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.
Crossed the line in June of 1986. Crossed the IDL in July of 86.
Bluenose? Elaborate, please. My addled brain needs help with that one.
Bluenose is for crossing the Arctic Circle, which is at about 66°30'n.
AND we have the DST issue comeing up ... Hope their software has been updated and tested!
Nothing earth shattering or gems of wisdom that would have overcome the situation.
The United pilot flew DC-10's from West coast to Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. He retired right on the cusp of GPS adoption by most airlines but United at the time did not want to make navigation dependent on an "outside" entity and stuck with an on-board Inertial Navigation system. His reaction was same as mine - except for the presence of the Tankers, we could have had a situation like the 6 Grumman Avengers disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle in 1947.
The F-4 jock just shook his head and said - "bring batteries"....for your own personal GPS system! The F-4 navigation was handled primarily by a "Tac-AN" (tactical aircraft navigation) radio system transmitted from the carrier. He said there was an on-board navigation computer but it was rarely used because it depended on too much input from pilot - such as estimated winds aloft and time on a given course. Essentially a dead-reckoning computer. The Tac-AN system was good for most of their requirements.
He and I speculated that if the tankers hadn't been there and the F-22's had gone down without a trace - would there have been as assumption of Chinese skullduggery....hey, they shot down a satellite, maybe they vectored the F-22's......you fill in the blanks.
That's about it - nothing earth shattering, but an interesting exercise none-the-less. Cheers....
I have a very good friend who is a Project Manager for a subcontractor for the F-22. They make aft booms, engine bay doors, bulkheads and side of body panels. She was quite gratified that it wasn't one of her babies that failed.
Thanks for the update ....
Get yer mind out of the gutter, Robert.
Yee-Haw!
I also rounded the Horn in 1988. I guess that makes me a lunatic.
What!? How is this even possible? A clock doesn't know where it is. A computer clock doesn't know where it is. It doesn't care if it passes between time zones. It doesn't know. This article makes no sense.
From what others have been saying on the thread .. it most likeley had to do with the +180/-180 degree latitude switch. that is also known as the IDL.
The guys at Initech are working on it.
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