Single vs. Twin

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by Jaywalker

...One guy insisted two engines were less reliable because you had twice the chance that one would break...

The probabilities are not causal or additive in the strictest sense.

Airplane Rule

Desert Island Fallacy

Interesting is...

A modern airplane requires only one out of the three (or four) engines to successfully operate during flight. The chance that a well-maintained engine fails is very small. Let the probability of engine failure during a 14 hour flight be 0.5 percent.
P(engine failure during 14 hour flight) = 0.005 What is the probability that an airplane, powered by four engines, will safely fly from Los Angeles to Sydney Australia? Flight time is 14 hours.
The plane will not make it to Sydney if all four engines would fail. The probability of that happening is quite small. Using the multiplication rule we get:
P(all four engines fail) = P(engine1 fails ∩ engine2 fails ∩ engine3 fails ∩ engine4 fails) = P(engine1 fails)•P(engine2 fails)•P(engine3 fails)•P(engine4 fails) = (0.005)4 = [5(10)-3 ]4 = 5(10)-12 = 0.000000000005
4
Compiled by Henry Posters
There are only five combinations of engines working/failing possible.
1. All four engines work, none fails
2. Three engines work, one fails
3. Two engines work, two fail
4. One engine works, three fail
5. All four engines fail
The sum of the probabilities of events one to five is 1. Hence, the probability that at least one engine works is 1 – P(all four engines fail) = 1 – 5(10)-12 = 1 – 0.000000000005 = 0.999999999995 or 99.9999999995 percent.
The probability that a modern day airplane will safely complete a 14-hour flight is extremely high.

[SV Maclas]

We had a friend that installed twin engines on his 50' sailboat. Now that was redundancy.

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by SV Maclas

We had a friend that installed twin engines on his 50' sailboat. Now that was redundancy.

Lovely boat!