Topic: Don't forget to reboot your 787

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

“We have been advised by Boeing of an issue identified during laboratory testing,” the directive says. That issue sees “The software counter internal to the generator control units (GCUs) will overflow after 248 days of continuous power, causing that GCU to go into failsafe mode.”

When the GCU is in failsafe mode it isn't making any power. That'll be bad news if all four of the GCUs aboard a 787 were powered up at the same time, because all will then shut down, “resulting in a loss of all AC electrical power regardless of flight phase.”

And presumably also turning the 787 into a brick with no power for its fly-by-wire systems, lighting, climate control or in-flight movies.

 

Hopefully the pilots learn each time they land or take off reboot one of the units. 

[Brush Wolf]

The real engineering blunder  is a high tech plane that doesn't automatically reboot the units.

[Nemesis]

On the ground.  I'm surprised they aren't powering down the whole system periodically but running it long enough to run into this issue in the first place.  But I don't know that much about how these planes operate their power and computer system so maybe this is a natural outgrowth of how they do things.