Saturday, April 16, 2016

The F-35 Has A Serious Software Problem

A Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jet is seen in its hanger at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland October 28, 2015. REUTERS/GARY CAMERON

Martin Matishak, Fiscal Times: The F-35’s Billion-Dollar Brain Fails an IQ Test

The latest problem with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter? There might be something seriously wrong with the gold-plated aircraft’s brain.

A Government Accountability Office report released Thursday raises concerns about the jet's $16.7 billion Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). The software is essentially the brain that enables the fifth-generation warplane to operate, tracking everything from the amount of time the aircraft spends in the air to when the engine needs a tune-up.

The roughly $400 billion F-35 effort has had more than its share of software hiccups already, highlighted by recent findings that the aircraft’s billions of lines of computer code might be vulnerable to hacking.

If the bugs persist, it could have a cascading effect on the rest of the Defense Department’s timeline for the warplane, which is already years behind schedule. Serious problems with the logistics system could delay important program milestones, including the U.S. Air Force declaring its version of the jet ready for deployment later this year.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: This blog has been covering this story for a long time .... The F-35's Software Problems Are Still Unresolved. On a more optimistic note, this pilot says that there are problems .... but do not worry .... What It’s Really Like To Fly The F-35: A Marine Pilot Speaks (Investors.com). What's my take .... I am worried.

4 comments:

Bob Huntley said...

Liveware vaporware whatever.

Unknown said...

It might be that you have to make the plane aware.

Stephen Davenport said...

Like I have typed before, every new system has to clear out the kinks in the system, this aircraft will be no different.

James said...

Stephen,
"Like I have typed before, every new system has to clear out the kinks in the system, this aircraft will be no different."
You are quite right, I remember well the development of the M1 and the M2, which were guaranteed to be death traps, that turned out to be true in Desert Storm, but not for their crews. The only problem is there will be "turkeys", everything is an expensive roll of the dice, but it's better to try than not.