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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."
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!
The Mothership
I do believe they have some other exotic things, like Sapphire coatings for additional EMP protection. Stuff that is crazy-expensive!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
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.
Ideally, the existence of the weapon is enough to make it unnecessary to kill anyone.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
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.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
...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
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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
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!!
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.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.