[TechTalk] Why Your Design Passes the Check but Still Fails - EP082

This really is close to heart because as a flight control engineer, aerospace specifically, or generally aerospace and specifically flight control, it is so easy to get to a point where even as a founder and executioner of work and strategist, it's so easy to get comfortable with thinking that just because you've done a couple of checks, things is fine.

And that's nowhere near the case, right? And I recall a very interesting story, you know, in my previous company, Lilium, but I'm not going to go through the details because I think that's not the point.

But just imagine, right? Me and my team, we're busy with the simulation.

We're trying to get stuff done.

There's a whole verification set of tests that we have to do.

And of course, you know, there's a checklist and you go through it.

But you start picking up a pattern, right? The specific things, the specific aircraft behavior that you're checking or specific, you know, axis of movement that's starting to show that there is a problem.

But the checklist is saying, yeah, it passes, right? But yet the behavior is not great.

You know, it's not great behavior.

But, you know, it passes, right? One would say, yeah, it's oscillatory, but oscillation is, you know, bounded, right? It's definitely bounded or, you know, there's no limit cycle.

Those who are engineers to that degree will understand what I mean.

So you would say, oh, no, okay, it's definitely dying down and it's oscillatory.

It's not great, but we knew about this and that.

And so you kind of green tick it, a green tick.

And you say, you know, it passed.

Yeah, I'll put in a comment justifying why it's okay and the probability of us being in this condition and so forth.

And so you move forward.

At some point, though, I think as the engineers are going through it, people are starting to feel a bit uncomfortable.

because this issue is popping up everywhere, right? It's not only on this axis, it's now on this axis, and it's on the other axis, and you're thinking, oh, goodness gracious, what is going on? And nobody really stops to ask, What is really happening? Mainly because you're under duress.

You're under pressure.

You want to get stuff done.

You need to get stuff done.

This software release has a deadline.

Everybody's waiting for it.

You know, the system engineer for flight control systems or, you know, the embedded coders guys, the flight test team and so forth.