Why some airplanes still rely on floppy disks

Jacobo Prisco has a piece in WIRED noting how some aircraft, including 747s, still rely on floppy disks for their software updates.

It is possible to upgrade from floppy disks to USB sticks, SD cards, or even wireless transfer, but doing so could cost thousands of dollars—and mean making a change to something that, while archaic, is known to work.

Clive Thompson, in his newsletter, leaves this commentary:

“While archaic, is known to work.” That final clause highlights why these floppy-disk-equipped 747s are a terrific object lesson in the challenges of embracing “cool new tech” in domains where error is super freaking bad. Pilots love flying older jets because they are well-known quantities; any bug or quirk was found out years ago. Do you really wanna gamble that the new data-transfer system for your 747 replicates data precisely as the old floppies did? I mean, it probably will. But, y’know, a 747 weighs 455 tons at takeoff; marginal errors matter.

Not a place for JavaScript I think.