Newsgroups: comp.risks
X-issue: 3.62
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 86 18:07:11 PDT
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
To: ucbvax!CSL.SRI.COM!RISKS
Subject:  F-16 Software

Doug Wade notes:

>   My comment to this, is what if a 8G limit had been programmed into
> the plane (if it had been fly-by-wire)...

My first reaction on this was that military aircraft, at least front-line
combat types, obviously need a way to override such restrictions in crises,
but civilian aircraft shouldn't.  Then I remembered the case of the 727 that
rolled out of control into a dive a few years ago.  The crew finally managed
to reduce speed enough to regain control by dropping the landing gear.  The
plane was at transonic speed at the time -- there was some speculation, later
disproven, that it might actually have gone slightly supersonic -- and was
undoubtedly far above the official red-line maximum airspeed for the
landing gear.  It would seem that even airliners might need overrides.

				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry