the.com/avionics
The science of making metal believe it can fly and then proving it right.
means The design and engineering of electronic systems used in aircraft and spacecraft, covering everything from navigation and communication to flight control.
from A 20th-century blend of 'aviation' and 'electronics,' coined as cockpits filled with radios, radar, and computers that needed a name of their own — a portmanteau born the way many technical words are, by jamming two fields together once they'd fused in practice.
- term origin
- Blend of aviation and electronics, coined 1940s
- redundancy obsession
- Critical systems triplicated so one failure means nothing
- cost reality
- Often worth more than the plane carrying it
- fly by wire
- Pilots now suggest moves, computers actually decide