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Software Bug in F-35 Radar Causes Mid-Flight System Reboot
Reader Lisandro writes: The F-35 Fighter jet can't seem to catch a break. An advanced AN/APG-81 AESA F35 radar system has been found riddled with a software bug that causes it to degrade and stop working. The solution? Rebooting the system while in the air.
Major General Jeffrey Harrigian, director of the Air Force's F-35 integration office at the Pentagon, was quoted as saying "radar stability - the radar's ability to stay up and running. [...] What would happen is they'd get a signal that says either a radar degrade or a radar fail - "something that would force us to restart the radar." The issue was spotted in late 2015, and thankfully, it was caught during the testing period. The software version "3i" is affected. An update aimed to resolve the bug is expected to be delivered to the US Air Force by the end of March.
Major General Jeffrey Harrigian, director of the Air Force's F-35 integration office at the Pentagon, was quoted as saying "radar stability - the radar's ability to stay up and running. [...] What would happen is they'd get a signal that says either a radar degrade or a radar fail - "something that would force us to restart the radar." The issue was spotted in late 2015, and thankfully, it was caught during the testing period. The software version "3i" is affected. An update aimed to resolve the bug is expected to be delivered to the US Air Force by the end of March.
You know, I'm with the late E.W.Dijkstra on this one: We really need to stop calling them bugs, and start calling them software defects. Because, you know, the thing clearly is defective and it needs repair.
Actually, the F-35 is so defective it needs scrapping. This is one of those ships that need stripping to the keel and rebuilding from there, and not just the software. It is both a failed software project and a failed hardware project rolled into one. Fred Brooks, eat your heart out.
Or, well, it's actually worse than that. The entire thing is an instant classic, wilful, deliberate, military-industrial complex boondoggle good money after bad sunk cost fallacy extortion scam. So hey, a legal swindle for Lockheed-Martin. Good for them. Bad for everyone else except them thar terrists.
The thing is in fact so bad that it will keep on bleeding failure even well after scrapped, and we're not even close to that yet. Even though we know full and undeniably well where we are and where this is going. Years of taxpayer-funded fun to come!
Which is why it'll keep going. Denying the undeniable? What's this, a challenge? Just you watch all those politicians taking up that challenge. It's what they think they're paid to do.