Forum: Program and politics

Software and the helmet, although progress has been made on helment issues:

"A solution to the problem of jittery images being displayed to the pilot is being tested right now on an F-35 during ground taxi runs. It will be tested in flight soon, Ebersole said. Likewise, the concern with latency — where the display lags behind the pilot’s head movements — has been mitigated, he said. Meanwhile, ICE-11 night-vision cameras should resolve the problems with visual acuity."

"The software is a huge chunk of the F-35 developmental effort, but while the program is fairly good at catching problems, it needs to happen faster, Ebersole said. The program is working to add better tools and refine to its processes to fix that.

“We need to find them earlier,” Ebersole said. “We tend to find them too late in the development cycle.”

There is potential issue with Block 4 software and the ability of the JSF avionics architecture to run it:

"One Navy source had raised concerns that beyond the Block 3 software needed for initial operational capability, the current avionics architecture would not be able support the level inoperability and information sharing that the U.S. services require — which would necessitate a redesign of the avionics."

But Ebersole feels that JSF Block 4 software can be configured to run in some form, although some new functions / capabilities will require unspecified hardware changes:

"Ebersole countered that while there are candidate lists of capabilities that the U.S. services, foreign partners and JSF program are looking at, there is no definitive set of attributes that might be incorporated into a F-35 Block 4 configuration. “We don’t finalize what that list of Block 4 candidates are going to be until the March of 2013.”

But Ebersole added, all of the capabilities that are being considered for the F-35 in Block 4 fit into the jet’s existing avionics architecture. Some of those capabilities will require hardware changes however, he said. “We don’t see any show-stoppers for the candidates as they stand today.”"

http://www.defensenews.com/article/2012 ... appen-Soon

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Don't you miss the days when software was only needed to run fun 'extras'?? Laughing

Anyone aware how they mitigated the latency issue?

I have worked on a lot of software projects and we have never started one that hasn't had some risk. Risk kind of goes hand in hand with building something worthwhile.

Mission critical testing failed to detect a logic error in the F/A-22 and a flight of them needed to be led home across the Pacific by a tanker after their navs shut down because of the error. The aircraft could have been lost.

With F/A-35 Block 4 they've caught a significant error fairly early, which reduces the risk and should lessen the financial cost of the fix.

The problem appears related to concurrency. If true, we know how to address these types of issues efficiently and resolve them in reasonable time.

More problems will undoubtedly arise as F/A-35 plugs into other nations' networks and multi-national webs. These may be a lot trickier to address.

velocityvector wrote:

With F/A-35 Block 4 they've caught a significant error fairly early, which reduces the risk and should lessen the financial cost of the fix.

VV, what error would that be? The article says nothing of the sort.

Here's a quote from the article --

"One Navy source had raised concerns that beyond the Block 3 software needed for initial operational capability, the current avionics architecture would not be able support the level inoperability and information sharing that the U.S. services require — which would necessitate a redesign of the avionics."

"Ebersole countered that while there are candidate lists of capabilities that the U.S. services, foreign partners and JSF program are looking at, there is no definitive set of attributes that might be incorporated into a F-35 Block 4 configuration. “We don’t finalize what that list of Block 4 candidates are going to be until the March of ‘13.”

"But Ebersole added, all of the capabilities that are being considered for the F-35 in Block 4 fit into the jet’s existing avionics architecture. Some of those capabilities will require hardware changes however, he said. “We don’t see any show-stoppers for the candidates as they stand today.”

Perhaps you may have been reacting to some editorializing in the original post.

Inevitably, individual hardware components may need to be swapped out in the future but the open systems architecture of the jet can accommodate such changes with minimal impact. This is in stark contrast to the Raptor's proprietary design which makes incorporating new technology a challenge technologically and financially.

To support 'popcorn & quicksilver' here is another quote from the above article:

"...The F-35 program plans to continually refresh the jet’s technology, Ebersole said. The current plan is to upgrade the software every two years, while the software and hardware would be upgraded every four years...."

The 4B error I reference is budget prediction inferred from the articles posted. Not monetary budgeting, though that does matter. Computer resource allocation. If the available software and throughput exceed design predictions at a stage then there will be less of a finite resource available for demand given that stage. Subsequent work for the stage will be constrained by knowing that there isn't as much resource to use as planned. This can limit capabilities and mean requirements need to be pushed forward. So the customer doesn't get what they bargained for. It isn't as simple as inserting a new card. That's all.

So a 2(S)/4(H) year cycle puts Blk 4 as a HwSw upgrade (with Blk6) and Blks 5 & 7 as Sw only.

This is based on TR2 (Tech Refresh 2) being part of Blk2B & LRIP6 (IIRC)

velocityvector wrote:

The 4B error I reference is budget prediction inferred from the articles posted. Not monetary budgeting, though that does matter. Computer resource allocation. If the available software and throughput exceed design predictions at a stage then there will be less of a finite resource available for demand given that stage. Subsequent work for the stage will be constrained by knowing that there isn't as much resource to use as planned. This can limit capabilities and mean requirements need to be pushed forward. So the customer doesn't get what they bargained for. It isn't as simple as inserting a new card. That's all.

Conceptually valid inference -- not applicable in F-35 Blk 4, but certainly the case for SHs and Raptors.

Allowing the schedule holds and that Ebersole is being overly cautious with his concerns about resource availability for Block 4 software. But Ebersole did raise the issue.

Think all we are seeing here is an engineering manager shaping the discussion on the requirements for the Blk 4 software. There are probably those who have pie-in-the-sky requirements and what he is trying to do is to include a reality check in the proceedings. Would assume there will be trade studies up to the point when a consensus is formed for the operational requirements of this block. At that point any hardware changes and their costs should be known as well. Seems he is saying that will occur in April of 2013.

velocityvector wrote:

Allowing the schedule holds and that Ebersole is being overly cautious with his concerns about resource availability for Block 4 software. But Ebersole did raise the issue.

No he didn't. An unnamed Navy source did, and he countered the assertion with the writer.

This comment, "...There is potential issue with Block 4 software and the ability of the JSF avionics architecture to run it:..." was an editorial addition by Maus in the midst of quotes on the article.

Verbatim from the article itself:

But two major issues worry Ebersole.

“I worry about software development — meeting the incremental block deliveries, and the other key one right now is the helmet,” he said.

Thereafter the Navy source was introduced to qualify the concern Ebersole raised about the ability to deliver software to future incremental blocks, like Block 4.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120224/DEFREG02/302240004/JSF-Chief-Engineer-F-35-Military-Flight-Release-Happen-Soon[/b]

Forum: Program and politics

Ebersole [JSF Chief Engineer]: two major issues worry me