Posted on 03/15/2007 4:35:28 PM PDT by IonImplantGuru
Recently, American F-22 fighters were sent, for the first time, across the Pacific, to Japan, for a training exercise. This would be the first time the aircraft would cross the International Date line, where it is tomorrow, and the aircraft's GPS and navigation software would handle the date change.
There were problems.
All off a sudden the software that ran the navigation and communications systems wasn't working too well. Being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, this was a problem. Some of the pilots were able to reboot their software and make the problem go away, but this did not always work, so all the aircraft turned around and returned to Hawaii. Those aircraft that still had malfunctioning navigation software, followed other aircraft back.
The contractor quickly found and fixed the problem (the routines for crossing the International Date Line, and changing the date, were not well thought out and tested.)
To quote Murphy's Law; "Whatever can go wrong, will, and at the worst possible time."
Should this be public information ?
U.S. Air Force fixes computer glitches in 87 F-22s
http://www.f-16.net/news_article2210.html
The six Raptors were participating in an inaugural 12-hour flight from Hawaii to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan on Feb. 10 when a "navigation anomaly" maimed several computer systems on the aircraft, an Air Force colonel said.
The computer glitch, which occurred as aircraft crossed the International Date Line, crippled navigation systems and hindered communications.
One pilot was able to contact contractor Lockheed Martin to troubleshoot the error during the flight, the Air Force said. Several pilots attempted to reboot the system with no success.
Luckily for the Raptors, there were no weather issues that day so visibility was not a problem which meant that with their refueling tankers as guide dogs, they were able to safely return to Hawaii.
This is such a petty NON-STORY.
Gosh, ban the program and go to a proved aircraft that has cleared the skies of all adversaries with grace.
Bring back the P-51 Mustang so we can once again be comforted in our quest for air superiority. /s
Gosh, petty is such a small word for this thread.... ; )
Incredible. Even for stationary computers like the one I am using now, all time and date calculations are done in Universal Coordinated Time. Any stored time stamps are in UTC. Conversion to local time is ONLY done at the very last for display. That way you don't get your time stamps out of order when daylight time ends in the fall, or you set your laptop to a different time zone. Your program is much simpler when you have a consistent frame of reference for everything.
Exercise: Look at the filetimes in any folder on your computer. Change your time zone. Look at those filetimes again. They're all displayed in the new local time. No fuss. Change your time zone back again. Same thing.
A nav system has to use a consistent time base internally. You can fly over the date line, over the poles, or over the date line near a pole, crossing ten time zones in a minute, turn around and cross directly over the pole and it just doesn't matter to your algorithm. Any other way is a big mess.
That's why I'm currently running an upgraded version of Windows ME on my desktop.
Then why did the planes have to turn around in mid flight?
Jeez, Sam! As an old FR hand, you - of all people - should have realized an implied /sarcasm with my 'how expensive' remark. I think the Raptor is a great plane; it's just that I can't believe the NAV system wasn't tested out more thoroughly - ESPECIALLY since a fatal flaw would be so expensive.
Goddard Space Flight Center just cut the cleaning people (I think in half) to save money in order to pay for the bureaucrats. It's going downhill fast. But we have the money for the Diversity Department to make us all VERY aware that it's "women's history" month this month. Homosexual pride month in July with parties, exhibits, etc. No money for janitorial service though.
High deflection, 1.7 G, no lead, nose low, flight path marker buried even lower, 179 ias, huge HCA, no energy . . .
Gun kill? I doubt it. Looks more like a stall recovery. Any bullets coming out of that airplane are going to the bottom of the screen.
Hornet was probably already a mort and Raptor was moving on to next target.
AA Cunningham keeps putting out that silly photo. Somebody explain to him what "lead" is - he seems unclear on the concept. Anybpdy can bunt a reticle dot on the target - it doesn't mean the bullets are going there. He just can't accept the fact that the Navy is stuck with old, non-stealthy aircraft. He should stop embarrassing himself.
That is a gross overstatement in the extreme.
I heard a story years ago when the Air Force was flying the B52 with nuclear bombs for attack against Russia.
They would reach their Fail Safe points and their compasses wouldn't work. There was no such thing as GPS. They needed a qualifed navigator who got them there to tell them where they were.
The Russians never attempted Polar routes. The closest they came was Greenland.
Perhaps someone knows the details better and would care to post.
"And these aircraft are HOW expensive?"
100 Million each. Then again, we spent how many billion to send a probe to Mars and they forgot to convert feet to meters?
Glad I never went back. Recommendation: Get out while you can.
Lol! Maybe it was Microsoft Bob?
Talked to F-15 and F-16 drivers at air show. Both agreed that in 1-1 fight F-15 v. F-16 in VFR, it would depend on pilot skill.
When asked how long they would survive v F-22, both answered "20 seconds."
Well put.
It was a dateline problem. LMT solved this problem long ago in the P3 program. They used to fly over and back across the dateline to verify everything worked correctly. I bet they just didnt have time to put this algorithm in the F-22 ... until this problem arose.
Then it was a quick fix to drop the algorithm into the avionics system. Problem solved.
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