Distributed systems offer efficient solutions to answer the requirements of embedded computers for aircraft industry. Indeed, performances and reliability can be considerably increased compared with existing computers. Today, such computers often rely on massively redundant architectures, but distributed architectures seem to be a great challenge for the aeronautic community. In this paper, we show the main advantages of distributed architectures and we describe which techniques can be used to get round their drawbacks when they are used for critical applications. To illustrate the overall characteristics of this future generation of systems, we present our new distributed control computer answering to aeronautical specifications, such as deterministic behaviour, fault-tolerance, powerful monitoring facilities for debug and maintenance.