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Aviation

June 2024 (1887 Words, 11 Minutes)

WTF Happened to Aviation in 1971?

In 1971, the world of aviation experienced a paradigm shift that had lasting impacts on the industry. This year marked significant changes in global economics, technological advancements, and geopolitical dynamics, all of which influenced aviation development. To understand the profound changes in aviation post-1971, it is crucial to delve into the reasons behind the development of iconic projects like the Concorde, the booming state of aviation before 1971, and the subsequent slowdown in progress due to economic and industrial shifts.

The Boom of Aviation Pre-1971

Before 1971, aviation was on an exponential growth trajectory. The development of jet engines, advancements in aerodynamics, and the introduction of commercial jetliners like the Boeing 707 revolutionized air travel. The aviation industry thrived on innovation, with significant investments from both commercial entities and government bodies. Projects such as the Concorde, the supersonic passenger airliner developed by British and French aerospace companies, were born out of this era of optimism and technological ambition.

The Concorde symbolized the pinnacle of commercial aviation, promising to cut transatlantic flight times by half with speeds exceeding Mach 2.

The Fiat Money Shift of 1971

However, 1971 was a watershed year due to the Nixon Administration’s decision to abandon the Bretton Woods system, transitioning to fiat money. This shift had profound economic implications, leading to increased inflation and altered investment patterns. The reliance on fiat money changed the landscape of industrial funding, with a notable increase in government and military spending at the expense of commercial ventures.

The military-industrial complex gained unprecedented influence, directing funds towards defense and military projects. As a result, commercial aviation players struggled to secure the necessary investments for continued innovation and development. The high costs associated with cutting-edge aviation projects became a significant barrier, stalling the progress that had characterized the previous decades.

Commercial Aviation post-1971

However, despite advancements in technology, the pace of new commercial aviation projects slowed significantly after 1971. The transition to a fiat monetary system incentivized increased government and military spending, making it challenging for commercial aviation ventures to secure the necessary funding. As a result, the high costs and economic environment hindered the viability and development speed of new commercial aviation projects.

Aviation Design Standards - Ensuring Safe Innovation

Avitation standards require aviation developments to undergo extensive testing, validation, and certification processes. While this can slow the pace of innovation, it ensures that new technologies are safe and reliable, preventing catastrophic failures. The rigorous processes demonstrate that safe system engineering development is possible, albeit requiring meticulous planning and execution.

Aviation systems engineers use these standards to ensure the safe development of airborne systems, with the level of development effort being proportional to the safety hazards involved.

DO-178 (Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification)

DO-178 focuses on the software aspects of airborne systems, specifying processes for development and verification to ensure safety and reliability. Aviation systems engineers use this standard to:

• Software Planning: Engineers define the objectives, standards, and processes for software development. This includes identifying the software’s criticality level, which determines the rigor of the development and verification processes.
• Development and Testing: Engineers ensure software functionality and safety through meticulous development and rigorous testing. This involves unit testing, integration testing, and system testing to verify that the software performs as intended under all conditions.
• Certification: Engineers demonstrate compliance with safety requirements through comprehensive documentation and testing results. This includes providing evidence of compliance with DO-178 guidelines and ensuring that all software anomalies are documented and resolved.

DO-254 (Design Assurance Guidance for Airborne Electronic Hardware)

DO-254 provides guidance for the development of electronic hardware in airborne systems, ensuring these components meet stringent safety criteria. Aviation systems engineers use this standard to:

• Planning: Engineers establish the processes and standards for hardware development. This includes defining the hardware’s criticality level, which influences the depth of analysis and testing required.
• Design and Implementation: Engineers create and integrate reliable hardware components. This involves detailed design activities, including schematic capture, layout design, and component selection, followed by implementation through manufacturing.
• Verification: Engineers conduct extensive testing to validate hardware performance and safety. This includes various tests such as environmental testing, stress testing, and functional testing to ensure the hardware meets all specified requirements.

ARP-4761 (Guidelines and Methods for Conducting the Safety Assessment Process on Civil Airborne Systems and Equipment)

ARP-4761 offers methodologies for conducting safety assessments, ensuring potential hazards are identified and mitigated throughout the development process. Aviation systems engineers use this standard to:

• Safety Planning: Engineers define the safety assessment process and objectives. This involves outlining the scope of the safety assessment and establishing a plan for hazard identification and risk mitigation.
• Hazard Analysis: Engineers identify and analyze potential hazards. This includes performing Functional Hazard Assessments (FHA), Preliminary System Safety Assessments (PSSA), and System Safety Assessments (SSA) to identify hazards and assess their impact.
• Mitigation Strategies: Engineers implement measures to mitigate identified risks. This involves developing and applying safety measures such as redundancy, fail-safes, and protective features to reduce the likelihood and severity of hazardous events.

Parallels to Bitcoin Development

The stringent processes in aviation can be likened to the development of critical digital infrastructure, such as Bitcoin. Bitcoin, considered one of the most critical financial innovations, requires similar levels of assurance for security and reliability. Just as aviation standards like DO-178 and ARP-4754 aim to prevent catastrophic failures, Bitcoin development must adhere to strict protocols to avoid vulnerabilities and maintain system integrity.

Software and Hardware Development for Safety Critical Software and Hardware.

In aviation, Design Assurance Level (DAL) A represents the highest level of criticality, where failures could result in catastrophic consequences. Developing DAL A software and hardware requires an extraordinary level of rigor and thoroughness, akin to the requirements for Bitcoin’s core development.

For DAL A software under DO-178, the process involves:

• Requirements Traceability: Every software requirement must be traceable to system requirements and subsequently to the design and implementation. This ensures that all requirements are met and verified.
• Code Review and Analysis: Code must be reviewed and analyzed extensively to ensure compliance with safety and performance standards. This includes static code analysis, formal methods, and peer reviews.
• Testing: Testing DAL A software involves multiple levels, including unit testing, integration testing, and system testing. Additionally, tests must be documented and provide evidence of compliance.
• Verification of Requirements Coverage: All requirements must be verified through testing, analysis, or inspection to ensure complete coverage and validation.

For DAL A hardware under DO-254, similar rigor is applied:

• Requirements Definition and Traceability: Detailed requirements are defined and traced through design, implementation, and testing phases.
• Design Assurance: The hardware design process includes detailed design reviews, simulations, and analyses to ensure that the design meets all requirements.
• Environmental and Stress Testing: Hardware components undergo extensive testing under various environmental conditions and stress scenarios to validate their performance and reliability.
• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA): Engineers conduct FMEA to identify potential failure modes, their causes, and effects on the system, implementing mitigation strategies to address identified risks.

Applying Rigorous Processes to Bitcoin Development

Bitcoin development requires levels of rigor similar to those in aviation to ensure its security and reliability, given its critical role in the financial system. Just as Design Assurance Level (DAL) A represents the highest level of criticality in aviation, making changes to Bitcoin Core (Layer 1) demands intense processes and thorough testing to prevent catastrophic bugs. Layer 2 development could follow DAL B standards to avoid introducing hazardous bugs, and Layer 3 could be aligned with less critical standards. Key processes include:

Layer 1 development: (i.e. Bitcoin Core)

• Requirement Specification: Clearly defining the requirements and objectives of Bitcoin protocol changes or new features, similar to the meticulous planning required for DAL A systems in aviation.
• Code Review: Implementing thorough code review processes involving multiple experts to ensure that proposed changes meet security and performance standards, akin to the rigorous code reviews in aviation software development.
• Testing: Conducting extensive testing, including unit tests, integration tests, and simulations of various scenarios, to validate the functionality and security of changes. This is comparable to the multiple levels of testing required for DAL A software and hardware in aviation.
• Formal Verification: Applying formal methods to verify the correctness of critical components, ensuring they perform as intended under all conditions. This mirrors the formal verification processes used in aviation to ensure the safety and reliability of critical systems.
• Documentation and Peer Review: Maintaining comprehensive documentation of changes and conducting peer reviews to provide transparency and additional scrutiny, similar to the extensive documentation and review processes in aviation certification.

Layer 2 development: (i.e. Lightining protocol) which builds on the core protocol, can be likened to DAL B standards in aviation. It requires rigorous but slightly less stringent processes compared to Layer 1. This includes:

• Requirement Specification: Defining objectives and requirements for Layer 2 features or protocols.
• Code Review and Testing: Conducting thorough code reviews and comprehensive testing to ensure functionality and security.
• Documentation and Review: Ensuring proper documentation and review processes to maintain transparency and security.

Layer 3 development: (i.e Cash App, Square) involving less critical applications built on top of Layers 1 and 2, can follow standards similar to DAL C or lower, focusing on:

• Requirement Specification: Defining less critical but still necessary objectives and requirements.
• Code Review and Testing: Implementing code review and testing processes appropriate for the lower criticality level.
• Documentation and Peer Review: Maintaining documentation and conducting peer reviews to ensure quality and functionality.

Parallels to Bitcoin Development

Bitcoin Core (Layer 1) development is analogous to DAL A in aviation, where failures could have catastrophic consequences. Therefore, changes to Bitcoin Core must undergo rigorous processes to ensure security and stability. This involves extensive requirement specification, thorough code reviews, rigorous testing, formal verification, and comprehensive documentation and peer review.

Layer 2 solutions, such as the Lightning Network, can be compared to DAL B standards in aviation. While less critical than Layer 1, Layer 2 still requires a high level of assurance to prevent hazardous bugs. This includes detailed requirement specification, robust code review and testing, and thorough documentation and review processes.

Layer 3 applications, which might include various user interfaces or auxiliary services, can follow standards akin to DAL C or lower. These developments are less critical but still require structured processes to ensure they do not introduce significant issues into the system.

Both in aviation and Bitcoin, maintaining a balance between innovation and safety is crucial. Ensuring robust, methodical development processes can prevent catastrophic failures while still allowing for progress and improvement. By learning from aviation’s emphasis on safety and reliability, Bitcoin development can adopt similar principles to ensure the secure and reliable evolution of this critical digital infrastructure.

Conclusion

Implementing strict processes in open source software development is undoubtedly challenging, but it is feasible. The safe development of critical software is achievable under rigorous processes. Developing DAL A critical software is difficult in aviation, and it should be equally demanding for Bitcoin Core.

As the design assurance level drops, the risk shifts more towards applications built on top of Layer 1 rather than Bitcoin Core itself. For instance, a bug in Cash App or Strike could cause issues within those applications, but it would not compromise the integrity of Bitcoin Core. Consequently, the design assurance level for these applications is lower from the perspective of Bitcoin Core. However, companies like Cash App and Strike are likely to enforce high development standards to protect their business interests and financial investments.

It is easy to align with either ossification or pro-change perspectives on Bitcoin when the processes being used are not transparent. Bitcoin Core maintainers do a tremendous job ensuring the code is properly maintained. Implementing structured processes could benefit them by reducing pressure and preventing burnout. This would not only enhance the security and reliability of Bitcoin Core but also support its sustainable development.

By drawing parallels with aviation’s stringent standards, Bitcoin development can adopt similar principles to ensure the secure and reliable evolution of this critical digital infrastructure. The rigorous processes required for DAL A in aviation demonstrate that safe system engineering development is possible with meticulous planning and execution, and these principles can be applied to Bitcoin Core development to achieve the same level of assurance.