B-2 Stealth Bomber Gets Upgrade, Joins the '90s

WmHBlair writes "Flightglobal has a report about the upgrades being made to the B-2A Stealth Bomber, which include Pentium class processors, JOVIAL code rewritten in C, and fibre channel hard drives. The Register, as usual, makes light of this event with a tongue-in-cheek news item noting that the upgrade drags Stealth Bomber IT systems into the '90s."

Comments

Favourite quote from El 'Reg:

[The Ancients]

Naturally the stealth bomber's software has to be rewritten for the new platform, in particular the operational flight program (OFP) - the app which lets the ungainly plane fly, rather than lurching out of control as it would without constant computer assistance. (A recent B-2 crash shortly after takeoff at the Pacific island of Guam was caused by a false sensor data feed into the OFP, resulting from an airspeed measuring device being affected by tropical moisture. The duff data fooled the OFP app into wrecking the $2bn bomber - while the pilots were unable to do anything to stop it.)

Brilliant!

Not so stealthy?

[Chicken_Kickers]

I might be mistaken but I think I read in a book about designing warships that the F-117A and the B-2 could be detected and targeted by British frigates during the first Gulf War. They are only stealthy against outdated Russian-made radars that the Iraqis had.

Re:Not so stealthy?

[icebrain]

It didn't help that NATO aircraft were flying the same tracks night after night. The Serbian air defense guys picked up on it, and (it is suspected) laid a trap, of sorts. Remember, too, that when the aircraft opens the weapons bay doors, those doors aren't stealthy. The radar signature will bloom significantly while they're open, and they might have gotten one or two good returns during that period. Even something like a screw sticking up, or a door not closing quite all the way, can harm the radar signature.

There are also some reports of spying, like guys with cellphones watching aircraft take off on missions and reporting it, or even someone "inside" with access to the air tasking order.

Re:There's a Reason for That

[QuantumRiff]

I do believe they have some other exotic things, like Sapphire coatings for additional EMP protection. Stuff that is crazy-expensive!

Re:90's IS cutting edge for that stuff.

[DontBlameCanada]

I've worked on military CPU replacement in the past for a subcontractor. We were upgrading an early 60s avionics set built from, get this, AND, OR and NOR gates. The most complex part was a 4 bit shift register - pretty wild. So I know a bit about this.

The major problem with using components newer than the mid-90s is that they are so sensitive to radiation. Not EM, but Alpha particles and other cosmic rays. Its prohibitively expensive to rad-harden (radiation harden) sub-100nm chips and when that is achieved the yields are so low that the cost balloons even more. Radiation hits my cause the rare BSOD for you, on a nuclear armed aircraft its may show up as a MCOD - mushroom cloud of destruction.

Still no official word about B-2's use of anti-g

[mTor]

The most interesting thing about B-2 is that it purportedly uses electrogravitics and that it also charges its leading sections of wings to reduce the drag.

Here's what Bill Gunston, one of the most respected aviation journalists has to say on the topic (his bio is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gunston )

I have numerous documents, all published openly in the United States, which purport to explain how the B-2 is even stranger - far stranger - than it appears. Most are articles published in commercial magazines, some are openly published US Patents, while a few are open USAF publications by Wright Aeronautical Laboratory and Air Force Systems Command's Astronautics Laboratory. They deal with such topics as electric-field propulsion, and electrogravitics (or anti-gravity), the transient alteration of not only thrust but also a body's weight. Sci-Fi has nothing on this stuff.

The literature goes back to Faraday, but the idea of electrogravitics really took off in the 1920s when an American physicist, Townsend T. Brown, carried out extensive experiments. He may have been the first to recognize that a capacitor (a dielectric material sandwiched between positive and negative plates) experiences a force tending to move it in the direction of the positive face. He found that the electrostatic charge induced a gravity field between the two plates. Soon he was making capacitors rotate on whirling arms, and measuring the loss in weight of capacitors with the positive face turned uppermost.

In 1953, Brown demonstrated to the USAF a whirling rig of 50ft (15.2m) diameter, which at 150,000 volts (150kV) became a mere blur. The subject was immediately classified, and for the next 40 years, while 'black' research in this field made astonishing progress, it was not reported. Though private individuals continued to experiment, and to take out unclassified patents, not much surfaced. Exceptions were Electrogravitics Systems (February 1956) and The Gravitics Situation (December 1956), published for subscribers only by Aviation Studies (International). This was a London-based 'think tank' run by two very bright young men: R G 'Dicky' Worcester and John Longhurst. Unlike the established journals, they published reports and informed comment without the slightest regard for questions of 'security'. The only time they were taken to court, they won their case and collected heavy damages.

More here: http://engines.fighter-planes.com/jet_engine.htm

Re:There's a Reason for That

[Anonymous Coward]

... or not enough people die.

Re:There's a Reason for That

[element-o.p.]

Ideally, the existence of the weapon is enough to make it unnecessary to kill anyone.

JOVIAL BITES

[Embedded Geek]

My first job out of college was on the B-2, specifically on the flight control box. Despite what C/C++ detractors might say, JOVIAL as I saw it in use was vastly inferior to nearly any other language I've ever used. Compiler bugs were known but never fixed. The minuscule market for JOVIAL applications meant limited or no choice in compilers or tools. The lack of coders meant that you could not attract personnel and those you had were incentivized to get the heck out so as not to become unemployable.

Frankly, the actual language you use on a project is almost (not quite, but almost) an afterthought compared to the other factors of toolsets and talent pool.

Re:Security by oldness

[Eil]

Maybe that's why the Russians still use vacuum tubes in MiGs.

Even the mighty U.S. has a few planes flying with vacuum tubes. I worked in a Air Force avionics shop 6 years ago and the oldest system we maintained was a C-130 autopilot. The whole thing probably had around 25 tubes.

The newest system in the shop was the INS (intertial navigation system) for the MH-53J (in fact, it's likely that I worked on the very aircraft pictured). This was a rather elaborate system, so our troubleshooting was mostly limited to "yep, this unit is bad, order a new one." The computer that ran the test bench was an original IBM with an 8088 processor.

I'm an I.T. guy now instead of an airman, but I still sometimes miss getting to play around with solder, o-scopes, and servos...

For the Clueless: DO-178B

[Anonymous Coward]

The standard applied world wide to aircraft avionic software is DO-178B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B. This standard and related standards are used for civilian and military aircraft systems. The "B" level means that a failure is "Hazardous"

Failure has a large negative impact on safety or performance, or reduces the ability of the crew to operate the plane due to physical distress or a higher workload, or causes serious or fatal injuries among the passengers.

You don't just hack on this kind of software. You have to invest in major amounts of planning, documentation and verification in addition to coding. It takes lots of time, people and money.

It also requires a high degree of professionalism. The people and organizations that do this kind of work are far beyond worrying about the Pentium FDIV bug or a DOS attack against a secure embedded system that will never be on a public network. Anyone on Slashdot who brings up these kinds of issues is only showing that they are clueless and are incapable of achieving the professional level required to do this kind of work.

It was Douglas MacArthur

[mangu]

He said: "The Japanese soldier's duty is to die for his emperor. Our duty is to make sure he does his duty"

IIRC this was in the film, so it must be true.

Re:Still Stuck in the 1980s

[Eil]

Wow, cynical much?

The last century taught us a very important lesson that our military and civilian leaders hopefully will not forget: it is far easier to try to stay on top of technology and keep the military forces current than suddenly ramp up training and technology only when a threat appears.

While I strongly disagree with this administration's (ab)use of the our nation's armed forces and the government contractors who are becoming billionaires because of it, please understand that the military has many important roles besides defense.

Flight Dynamic upgrade

[geogob]

In the list of systems affected by the processor upgrade, I read FMS, radar, comm, sensors (most likely electronic warfare/countermeasures), weapon system integration, etc.

I remember reading that the on-board computers are absolutely essential to fly the B-2 and to handle the control surfaces. All control surfaces are computer controlled to keep the plane stable (and able to fly).

It is still unclear to me whether the upgrade affects or not flight dynamic systems. Furthermore I'm not sure upgrading the flight dynamic software and hardware would be pertinent, unless stability issues have been observed(plane stability or software stability...or both).

The crash some other slashdoters have pointed out might be a trigger to a major flight dynamic software and hardware update, but if that's the case, TFA is unclear on the extent of that upgrade in this upgrade program.

Re:There's a Reason for That

[Anonymous Coward]

I have sold 486 class equipment to the railroad industry within the last 2 years. The reason as stated by parent and grandparent is reliability and heartiness. The 486 has been out for decades all of its critical flaws have been know for more than half that time. 486s (depending on speed) can run without heat sink (though not suggested). When millions of dollars of equipment and liability for lost life. Slow and secure is the way to go as long as it meets all technical requirements.

Re:There's a Reason for That

[Josh Booth]

While the headline might be good for a light giggle, there's a good reason why it's 10 years behind. Airplane avionics systems must be free of bugs, or people die. That especially goes for a plane that uses a flying wing design (which are historically hard to stabilize without computer control), and potentially carries nuclear warheads.

You mean like this?

Re:There's a Reason for That

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt the extra lag is due to DoD "Black Program" overhead.

I used to work at NASA - we deployed hundreds of 64-bit servers and workstations in 1993 - well before the reset of the world. I did some clearance work while there - the extra overhead of that work when compared to non-clearance work was not insignificant. DoD requirements add overhead - real overhead to hardware and software projects.

Re:mod parent up

[moosesocks]

Uhm. No.

Military/aerospace-grade components are built to an absurdly high standard, and have to be tolerant of extreme physical forces and high levels of electromagnetic radiation.

Take a look at what gets put onto satellites (including ones not built by governments). You'll see a lot of radiation-hardened Pentiums and 486s.

A year or two ago, an amateur satellite got sent up using off-the-shelf components, and many (including those who built it) were astonished when the chips lasted a whole month before finally succumbing.

The military is one area where the government actually wants to succeed, as opposed to the many other agencies that were intentionally set up for failure during the Reagan years.

Re:There's a Reason for That

[Dun Malg]

...From the classic B-52 onwards, they do useful things like haul large quantities of high explosives other systems cannot match. Improvements in tactical control mean the folks on the ground can call in tremendous force when needed.

As a dirt-eating infantry guy, this is a pet peeve of mine. I feel a rant coming on...

The trouble is, the contemporary battlefield doesn't need the "tremendous force" of 38 tons of bombs, from 35K feet, that'll be here in 14 hours (B-52 from Diego) or worse, 40 hours (B-2 from freakin' Missouri!). There isn't a bunch of factories with static GPS coordinates that can be preloaded by ground crews into GPS guided weapons. It's largely just guys like me, calling on a radio, asking for a couple 500 pounders on the ridgeline 3 klicks away, to get two dozen guys with RPGs and machine guns, NOW!. The B-52, B-1, and B-2 just don't fit into that equation.

Modern air-to-ground warfare doesn't need "big" strategic bombers like that. For the last 50+ years, the US Air Force has been living in a fantasy world, a sepia-toned universe where it's perpetually 1950, where bombers were the strategic "big stick" that brought down the Nazis, and were the Alpha-to-Omega of nuclear weapons delivery. The trouble is, the former is a self-delusional lie, and the latter keeled over with the ICBM and finally died with the USSR in 1990. The Air Force mythology of strategic bombing is based on the largely pointless high-altitude mass bombing of Europe in WW2. The Key West Agreement of 1948 which separated the Air Force as its own service, separate from the Army and forbidding the Army to operate aircraft, centered heavily on the "success" of the strategic bombing of Germany, particularly the crippling of the German ball bearing manufacturing. Funny thing is, decades later when Albert Speer was asked about this, his reply was (paraphrased) "They were trying to bomb our ball bearing factories? If so, we had no idea."

The practical upshot of all this is that the Air Force was founded on a fantasy which continues to hamper its effectiveness to this day. Granted, my view on the subject is heavily colored by my 16 years as a lowly grunt in the Army, hiding in holes trying to get effective close air support from those guys; but I think my view is pretty accurate. There aren't any more superpowers to mount a credible air defense, to put up a serious opposition. The one thing that we really need from the Air Force is the one thing that they've consistently tried to get out of providing: Close Air Support. Air Force brass had the unmitigated gall to try to retire the A-10 in the 90's and "replace" it with the F-16! They constantly push for more air-superiority and high altitude bombing assets when the cold hard reality is that we don't need that. Contemporary warfare is non-linear, against small bands of irregulars operating in primitive conditions. As infantrymen, what we need from the Air Force is all-weather, low-altitude, precision ordinance delivery, but we hardly ever get it!. If I had a nickel for every time I saw the Air Force drop in the wrong place, or worse, "call in sick" because of bad weather, I'd have a hell of a lot of nickels. The military has always been a hotbed of backstabbing, featherbedding, and general power politics, and the Air Force continuing live in its glory days of WW2 is a prime example (don't even get me started on the Navy, they're even worse). The Army has managed to fill some of its air needs via helicopters--- and getting the Air Force to let us have those was a fight--- but helicopters are lightweight, short range assets. We need fixed wing air support, particularly in Afghanistan where altitude and weather make helicopter operations near impossible. Personally, I think the Air Force should turn over the A-10 and AC-130 assets to the Army and let us do our own close air support, and they can go sit around in their giant strato-bombe

Ultimate Ctrl+Alt+Del - The Ejection Seat

[ryanisflyboy]

As the article mentions, if there is a malfunction of the B2 Spirit's computer system (either in sensors or the system itself) the pilots must eject or be killed. There was a video, not available any more, explaining that the computer is the reason why the airplane doesn't spin out of control and crash. If it goes offline it takes just a few seconds before you're toast. This apparently happened once or twice during early development while they worked out the kinks in the software (sorry, can't find any current proof of this). The only B2 that has crashed (that we know of) crashed due to bad sensor input to the computer (if that is really the truth):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit#Incidents_and_accidents

When you've got a billion dollars flying around at very high speeds, with some nuclear weapons on-board, and a couple of highly-trained pilots... you need to be 100% sure the system doesn't go off-line resulting in a near instant vehicle loss. It is also well known that spacecraft and aircraft use technologies that are actually very advanced, but might appear on the surface as old. The amount of materials research that goes in to these things costs in the multitudes of billions. It is very important the H-bombs drop where they are supposed to, and when. It is very scary, and the only way to test all the moving parts together is to start a nuclear war. As the SysAdmins say: "Not if, but when."

Here are some more details (may be a bit redundant):
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Preliminary_Design_Review_Of_New_B_2_Bomber_Computer_Architecture_Completed_999.html

Re:Good Timing

[soldeed]

Today the Air Force released the first photos of the B-2 that crashed in Guam a couple months back. B-2 Stealth Bomber Crash Scene Photos: Exclusive First Look

Excellent article! Look at the timeline;

9:29 am /// Waterlogged /// During a preflight check, the pilot notices three air data sensors are malfunctioning. Unknown to the crew, water in the sensors is skewing the air-pressure readings too high.

9:34 am /// Recalibration /// A ground crewman, using a cockpit keyboard, recalibrates the three waterlogged sensors. The preflight checks continue, and the B-2 taxis to runway Zero-Six-Right (above, top left).

10:29 am /// Boiling Sensors /// Before takeoff, the pilot turns on the sensorsâ(TM) heaters. Water in the sensors evaporates; the readings are now normal, but the earlier fix skews air-pressure data too low.

10:30:12 am /// Slow Start /// The B-2 starts takeoff. The on-board flight computer displays the wrong airspeed, causing the pilot to lift off at 133 knots (153 mph) rather than the required 145 knots.

10:30:50 am /// Auto Override /// The flight computer, relying on bad air-pressure readings, concludes the aircraft is in a nose-low altitude and automatically raises the nose to 30 degrees (top right).

10:31:06 am /// Fiery Ending /// The B-2, going too slowly, with its nose angled too high, stalls. As the airplaneâ(TM)s wing scrapes the runway (bottom left), the pilot and commander safely eject. The B-2 crashes (bottom right).

There you go, HUMAN ERROR!!

Re:Still Stuck in the 1980s

[Anonymous Coward]

An F-117 was taken down by conventional SAMs in Kosovo (might have been a lucky shot)

There's no such thing as lucky shot. The guys who shot it down did their homework and broke a sweat about it. F-117 was actually taken down in Voivodina, Serbian part of Panonia, several hundred kilometers from Kosovo.

There wasn't ANY tactical reason to fly stealth plane on that particular mission, at that time, as almost all defenders radar installations where down and complete air domination was accomplished. I suppose pilots or their commanders volunteered in order to assist their comrade pilots of "conventional" airplanes. Other then that, there was no real NEED to fly the mixed formations of stealth and non-stealth planes on missions.

Radar-absorbing coating on F-117 does not actually absorb longer wave (sub-400MHz) radar radiation. It is invivible for any respectable adversary which uses modern radar systems to obtain valuable information about objects (precise position, speed, size of the plane) in their airspace. However, little is ever thrown away in Serbian (Yugoslav) military. They probably still have some equipment donated to Tito's Yugoslavia by Allies back in 40's and 50's, for training, if for nothing else. It was speculated that AA artillery operators rigged an relict radar from the 50's and spotted F-117, but other sources claim that they actually used radars which can't "see" F-117, but instead they saw a formation of airplanes advancing onto them ... with one of them apparently missing. They decided to take on it for sheer glory of becoming "first AA crew to shoot down a stealth plane, EVAR".

Since this formation went on missions nightly, the battery set up their ambush: acquired and hid other flak guns (or/and higher charged ammo) with higher range ceiling (from some more heavily defended site) then their unit was known to wield, and additional heat-seeking vehicle-mounted missiles. Next time around they where ready. After dark, when heavy weather rolled in the clouds and rain, they moved their weapons from the woods hideout onto the meadow above which the formation's route lied. When the airplanes came, the gunners blindly fired heavy flak barrage toward the spot in the cloudy sky where they calculated the position of F-117 would be, and then immediately heat-seeking pair was fired toward lights above.

The stealth plane pilot ejected and was subsequently rescued by their chopper. He is probably a good kid, helping his buddies out and all, but too much enthusiasm sometimes costs your taxpayers serious money...and humiliation. If it is not broken, don't fix it. If there is no need for special/expensive tool, don't use it to do your daily chores. Don't send over-equipped heavy cavalry against peasant militia archers, ... etc., you get the point.

The commander of the AA unit retired from the service after the war and, AFAIK, owns and runs a bakery in his home town. Although they don't admit it, Serbs lost big time and consequently where strong armed into ruining their military even further, themselves. Military career became an unambiguous dead end, so being a local baker instead of a war hero decorated officer is an excellent deal. Which is just fine, as most of the people in the world have more use of the bread then...