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Lockheed's F-22 Raptor Gets Zapped by International Date Line
DailyTech LLC ^ | February 26, 2007 | Brandon Hill

Posted on 02/26/2007 2:47:19 PM PST by SubGeniusX

Six Lockheed F-22 Raptors have Y2K-esque glitch of their own over the Pacific

Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter in the world with its stealth capabilities, advanced radar, state of the art weapons systems and ultra-efficient turbofans which allow the F-22 to "supercruise" at supersonic speeds without an afterburner. The Raptor has gone up against the best that the US Air Force and Navy has to offer taking out F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18 Super Hornets during simulated war games in Alaska. The Raptor-led "Blue Air" team was able to rack up an impressive 241-to-2 kill ratio during the exercise against the "Red Air" threat -- the two kills on the blue team were from the 30-year old F-15 teammates and not the new Raptors.

But while the simulated war games were a somewhat easy feat for the Raptor, something more mundane was able to cripple six aircraft on a 12 to 15 hours flight from Hawaii to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The U.S. Air Force's mighty Raptor was felled by the International Date Line (IDL).

When the group of Raptors crossed over the IDL, multiple computer systems crashed on the planes. Everything from fuel subsystems, to navigation and partial communications were completely taken offline. Numerous attempts were made to "reboot" the systems to no avail.

Luckily for the Raptors, there were no weather issues that day so visibility was not a problem. Also, the Raptors had their refueling tankers as guide dogs to "carry" them back to safety. "They needed help. Had they gotten separated from their tankers or had the weather been bad, they had no attitude reference. They had no communications or navigation," said Retired Air Force Major General Don Shepperd. "They would have turned around and probably could have found the Hawaiian Islands. But if the weather had been bad on approach, there could have been real trouble.”

"The tankers brought them back to Hawaii. This could have been real serious. It certainly could have been real serious if the weather had been bad," Shepperd continued. "It turned out OK. It was fixed in 48 hours. It was a computer glitch in the millions of lines of code, somebody made an error in a couple lines of the code and everything goes."

Luckily for the pilots behind the controls of the Raptors, they were not involved in a combat situation. Had they been, it could have been a disastrous folly by the U.S. Air Force to have to admit that their aircraft which cost $125+ million USD apiece were knocked out of the sky due to a few lines of computer code. "And luckily this time we found out about it before combat. We got it fixed with tiger teams in about 48 hours and the airplanes were flying again, completed their deployment. But this could have been real serious in combat," said Shepperd.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerospace; f22; military; programming; raptor; russia; space; sukhoi
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To: narby

±190°????


141 posted on 02/26/2007 8:48:27 PM PST by null and void (Let's play 6° of global warming...)
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To: narby

LOL! Like its never happened to us...


142 posted on 02/26/2007 8:50:19 PM PST by null and void (Let's play 6° of global warming...)
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To: ralph rotten
It is very hard to understand how this could get out of the house.

That's the way it always seems with the benefit of hindsight. As was already mentioned, if they cut the testing requirements...

143 posted on 02/26/2007 9:16:00 PM PST by Tallguy
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To: Garvin

LOL!


144 posted on 02/26/2007 9:20:20 PM PST by 2111USMC
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To: SubGeniusX
Sorry this story sounds like total bullshit...
145 posted on 02/26/2007 9:32:21 PM PST by tophat9000 (Al-Qaidacrats =A new political party combining the anti American left and the anti Semite right)
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To: SubGeniusX
>>>...follow up with his reaction and insight after your next breakfast .... <<<

Done - probably by Friday.

146 posted on 02/26/2007 9:59:12 PM PST by HardStarboard (The Democrats are more afraid of American Victory than Defeat!)
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To: Schwaeky
"That was in Washington State, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge...

I stand corrected Schwaeky. Thanks.

147 posted on 02/26/2007 10:55:06 PM PST by Desron13 (If you constantly vote between the lesser of two evils then evil is your ultimate destination.)
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To: Ramius
Uh... this sounds like an urban legend to me. The dateline appears on maps, not in the air.

If the onboard software uses GPS to calculate local time, that could have a ripple effect. It does seem odd, though, that the subsystem displaying local time -- which is a luxury, not a necessity, as Zulu time works fine -- would be tied to the other code intimately enough to bring critical systems down.

148 posted on 02/26/2007 11:03:04 PM PST by ReignOfError (`)
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To: SubGeniusX

So is the change in start and end dates for DST going to ground the entire fleet?

Seriesly, congress meddling around in things like this are going to be HUGELY expensive...

We've got nearly 200 Windows servers (and one Novell server - that one's going to be trivial to fix) and some 2500 workstations. The servers will be easy, as will about 200 of the workstations. Being in an AD domain, using group policies will take care of it. But the rest of the workstations are at remote sites, and for security reasons are NOT members of the domains... So someone's going to have to run a regedit batch file or TZEDIT.EXE on every one of them! That works out to a whole lot of "No Fun!"

Mark


149 posted on 02/26/2007 11:09:11 PM PST by MarkL (When Kaylee says "No power in the `verse can stop me," it's cute. When River says it, it's scary!)
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To: narby

Question: If the enemy was able to knock out all operating satellites in the area of operations how well would the F22 hold up?


150 posted on 02/26/2007 11:44:34 PM PST by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* ?I love you guys?)
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To: MarkL
Being in an AD domain, using group policies will take care of it.

Certainly a lot easier than being in a BC domain. Just try making that switchover with only stone or bronze tools!

151 posted on 02/27/2007 1:09:56 AM PST by ReignOfError (`)
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To: SubGeniusX
They must have some Microsoft software on the Raptor....
152 posted on 02/27/2007 1:16:08 AM PST by Sprite518
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To: Steve Van Doorn
Question: If the enemy was able to knock out all operating satellites in the area of operations how well would the F22 hold up?

If we were fighting an enemy who could knock out all the satellites serving the area. we'd be in pretty deep trouble on a lot of levels. But with, or maybe even without, nearby carrier or AWACS control and coordination, the F-22 can still outfly anything else in the air by a wide margin.

October before last, I went to the Air and Space Museum's new annex at Dulles for the first time. While there, I picked a copy of the museum's magazine. One of the articles was about the first F-22 squadron, which was thrilled that there would soon be a second F-22 squadron it could hold exercises with -- picking off other planes was beginning to bore them.

153 posted on 02/27/2007 1:17:06 AM PST by ReignOfError (`)
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To: lowbridge

Get a new job. I worked with that company (those companies) for years and they were always first class.


154 posted on 02/27/2007 1:42:19 AM PST by Beckwith (The dhimmicrats and liberal media have chosen sides and they've sided with the Jihadists.)
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To: glorgau

"'Yep, complete regression testing is an impossibility with systems of any complexity."

Thats not what I said. I said that complex systems frequently have bugs that find their way thru the process.

But I suppose all your code is perfect as written.


155 posted on 02/27/2007 3:18:41 AM PST by driftdiver
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To: Sprite518

"They must have some Microsoft software on the Raptor"

Probably, if it were mac it would only look pretty and throw snide comments about.


156 posted on 02/27/2007 3:21:07 AM PST by driftdiver
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To: HardStarboard; Doohickey
Definitely, defintely ask both of them.

Approach this story from the "I heard about this weird urban legend on the internet ...."

They'll either immediately confirm it as hoax (we hope) or will start off on a series of tales (er, sea stories) that will really make you scared.
157 posted on 02/27/2007 3:28:24 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: narby

Would make it "fun" to have a combat air patrol/dogfight over the Baring (-1, sp) Strait.


158 posted on 02/27/2007 3:30:19 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: PAR35
Wasn't this the same company that didn't know the difference between metric and British units of measure?


Nah.

That was a NASA/JPL (between the labs) problem.
159 posted on 02/27/2007 3:32:43 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: SubGeniusX
The Raptor-led "Blue Air" team was able to rack up an impressive 241-to-2 kill ratio during the exercise against the "Red Air" threat

In a real war the MSM would still score this a defeat.

160 posted on 02/27/2007 3:32:48 AM PST by sphinx
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