Also, the analysis of failure modes in http://www.sportaviationonline.org/sportaviation/201001#pg94 is interesting. It turns out that most things do not work behave like the "If you chart failures over time, you will almost always see some form of bell-shaped curve" alluded to in the article. In particular, a discouragingly large fraction fail shortly after being put into service.
First I thought the Waddington Effect would just be the usual inverse causality (broken planes require more maintenance, ergo planes receiving more maintenance are more likely to turn out to be the ones that break a lot). Turns out it's something different entirely. Interesting read.
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There are other interesting studies from WW2. "The Waddington Effect" describes the fact that the less maintenance was done on the airplanes, the less they broke: http://blog.aopa.org/opinionleaders/2014/01/14/the-waddingto...
Also, the analysis of failure modes in http://www.sportaviationonline.org/sportaviation/201001#pg94 is interesting. It turns out that most things do not work behave like the "If you chart failures over time, you will almost always see some form of bell-shaped curve" alluded to in the article. In particular, a discouragingly large fraction fail shortly after being put into service.
First I thought the Waddington Effect would just be the usual inverse causality (broken planes require more maintenance, ergo planes receiving more maintenance are more likely to turn out to be the ones that break a lot). Turns out it's something different entirely. Interesting read.
The Waddington Effect makes perfect sense. I know from making my own auto repairs that the first few hours after the repair are the riskiest :-)
This is one reason why Boeing has made huge efforts to reduce the required maintenance on airplanes.