How's the navigation system in your fighter plane working?

[janneppi]

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/02/25/2038217.shtml

"The new US stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, was deployed for the first time to Asia earlier this month. On Feb. 11, twelve Raptors flying from Hawaii to Japan were forced to turn back when a software glitch crashed all of the F-22s' on-board computers as they crossed the international date line.
Call me crazy but shouldn't it be obvious that the planes cross different time zones? :p :

[Azumanga Davo]

Don't tell North Korea then. They might attack on a Leap Year day or something... :eek: :D

[BDunnell]

I should add that while this story might sound too bizarre to be true, it really did happen like that.

On a related issue, I think it is pretty disgraceful of the US Air Force to have said that the deployment in question was delayed because of security fears relating to Japanese peace protesters outside the base to which the F-22s were going.

[airshifter]

I should add that while this story might sound too bizarre to be true, it really did happen like that.

On a related issue, I think it is pretty disgraceful of the US Air Force to have said that the deployment in question was delayed because of security fears relating to Japanese peace protesters outside the base to which the F-22s were going.

If you had ever gone past the base in question, you wouldn't question security fears. I've never seen "peace protesters" with such high tech equipment. It is a common sight on the areas at the end of the various runways.

[BDunnell]

If you had ever gone past the base in question, you wouldn't question security fears. I've never seen "peace protesters" with such high tech equipment. It is a common sight on the areas at the end of the various runways.

No reason for blaming them for your own problems, though.

[tinchote]

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/02/25/2038217.shtml

Call me crazy but shouldn't it be obvious that the planes cross different time zones? :p :

Lousy programmer.

On second thought, the US tends to think that they are the world, so it is coherent that their computers think alike ;) :p :

[Daniel]

Could have saved all the bother just going to Japan the long way :mark:

[luvracin]

I should add that while this story might sound too bizarre to be true, it really did happen like that.

On a related issue, I think it is pretty disgraceful of the US Air Force to have said that the deployment in question was delayed because of security fears relating to Japanese peace protesters outside the base to which the F-22s were going.

It's called spin doctoring. It is a common practice employed in many areas of human activity in order to turn an embarrassing situation around in order to save face.

[BDunnell]

It's called spin doctoring. It is a common practice employed in many areas of human activity in order to turn an embarrassing situation around in order to save face.

I am well aware of that. It's still worth criticising.

[airshifter]

No reason for blaming them for your own problems, though.

I didn't find the link that had that comment, but I agree that if that was the case there was no need to blame it on the protesters.

They tend to protest everything in Okinawa other than the money.

[Skid Marx]

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/02/25/2038217.shtml

Call me crazy but shouldn't it be obvious that the planes cross different time zones? :p :

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it has nothing to do with time zones. American aircraft cross through multiple time zones all the time with no problem. The issue was more likely actually one of crossing the 180-degree longitude line, which the International Date Line is nearly coincident with (but not exactly!). Here's the deal: as you know, longitude starts at zero degrees at Greenwich, and the Eastern and Western hemispheres spread out from there. The two hemispheres meet at 180 degrees on the other side of the world. Now, the U.S. military has always used positive for eastern longitudes and negative for western longitudes, and their software systems have long been able to account for passing from one hemisphere to another (either East to West or West to East) at the Prime (or Greenwich) Meridian. However, there are systems which still have glitches when it comes to passing from one hemisphere to the other at 180 degrees. I know this from producing navigational charting products for the military. As recently as just over a year ago, they were still having problems with certain digital raster data products based on charts which spanned across the 180 boundary. They would basically have to produce two products from one chart, one for the eastern hemisphere portion and another for the western hemisphere portion. These problems had been reported to the makers of the software for the navigation system, but they had been working on a fix for a long time. I left that employer before, I think, a permanent solution had been found. What may have happened in this case is either the software fix was wrong and caused the crash, or bad data (hadn't been properly tested or quality checked) was introduced into the system, and the software didn't have an error handling routine capable of handling the problem and crashed instead.

[janvanvurpa]

It's called spin doctoring. It is a common practice employed in many areas of human activity in order to turn an embarrassing situation around in order to save face.

No it's more than that, it's outright lies, and as usual for particularly this country at this time, it seeks to place blame on others even when there is no real connection.

And since they have no sense of shame, when their lies are so illogical and transparent, they simply shug, or have apologists say "its spin doctoring".

No its more proof that some are so arrogant that something so obvious as the fact there are time zones didn't penetrate so idiot programmer, or his superiors , or his, right on thru the chain of command.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I read an article on this a while back. Don't they break when they go over the international date line? They should order Eurofighters instead? :p