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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: Paleo Conservative

Do these planes really have nothing"analog" on them for back-up at least?

This seems too stupid.


21 posted on 02/26/2007 3:06:23 PM PST by brooklin
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To: SubGeniusX

Uh... this sounds like an urban legend to me. The dateline appears on maps, not in the air.

I can't see how it would have any effect whatsoever.


22 posted on 02/26/2007 3:06:31 PM PST by Ramius ([sip])
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To: SubGeniusX
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.

Cylons infiltrated the US defense dept.

23 posted on 02/26/2007 3:06:42 PM PST by staytrue
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To: fremont_steve

"There is a story about the F16 flipping to inverted flight after crossing the date line from years back."

I remember reading one notice on the bulletin board of an fighter doing an uncommanded loop shortly before final approach.

Whats more concerning is that this info was released. Shouldn't this be a secret?


24 posted on 02/26/2007 3:07:14 PM PST by driftdiver
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To: SubGeniusX
Sorry, I do not believe this quite.
25 posted on 02/26/2007 3:07:20 PM PST by Candor7
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To: Nathan Zachary
Remember that bridge in California that looked like it would last for the next two hundred years but came down disastrously in the first severe wind storm due to unforeseen harmonics built into it's most basic structure?
26 posted on 02/26/2007 3:07:41 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: JRios1968

LOL!
The blue screen of death strikes again.


27 posted on 02/26/2007 3:07:54 PM PST by darkangel82 (Socialism is NOT an American value.)
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To: SubGeniusX; Cyber Liberty; patton; theDentist
Cool!

I love errors like this ... that get resolved by eyesite and VFR tactics.....

Sobering. Very, very sobering.

But remember, had this been a even more difficult mission (in space, trying to take out a colliding asteroid (remember the multiple errors that have wiped out several Martian and Venusian unmanned flights), or an uncomplicated military like stopping a plain merchant ship from mining LA harbor (oops - the China own that one, and THEY won't let it be mined) or Panama (nope, Chinese own that one too) or .....

People's flexibility, if they're properly trained - Armstrong flew the lunar lander away from boulders at the pre-programmed site! - can make up for many computer errors.
28 posted on 02/26/2007 3:08:42 PM 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

Got to hate it when this happens. Some low level programmer may have sent a memo on this problem five years ago and got his ears pinned back for thanks.


29 posted on 02/26/2007 3:08:46 PM PST by RightWhale (300 miles north of Big Wild Life)
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To: SubGeniusX
You switched to a MAC in '98 then?

Nope!

Just pure old reliable Windows, then Win2000 Pro and XP-Pro.

What's a MAC, by the way?
30 posted on 02/26/2007 3:09:42 PM PST by adorno
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To: staytrue

By Your Command...


31 posted on 02/26/2007 3:09:48 PM PST by sevenbak
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To: SubGeniusX
And we thought Y2K was nonsense.......
32 posted on 02/26/2007 3:09:52 PM PST by b4its2late (Liberalism is a hollow log and a mental disorder.)
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To: SubGeniusX

I have always carried a handheld GPS when I flew since they were made available.

It's awfully nice to have something that the aircraft and avionics designer don't know about!

Having said that, I hope they at least had a standby horizon!


33 posted on 02/26/2007 3:10:13 PM PST by BillM
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To: Ramius

It's amazing how people will believe anything they read, even if it is just on some blog.


34 posted on 02/26/2007 3:11:02 PM PST by Ramius ([sip])
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To: Candor7
Sorry, I do not believe this quite.

Now that you mention it, isn't this what "Zulu Time" is for? Once in flight it seems that the only time that is relevant is GMT (Zulu). Am I right?

35 posted on 02/26/2007 3:11:40 PM PST by Tallguy
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To: Zeroisanumber
Does Russia still produce MIGs with vacumn tubes in the circuitry? The idea was to keep the fighters airborne in case of EMP.
36 posted on 02/26/2007 3:11:50 PM PST by buckalfa
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To: Greystoke
You don't have Vista yet do you?

Not yet! But I'm pretty sure that both you and I will have it on our computers within 1 or 2 years.
37 posted on 02/26/2007 3:12:08 PM PST by adorno
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To: adorno

My Mac? My mac is the the fastest windows machine I've ever tried!


38 posted on 02/26/2007 3:12:23 PM PST by sevenbak
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To: JRios1968
>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

I could have told them
Google's net avionics
didn't come complete

with all the bells and
whistles as the Microsoft
real stand-alone apps!

39 posted on 02/26/2007 3:13:08 PM PST by theFIRMbss
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To: SubGeniusX; phantomworker; COEXERJ145; microgood; liberallarry; cmsgop; shaggy eel; RayChuang88; ...
I thought issues like this were supposed to be discovered on the test bed. Someone's got some splainin' to do.

If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail.


40 posted on 02/26/2007 3:13:59 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
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