F-22 Software glitch

[BEagle]

Navigational software glitch forces Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors back to Hawaii, abandoning first foreign deployment to Japan.

See http://www.flightglobal.com/Home/Default.aspx

Hmmmm.......some rumours about the nav system being confused by the International Date Line and going "TILT - GAME OVER!"....:hmm:

[jwcook]

Dozerf22 on Fencecheck said this

As you can read on the site we experienced a problem on the deployment leg from Hawaii to Kadena. I thinks its funny since there are so many complicated things that it would be so simple as a line of software code and I believe it's going to be about that simple. Who would have thought, or caught, the software line of code that divided 180 by 0 when you cross the dateline from east to west?? Obviously some engineer never considered that! From my perspective its one of those little things you continue to work out of the system as it matures - they already have a fix in place and the contractor has people on the ground fixing it - to be quite honest, I think its a tremendous sucess story - why? A problem was discovered (expected in a new jet no matter what Raptor opponents will say, NO jet has ever been problem free nor will there ever be), and within a few days its identified and a fix is being put in place in the field, 5,000 miles away out in the field on an operational deployment - that sure seems like one heck'uva a feat to me! In fact, they're now working on the code to make sure we don't discover another "feature" like that to make sure it's good around the globe.

Cheers

[StbdD]

Guess they needed you "leading" them as per http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=260186 #4 :hmm:

"Tankers in the assault" go gettum tiger.

Bet they wish they had a tiger "lead" like you. So tell us what you would have done in that fighter..... oh, I forgot, you wouldn't have the slightest idea because you washed out of FJs.

There are those in the arena and those that really need to shut up.

Guess where retired tanker drivers that got busted out of FJ flying rank? (Hint: Tilt-Game Over)

[Tourist]

Ooooh! goood agressive banter!

[rudekid]

StbdD
Can you tell me how to edit posts without that 'last edited bit' pitching up at the bottom?
Obviously going to be a harsh banter day...:}

[arem]

now now girls, calm down - wrong time of the month?

[henry crun]

rudekid: Do your edit reasonably quickly and ignore the "Reason".

[Saintsman]

This reminds me of the Decca TANS originally fitted to the RAF Sea Kings. When flying west towards the Scilly Isles the TANS used to throw a wobbly. What had happened was it had run off the end of the map and started from the beginning, positioning itself off the coast of Kent.

Just a line of software......

[Lazer-Hound]

Apparently there was some sort of anti-US demo scheduled for the same time as the F22s were supposed to arrive and by virtue of this slight delay they managed to avoid it.

[SRAM]

Things don't change much, I remember the GPI6 in the flat iron needed a Black and Decker to change from 180E to 180W; so just down to Home Base then!

[Safeware]

from jwcook's post:
Who would have thought, or caught, the software line of code that divided 180 by 0 when you cross the dateline from east to west??
erm, any self-respecting software engineer? :}
any decent software development process? :(
sw

[BEagle]

StbdD, you are indeed showing your complete ignorance of force extension operations.

When a tanker trails receivers, the tanker captain is the formation leader. Period. This is particularly true when a cell of tankers leads a number of receivers.

For example, on Night 1 of GW1, the lead tanker captain of the 3 x VC10K and 8 x Tornado formation was the formation leader until the cast-off point. That's the way it still is.

May I recommend ATP-56A, UK AARNIs and ATP-56B draft for some light bedtime reading. Which, in your case, is probably at around 1900?

"There are those in the arena and those that really need to shut up." - quite so, so why don't you follow your own advice and do so?

[MostlyHarmless]

Didn't some F jets of some kind have a similar problem when they dropped low over the dead sea? Jet had a kinda hissy-fit that they were flying underground - or is this another urban myth?

Still, nice to see that a critical mil-spec piece of software has gone thru all that expensive, rigourous testing :hmm:

[BattlerBritain]

Don't know if anybody's seen this but it appears that F-22's deploying to Okinawa suffered a major nav system software glitch when crossing the International date line.

References are at Aviation Week:
http://www.avionews.com/index.php?corpo=see_news_home.php&news_id=73913&pagina_chiamante=corpo%3Dindex.php

and at:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/25/2038217&from=rss
Sorry if the last reference appears a bit blogg-ish, but it's the only one I could find with decent detail of the event.

Cheers,

Battler

[Double Zero]

Why am I not surprised ?!

When the Sea Harriers were deployed to the Falklands, the INS toppled as no-one had tried it South of the equator !

[Wader2]

Bet they wished they had kept Upper Heyford too. Lakenheath may be a meridian too far.:}

[Mr C Hinecap]

There was a similar issue with one of their earlier aircraft years ago - crossing the equator I believe the nav system got confused. These things happen with complex software - especially when at the limits or beyond development areas.

[Confucius]

There was a similar issue with one of their earlier aircraft years ago - crossing the equator I believe the nav system got confused. These things happen with complex software - especially when at the limits or beyond development areas.

Maybe they shouldn't have woken the nav up so suddenly, it's easy to become disoriented after one's been asleep for a while.

[Double Zero]

In the case of the Sea Harrier, if some far-sighted individual had said, " I know, let's see if the thing works in one of our dependency regions, say the Falklands" the bean counters even in those days would have been onto it in a flash.

" Some B----d's trying to generate a luxury jolly !"

[High_lander]

Its relatively old news.

They're out in Japan, and have been for a week, maybe more.

12/14 out there. They stopped over in Hawaii on the way over. Not all bad then!?!:}

[henry crun]

BattlerBritain: You could have read it here first.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=264270

[BattlerBritain]

Thanks for that link.

I did do a Search here for F-22 to see if it had been posted before and the Search came back with nothing.

Oh Well!

[Confucius]

I did do a Search here for F-22 ... and ... came back with nothing.

That's stealth technology for you.

[whiz]

Why am I not surprised ?!

When the Sea Harriers were deployed to the Falklands, the INS toppled as no-one had tried it South of the equator !



Wasnt the INS topple caused by trying to align the system on a moving deck hence the the corporate mod to RAF GR3s?

[ExRAFRadar]

Bit late to the thread but I am amazed in that in the days of 'Coalition' aircraft flying all over the world delivering the democracy message that the latest Gucci kit had a meltdown over crossing the date line.....

They should have fired up FS2004 to test it :)

[antipodean alligator]

Glory Days!
Reminds me of the Litton 14A in the old F-111C Classics - We used to watch the analogue Lat/Long readouts (like an old car odometer) as we appraoched both the equator and date line; praying that they would cope with changing from South to North or East to West.
Too long spinning along in the 1 hemisphere made for worn out cogs!

[Wrathmonk]

Are you seriously telling me that the SHARs had never been south of the equator prior to their 1982 jolly?

So much for global carrier ops!

Where is WEBF when you need him!:E

[Double Zero]

Whiz,

The GR3 had a different system; that was the one requiring the mod' to use on deck - ie unusual territory ( though the idea seemed to have been up someone's sleeve before the Falklands actually happened, or it was come up with amazingly quickly ).

[whiz]

Double Zero
I believe the corporate mod to RAF Gr3s entailed slaving the INAS system to the ships onboard nav equipment to prevent system topple. Apparently the ships movement - not only pitch and roll - but actual course, prevented the system aligning correctly, ie insert lat/long of present position and by the time the system was ready to use the boat would have sailed a few miles further thus screwing up the co-ords.
Amazing what you can trawl up on PPRuNe http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-146822.html

[TheHogwartsBEngO]

on a similar theme (all apologies if mentioned before):

A hapless US Air Force pilot had to be physically cut free from the cockpit of his F-22A Raptor when the canopy resolutely refused to open, Flight International reports.
The mini-drama unfolded on 10 April at the 27th Fighter Squadron's base at Langley AFB, Virginia, when the canopy "became stuck in the down and locked position and could not be opened manually after the pilot cycled the mechanism several times, following a pre-flight warning that the canopy was unlocked".
Accordingly, an emergency team of ground operatives moved in after five hours and attacked the $134m Raptor with a decidedly unstealthy and low-tech chainsaw with which they unceremoniously sawed open (http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/04/25/Navigation/177/204883/Pictures+Pilot+trapped+for+5h+in+cockpit+of+USAF%27s+new+$13 5m+F-22A+Raptor+after+canopy.html) the offending canopy. The estimated repair bill is a whopping $180,000.
The F-22 Raptor was rolled out (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/28/fighter_jet_fa22/) a couple of years ago after 19 years in development. The US military and makers Lockheed Martin wasted little time in trumpeting the beast's awesome capabilities, as LM's blurb (http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11174&rsbci=0&fti=126&ti=0&sc=400) demonstrates:
No fighter in the world comes close to matching the F-22. By every measure, the Raptor represents extraordinary breakthroughs in manoeuverability, stealth, sensor fusion - a wealth of parameters that define a new era in fighter capability.
Ahem. The breathless eulogy concludes: "With the F-22, the era of US air dominance - against all ground and air-based threats - has begun."
Yes indeed. We look forward to the rumoured sequel to Top Gun which will feature Tom Cruise (http://www.theregister.com/2006/01/19/south_park_axed/) trapped for five hours in his F-22 after which Nicole Kidman rolls up to tell "Maverick": "Don't you think this has gone on long enough? It's time for you to come out of the cockpit. You're not fooling anyone."

[Double Zero]

Surely they didn't really use a chainsaw ?!

Then again with the U.S. system they could just go for the perspex, no M.D.C. to worry about I suppose.

Can't help thinking of the C.O.'s face when he hears " yessir, we're chainsawing it now..."

That'll teach him to leave his swiss army knife behind...or do they have sonic screwdrivers ?

Re. The Harrier INS alignment cart, I'm pretty sure there is a photo of it in John Godden's ' Ski Jump to Victory' - I'll try & find it.

[DelaneyT]

Navigational software glitch forces Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors back to Hawaii
....seems it was MUCH more than merely the 'navigation' system that failed -- the fortunate presence of good VMC weather (.. and the tankers) may have prevented loss of all aircraft. :uhoh:

Apparently the pilots lost all attitude-reference for safe IMC flight/landing, as well as significant loss of fuel-system controls and communications.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6225

[Rigex]

D Z

Oh yes they did!

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20396

[Zoom]

Re INS shipborne alignments, wasn't that why the F-4K didn't have INS fitted.

[antipodean alligator]

I'm sure that the shipboard alignment concept wasn't invented in a day for the GR3s. It was by then an old concept...The Litton 14A (the original 1960's F-111 INS) had a sea align switch for just such and event ... a legacy of the ill-fated USN F-111B model.

[Double Zero]

As Whiz points out in his link to John Farley's article on GR3 INS alignment carts on ship, someone had worked it out well before the Falklands erupted, as I'd always thought.

When it was all going on, we were flat-out night & day at Dunsfold on other mod's , and no doubt various sub-contractors were too; we were much later told by then Test Pilot Steve Thomas, " none of it reached us before it was all over ", though I'm not sure if that includes the AIM9L fit for the GR3's, will have to refer back on that - age creeping on !

www.harrier.org.uk (http://www.harrier.org.uk)

is well worth a look.

[BEagle]

DelaneyT, yes, good to see that the tankers led the ailing Raptors home safely.....

Incidentally, the potential problems caused by over midnight and/or dateline operations have already been taken into account in the 21st Century Tanker's Mission Computer System!

And I don't mean some Boeing aeroplane yet to enter service!

[Exrigger]

Double Zero at least three Tornados (one Gr at Honington that had a nose wheel collapse and the canopy was jammed by a slightly bent nose section) have had crew cut out using whatever saw was in the fire sections crash kit (Coningsby was where the others were) and the Typhoon rescue data module also has a cutting procedure for the canopy transparency after the couple of other options fail.

[Double Zero]

Exrigger,

Sounds very reasonable in event of a bent airframe - I used to traipse along and photo' the Dunsfold Fire / Rescue team, who'd won awards & impressed the hell out of me ( difficult to film in a smoke filled room but I got other exploits ).

I should have thought there'd be a plan for cutting hoods, just

A; has it really come to that, re. cost etc,

B, The MDC which must be a worry on UK style a/c - I've flown in Hawks, and apart from being briefed to get out sooner rather than later, if I'd ended up on the deck in a bent airframe would have been very tempted to blow the canopy rather than have a chainsaw coming through at neck level - after all the chap with the saw might owe me a pint & be trying to get out of it !

[Neptunus Rex]

As I recall, the Nimrod MR1 suffered only one serious quirk when crossing the equator southbound. The navigation systems performed flawlessly and "George" flew her smoothly, thus allowing King Neptune to convene his court, with proper ceremony, in the galley, where the yoofs on the crew would pay homage. Suitable tribute, in the form of a tincture or twain for the old hands, would be paid after landing.
Cheers,
Neppy
:cool:

[psy clops]

Similar thing happened when the GR4 went south for the first time to play in Ex Pitch Black. The map turned upside down and then tracked from right to left. Very confusing.

I seem to remember that there was some bizarre fix like selecting the FLIR off and on 3 times or something. Don't think it included cycling the TACAN...

[flown-it]

I thought the Buc had some sort of INS. If that was indeed the case, then shipboard INS alignment is over 40 yrs old.

[BEagle]

Buccaneer with INS??

Oh dear me, no. Just a GPI and the skill of the rear-seater!