It’s been about 12 million years since most of us last used a floppy disk, but apparently ancient technology still plays a critical role in delivering software updates to Boeing’s 747-400 aircraft.
The discovery comes with courtesy from cybersecurity company Pen Test Partners and was initially detected by The register. As part of this virtual DEF CON hacker conference, Pen Test Partners showed a video force of a British Airways 747 after the airline decided to her entire fleet retired last month due to the global pandemic. The roughly 10-minute tour is a clean look at the airplane’s rarely seen avionics bay and cockpit – where Pen Test Partners discovered a 3.5-inch floppy disk.
Apparently, the drive is the loader of the 747 navigation database and needs to be updated every 28 days. Like in, some bad engineer has to visit every 747-400 and update updates … if the planes can’t fly. And it’s not just the 747s. May of edge, the majority of Boeing 737s are also updated via floppy disks. Operators these aircraft, according to a 2014 Aviation Today report, have binders full of diskettes for “all the avionics they need.” This includes important information such as airports, runways, flight paths and waypoints used by pilots to make flight plans. It also sounds terribly inefficient, because while some systems may require only one diskette of updates, others may require as many as eight disks.
You would think that in the six years since 2014, someone would have invented a way to bring the aviation industry into the 21st century. Surprisingly, in Aviation Today report notes that even by 2020, a “significant number of airlines are still using floppy disks for loading software parts.”
To be honest, the 747-400 is a old plane which took place 32 years ago in 1988 32 years ago, when floppies reigned supreme. These days, however, floppy disks are mostly relegated to maintain commercial and industrial legacy systemsThings that were built to last, but failed to make themselves future-proof or were not easily replaced. For example, it was not until last year that the U.S. Army stop using 8-inch diskettes to help manage them nuclear weapon system. In 2018, diskette actually sold out came up when small indie music labels turned to the 3.5-inch floppy at the height of the vaporwave trend.
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But going back to airplanes modern is not always better. The Boeing 737 Max, for example, featured advanced software systems, but glitches result in two terrible accidents that killed 346 passengers, leading Boeing to stop production to the line at the end of last year. However another software problem with the 737, Max was found in February, and after more than a year off the ground of the Boeing aircraft just restart production in May. Conversely, although the Boeing 747-400 is no longer in production, only two have ever been involved in passenger deaths over 8.42 million flights, per Airsafe.com.
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