption and bad decisions
wrote:

... Meanwhile, serious new problems cropped up. The Air Force repeatedly froze deliveries of the unusable planes later in 2019 after maintenance personnel discovered Boeing technicians had left behind tools, nuts, bolts and trash in the airframe that could cause damage mid-flight. And then the fleet was temporarily banned from cargo flights when floor cargo restraints came undone without apparent cause.

Though senior Air Force officials have sent angry letters and issued stern warnings to Boeing regarding a lack of progress in fixing the faulty remote-control camera system, at this point the Air Force is too committed to the Pegasus to pull out...

Why Did Boeing’s Warning on 737 Max Fail to Stop Second Crash?
wrote:

... It would be easy to simply point the finger at the pilots, but that doesn’t take into account the calamitous conditions in the cockpit, said John Cox, a former airline pilot and president of the consulting company Safety Operating Systems.

A failed sensor was triggering multiple errors and warnings, including a loud thumping noise on the captain’s control column signaling -- falsely, it turned out -- the plane was nearing an aerodynamic stall. They also had unreliable airspeed and altitude readings.

It’s unfair “sitting in an office saying they should have known” how to respond, Cox said. Investigators should examine how the chaos would have impacted the pilots...

All in our deadly greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

For some of the back story outside of Boeing:


YouTube: Inside the Boeing 737 MAX Scandal that Rocked Aviation - Wall Street Journal


Compelling...

All in our deadly greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

How about putting your research talents into a British company just as deplorable as Boeing instead of hijacking this thread?
The company in question is Spark/Ovo Energy whose deplorable antics commenced also in November 2018.

... a British company just as deplorable as Boeing...
The company in question is Spark/Ovo Energy whose deplorable antics commenced also in November 2018.

Have they killed anyone?

Have they killed anyone for profit?

And that's a story I haven't seen... Care to explain??


All in our greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

... a British company just as deplorable as Boeing...
The company in question is Spark/Ovo Energy whose deplorable antics commenced also in November 2018.

Have they killed anyone?
Have they killed anyone for profit?
And that's a story I haven't seen... Care to explain??

No need to explain, you already know so why ask?

All in our greedy world.

Also, this is a thread on what extent people go for money. :-)

Still don't see the references to the accusation you quoted and I don't consider your original post to be "hijacking " of the Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? Pt 2 topic.

Didn't know the OP of the thread could hijack it. Learn something new every day.

Some of us know a little about the dirty lowlife crap that was pulled, even though they are local utility, not doing business on this side of the pond. And the crap they pulled may very well have contributed to some deaths although not as directly as some other "fiduciary duties" have to other deaths.

Still don't see the references to the accusation you quoted and I don't consider your original post to be "hijacking " of the Profits 1st, Safety 2nd? Pt 2 topic.

Didn't know the OP of the thread could hijack it. Learn something new every day.
Some of us know a little about the dirty lowlife crap that was pulled, even though they are local utility, not doing business on this side of the pond. And the crap they pulled may very well have contributed to some deaths although not as directly as some other "fiduciary duties" have to other deaths.

Well said!
Many here (can't answer for the RotW) have committed suicide over debt problems. Many of those debts were caused un-necessary due to people in organisations failing in their duties.
The biggest one is Council Tax debts, of which I have much documented evidence of. Again those debts were down to "flawed software", ring any bells?
An even bigger example of profits 1st, safety walks is the coronavirus, however that is covered by the Ebola thread, but it also sits well on this one.