Forum: F-22A Raptor

Lockheed's F-22 Raptor Gets Zapped by International Date Line

Brandon Hill
February 26, 2007 10:28 AM

Six Lockheed F-22 Raptors have Y2K-esque glitch of their own over the Pacific

Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter in the world with its stealth capabilities, advanced radar, state of the art weapons systems and ultra-efficient turbofans which allow the F-22 to "supercruise" at supersonic speeds without an afterburner. The Raptor has gone up against the best that the US Air Force and Navy has to offer taking out F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18 Super Hornets during simulated war games in Alaska. The Raptor-led "Blue Air" team was able to rack up an impressive 241-to-2 kill ratio during the exercise against the "Red Air" threat -- the two kills on the blue team were from the 30-year old F-15 teammates and not the new Raptors.

But while the simulated war games were a somewhat easy feat for the Raptor, something more mundane was able to cripple six aircraft on a 12 to 15 hours flight from Hawaii to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The U.S. Air Force's mighty Raptor was felled by the International Date Line (IDL).

When the group of Raptors crossed over the IDL, multiple computer systems crashed on the planes. Everything from fuel subsystems, to navigation and partial communications were completely taken offline. Numerous attempts were made to "reboot" the systems to no avail.

Luckily for the Raptors, there were no weather issues that day so visibility was not a problem. Also, the Raptors had their refueling tankers as guide dogs to "carry" them back to safety. "They needed help. Had they gotten separated from their tankers or had the weather been bad, they had no attitude reference. They had no communications or navigation," said Retired Air Force Major General Don Shepperd. "They would have turned around and probably could have found the Hawaiian Islands. But if the weather had been bad on approach, there could have been real trouble."

"The tankers brought them back to Hawaii. This could have been real serious. It certainly could have been real serious if the weather had been bad," Shepperd continued. "It turned out OK. It was fixed in 48 hours. It was a computer glitch in the millions of lines of code, somebody made an error in a couple lines of the code and everything goes."

Luckily for the pilots behind the controls of the Raptors, they were not involved in a combat situation. Had they been, it could have been a disastrous folly by the U.S. Air Force to have to admit that their aircraft which cost $125+ million USD apiece were knocked out of the sky due to a few lines of computer code. "And luckily this time we found out about it before combat. We got it fixed with tiger teams in about 48 hours and the airplanes were flying again, completed their deployment. But this could have been real serious in combat," said Shepperd.

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THIS WEEK AT WAR

Week's War-Related Activities Recounted

Aired February 24, 2007 - 19:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[...] It is a busy week so we have called out some of the best. Arwa Damon on the chemical attacks in Baghdad, Major General Don Shepperd reveals problems was the F-22 stealth fighter and Jamie McIntyre with the embarrassing conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. THIS WEEK AT WAR. [...]

[...] ROBERTS [John Roberts, CNN Anchor - J.J.]: Twenty five years from development to deployment, the F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighting machine in the air. But it was no match for a computer glitch that left six of them high above the Pacific Ocean, deaf, dumb and blind as they headed to their first deployment. So what happened? We turn to a man who's at home in the cockpit, Retired Air Force Major General Don Shepperd. Don, let me set the scene. These F-22s, eight of them, were headed from Hickam (ph) Air Force base in Hawaii to an (INAUDIBLE) Air Force base in Japan. They were approaching the international date line, pick it up from there.

SHEPPERD [Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd (retired), CNN Military Analyst - J.J.]: You got it right Don. You want everything to go right with your frontline fighter, $125, $135 million to copy. The F-22 Raptor is our frontline fighter, air defense, air superiority. It also can drop bombs. It is stealthy. It's fast and you want it all to go right on your first deployment to the Pacific and it didn't. At the international date line, whoops, all systems dumped and when I say all systems, I mean all systems, their navigation, part of their communications, their fuel systems. They were -- they could have been in real trouble. They were with their tankers. The tankers - they tried to reset their systems, couldn't get them reset. The tankers brought them back to Hawaii. This could have been real serious. It certainly could have been real serious if the weather had been bad. It turned out OK. It was fixed in 48 hours. It was a computer glitch in the millions of lines of code, somebody made an error in a couple lines of the code and everything goes.

ROBERTS: This is almost like the feared Y2K problem that happened to these aircraft. We should point out that computers control almost every aspect of this aircraft, from their weapons systems, to the flight controls and the computers absolutely went haywire, became useless.

SHEPPERD: Absolutely. When you think of airplanes from the old days, with cables and that type of thing and direct connections between the sticks and the yolks and the controls, not that way anymore. Everything is by computer. When your computers go, your airplanes go. You have multiple systems. When they all dump at the same time, you can be in real trouble. Luckily this turned out OK.

ROBERTS: What would have happened General Shepperd if these brand-new $120 million F-22s had been going into battle?

SHEPPERD: You would have been in real trouble in the middle of combat. The good thing is that we found this out. Any time -- before, you know, before we get into combat with an airplane like this. Any time you introduce a new airplane, you are going to find glitches and you are going to find things that go wrong. It happens in our civilian airliners. You just don't hear much about it but these things absolutely happen. And luckily this time we found out about it before combat. We got it fixed with tiger teams in about 48 hours and the airplanes were flying again, completed their deployment. But this could have been real serious in combat.

ROBERTS: So basically you had these advanced air -- not just superiority but air supremacy fighters that were in there, up there in the air, above the Pacific Ocean, not much more sophisticated than a little Cessna 152 only with a jet engine.

SHEPPERD: You got it. They are on a 12 to 15-hour flight from Hawaii to Okinawa, but all their systems dumped. They needed help. Had they gotten separated from their tankers or had the weather been bad, they had no attitude reference. They had no communications or navigation. They would have turned around and probably could have found the Hawaiian Islands. But if the weather had been bad on approach, there could have been real trouble. Again, you get refueling from your tankers. You don't run -- you don't get yourself where you run out of fuel. You always have enough fuel and refueling nine, 10, 11, 12 times on a flight like this where you can get somewhere to land. But again, attitude reference and navigation are essential as is communication. In this case all of that was affected. It was a serious problem.

ROBERTS: So the fact the computers run so much of the systems on these aircraft, General Shepperd, is the -- is the military at risk of over engineering here so if they did have a problem like that when they were going into a hostile situation, they could be, as you said, repeatedly in real trouble?

SHEPPERD: Well, you have redundant systems but it's just a fact of life in the modern computer age. By the way John, you are going to have the same problem coming up on your laptop computer as we conferred from -- from standard time from daylight savings time to standard time. Your program -- your computer is programmed for one thing and we have changed the dates and you are going to have a problem. It's going to have to be dealt with.

ROBERTS: Do me a favor Don. Make sure I'm not on my laptop computer when I'm flying in an F-22 on that day.

SHEPPERD: Absolutely. [...]

<a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0702/24/tww.01.html">Current full CNN transcript</a>

Question to idesof: Is that the same stuff what you already watched on CNN in Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room" (your post from February 24, 2007 - 11:27 PM)?

THIS WEEK AT WAR

Week's War-Related Activities Recounted
Aired February 24, 2007 - 19:00 ET

SHEPPERD [Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd (retired), CNN Military Analyst - J.J.]: At the international date line, whoops, all systems dumped and when I say all systems, I mean all systems, their navigation, part of their communications, their fuel systems. .... It was a computer glitch in the millions of lines of code, somebody made an error in a couple lines of the code and everything goes.

...their fuel systems...

The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday said it is fixing technological glitches in roughly 87 F-22 fighters after several aircraft computer systems were disabled earlier this month during a test flight.

One pilot was able to contact contractor Lockheed Martin to troubleshoot the error during the flight, the Air Force said.

Source

But currently, I still await any proof for the arrival of the two remaining Raptors at Kadena AB.

Serial number of F-22 which flew to the Kadena AFB in Japan

18WG 27EFS F-22A Raptor S/N

AF-03-047　2007/02/18　marked 27th FS
AF-03-048　2007/02/21
AF-03-049　2007/02/17
AF-03-050　2007/02/21
AF-03-051　2007/02/17
AF-03-052　2007/02/18
AF-03-060　2007/02/18
AF-03-061　2007/02/18　marked 1st FW
AF-04-064　2007/02/18
AF-04-065　2007/02/18
AF-04-066　2007/02/18　94FS
AF-04-078　2007/02/18　94FS