It didn't get caught in testing because testing is by far the most expensive and time-consuming part of the development process, and is always the first thing to get cut/trimmed/"streamlined". Just like it has been forever.
There is one more reason... Testing is the LAST thing you do before a release, so as the schedule slips to the right the last task on the schedule ALWAYS gets squeezed into smaller and smaller schedules. Less time means less testing.
Where you *could* write a ATC system in C, why would you? Given that this system was envisioned and designed nearly 20 years ago, I have a feeling they used the accepted tools of the trade for the day and have upgraded to new platforms since.
My best guess here is that what failed is the system engineering followed by failure to performance test. As you move from C++ applications to say Java, your memory and CPU requirements go up, way up. What may work GREAT in the lab, may consume way too many resources when put into production. My guess is the SE failed to specify the memory constraints and the system integration team didn't test them. Which is about par for the "government contract" course...
LOL... Well, if we have an EMP event, your car may run but there is going to be some serious electrical grid issues... I don't think I'd buy from Mr. Baker, but having a few months of food around that doesn't require refrigeration might be a good idea, along with some way to get water, and protect yourself (aka a couple of guns and ammo to match).
You need humans in the cockpit because RF jamming is too easy to do. Data links like you suggest require high bandwidths, which requires a lot of RF energy. In an contested environment electronic warfare is to be expected. Even low observable spread spectrum data links are easily disrupted and without the link, your drone is stuck running some program to try and figure out what to do. With a human in the thing, they can adapt, adjust and make judgments about how to best proceed.
Plus, radiating RF to the pilot on the ground is an excellent way to announce your presence. It's almost like lighting a candle in a dark room. Everybody will see you. You don't need to do that with the human onboard.
So humans are still valuable in the cockpit. Drones have their place, but they will not soon replace the human for the really complex tasks and split second judgments that war requires.
Well, having a cellular data modem there and being able to actually access it are totally different things. It's going to require a cellular data subscription and phone companies just don't give that kind of thing out for free and they would likely get pretty upset if someone hacked into their system to get to your car once they find out.
Actually, the best protection here is to be nobody in the first place. I believe that there are a lot of people who have a heightened sense of their own value in the grand scheme of things. I don't know how many times I've had to wade though pictures of people's lunch/dinner on social media. Obviously people think they are more important than they really are. Who's going to hack your car and why? Personally I'm not worried, even if I had a cellular data modem equipped vehicle, I'm too cheap to subscribe to any services that would use it and even if I did, there is nobody who would be interested in hacking MY car. There are a whole bunch of more dangerous things in my life than that, so I'm not worried about it.
Suddenly blue? So, they haven't ever elected a democrat before now?
Virginia might be considred PURPLE, with some pretty dark shades of blue. They may have a Republican governor, but they do have two democratic senators and a couple of house seats..... They've voted to elect the democratic candidate in the last two presidential elections.
Virginia has been BLUE for at least the last 8 years... What would be sudden is if it started electing republicans....
I'm betting the only conclusion we can really draw is that the vendor for these systems stopped making their regularly-scheduled payments to the appropriate campaign organizations.
Ah, no.. The fact is that the OTHER vendor started making bigger donations to those in power and the incumbent vendor decided to take the money and run.
Car makers are VERY cost aware. Take a look at a modern car and the "options" available. Now days, option packages come in very large chunks.... You want the leather seats, butt warmers and power doors in the mini-van you are going to get the upgraded entertainment system and power doors too. No you cannot opt out of any of them, it's all or nothing. They do this to cut costs like you suggest...
However, just select the highest trim model that doesn't include all the integrated data link junk and you will be fine. A automobile rated cell phone module is going to be massively more expensive than that $100 throw away hand held so they won't throw it in to save money. My guess is that this module will run north of $800 to design and manufacture if it's something integrated into the car and not that "Replace your rear view mirror OnStar" device that goes for about $300 (and integrates with nothing in your car.)
So, I don't think you will get some stealth data connection if you don't buy an option package that has it up front. It's going to be way too expensive to just "throw it on" so we don't have to worry with varying the assembly process to keep it off.
I've seen a foggy day in San Fran, I can assure you that solar panels will be largely ineffective during those events... But my point here is that if you loose half of your capacity on some day, you will need to be prepared with the storage necessary to tide you over pulse additional capacity to charge that storage when the sun is shinning.
Most people don't realize that this can multiply the capacity necessary by multiple times and increase costs by many multiples over the "It works on a sunny day" kind of installation. This is the PROBLEM with solar really... Yea, when the sun shines it's great stuff, but any other time it's either useless or WAY too expensive for what you get and you end up needing to be on the fossil fueled grid anyway.
You test EMP by using large voltage spikes. What are spark plugs run with? High voltage spikes.... Stands to reason that a generally well shielded set of electronics inside a metal box which was designed to generate high voltage spikes on purpose, would tolerate an EMP from an external source fairly well.
Apparently their testing involved 37 vehicles with approximately 10% showing signs of being upset by strong EMPs and nearly all of those not permanently damaged by the pulse.
If you are concerned about somebody "hacking" your car over some network connection, just don't buy a car with a network connection. and your problem is solved.. If there is no cellular data connection, there is no way for anybody to hack your car using a data connection. So no "OnStar" or other such convenience services that involve data connections to your car.
If that doesn't meet your definition of safe enough, understand what you are trying to protect yourself from. MOST of the demonstrated hacks we've seen of late REQUIRE physical access to the vehicle at some point. You are going to need to provide PHYSICAL security for that car parked in the public parking lot in front of the grocery store to protect yourself from this stuff. But that's always been the case. These new "hacking" techniques don't make it any worse.
In short, don't worry about it. Buy a cheap car w/o all the quickly outdated "data connection" based services and stop being a worry wart... Well that and don't be a high profile target.... Who's going to hack my Honda Accord? I'm just a middle aged, middle class guy with my 2.3 kids driving a cheap car. I'm not important enough to be a target...
ANY car made today is going to be safe from EMP. They did a test a few years ago and found that out of 12 vehicles subjected to EMP events similar to what would be experienced form a nuclear device outside of the immediate blast damage area, only TWO showed any signs of being affected in any way. Both of those vehicles where "fixed" by turning the key off and then restarting them.
I conclude from this study that modern vehicles are pretty much immune to EMP for the most part. Most would not even notice the pulse and just keep going down the road. Some (Say 10%) would stop running and the majority of those would restart after being powered off. Chances are the number of vehicles needing repairs would be less than 1%.
So.... Just own two vehicles of different makes and chances you will be just fine.. At least as far as immediate transportation is concerned. Having electrical power at home IS going to be a problem though...
The F-4's advantage was speed, and that it had in spades. It was horrible at anything that required maneuverability. Roll rate was OK, but turn rate was pretty low. It was HEAVY and had high wing loading so it turned like a pig. It was pressed into service to do multiple roles, but only because that's all they had, not because it was well suited for being anything other than a radar guided missile platform.
You didn't want to dog fight in the thing, dropping bombs was a chore, but you could get there and back quickly.
The problem with the A-10 is that the airframes are all about done. Due to the types of missions they fly, metal fatigue is setting in and it's time to either replace the airframes or start watching the wings fall off. They are great aircraft, it's just worn out and not easily refurbished.
This comparison favours planes with small internal fuel tanks.
Actually, it puts ANY stealth aircraft at a definite disadvantage. When you are trying for stealth, you don't want or have external stores because such things are GREAT at reflecting radar.
However, the point is somewhat valid. If the F-35 cannot turn with an F-18 or an F-16 then it's a loosing platform in a dog fight. But that's really NOT what the F-35 is supposed to be for. I though it's *primary* mission was one of Close Air Support, dropping bombs and shooting tanks at or near the front lines. In which case, being a nimble fighter in a dog fight is nice, but not your primary concern. The only way it becomes a concern is when doing CAS in a contested air space, in which case, you are in serious tactical trouble before you get into the air. If you are bombing and get jumped, figure on getting shot down, if you are loitering waiting for a call and get jumped, where is that AWACS warning and call to the F-22's to deal with the bad guy? Either way, somebody messed up and now the F-35 driver is going to pay the price.
The A-10 is quickly reaching the end of it's useful life. They are suffering serious problems with metal fatigue as most of the airframes have been flying well beyond their intended lifespan. These need to be rebuilt or junked, likely junked.
Also, nobody has built an A-10 in a few decades. Where we could stand up the tooling and a production line to build them again, that costs serious money. So the cost pre unit you are looking at would be considerably higher than before.. All you'd really be saving is the NRE (Non Recurring Engineering) costs, but I'm guessing that if we decided to go down this path, there are parts of the aircraft we'd really like to revamp as we retool.
I'm not saying that buying a few hundred A-10's wouldn't be a good deal and keep us in close air support aircraft for decades, I'm just saying that it's not the cheap alternative that it may seem up front.
The future's probably in souped-up drones anyhow. You don't have to worry about pilot safety etc. and can gamble more in a dog-fight. Manned planes will not go away, but will become a niche.
Drones have their place, but for doing close air support and air superiority roles you really need a human in the cockpit making decisions about who's where and what needs to be shot at and what doesn't.
I see Drones in Air Combat roles, but not alone. I can see them as radar platforms, putting the radar source and the thing that's going to shoot you in different locations. I also see them used as decoys, providing a multitude of possible targets for air defense systems to categorize and figure out how to deal with. But in each of these cases there are human equipped aircraft directing the activities from fairly close range and deciding what gets shot at.
For the close air support role, drones are basically useless as bomb delivery platforms, especially if the situation on the ground is ever changing. Drones have a role in the CAS role, but it's more about being a forward observation platform and possibly doing the laser designation for human run aircraft to drop bombs on.
My point here is that Drones are CHANGING how we do tactics and not replacing humans in the cockpit. They are being integrated into the existing fighting tactics making the result better than the sum of it's parts. There are things Drones do well and things humans do better and the smart money devisees tactics that uses the strengths of both in unexpected ways.
True, but having a Gun did help the F-4 Phantom, as did revising their tactics. Go back and watch "Top Gun" for a bit of a history lesson on that (just don't figure the air to air sequences are anything close to realistic).
The Phantom's issue was TURN RATE. It ran fast in a straight line, real fast, but when you wanted to turn, it was so heavy and high wing loading made it nearly impossible to make it turn. When you get close, turn rate is king. Or as the Falcon 3.0 game says in the introduction "Rate Kills!" You have to get that nose pointed at the other guy and if you can turn faster, you eventually win.
What changed for the Phantom was the tactics... They started AVOIDING the dog fight, if the missile wasn't going to work, you didn't choose to get into a dog fight and if you happened to get in a turning fight, you looked for a way to exit. With the Phantom's great speed this means you'd accelerate away from the fight if the missile missed or if you found yourself in a turning fight it was time to hit full AB and use your thrust to weight advantage to climb out of it.
Pork aside, empires have been lost because politicians couldn't reverse previous bad decisions. The world is not all safe and cosy, Putin is invading Eastern Europe, China is threatening the Phillipines and Japans boundary, even building artificial islands and landing strips in their territorial waters.
Fix it or dump it, but don't pretends it ok.
Build more F-22's then restart the F-18 production line... This F-35 thing needs to die because it is sucking the life blood ($$) out of the Pentagon and is likely to produce a less than ideal aircraft. I've said from the beginning of this boondoggle, the F-35 has too many requirements and will keep over-running it's costs and under delivering its capabilities because they are trying to stuff 10 lbs of garbage in a 2 lb box.
Not all of them, in fact, very few of them are for dog fighting.
You'd loose trying to dog fight in a C-5. It doesn't fire weapons, and it's turning rate is about as bad as it can get. Dog fighting is best left to the few aircraft with the "F" designation, although some of them carry the "F" in their name more for show than actual practice. Generally the active types of "F" aircraft are pretty limited in numbers, where the other utility types "C, U, A, B" usually have more active types and a lot more active aircraft.
The suit isn't patiently frivolous on it's face. Which is a REALLY low bar to clear. It just means that somebody isn't just making up some crackpot legal theory for the lawsuit and that there might be some evidence.
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It didn't get caught in testing because testing is by far the most expensive and time-consuming part of the development process, and is always the first thing to get cut/trimmed/"streamlined". Just like it has been forever.
There is one more reason... Testing is the LAST thing you do before a release, so as the schedule slips to the right the last task on the schedule ALWAYS gets squeezed into smaller and smaller schedules. Less time means less testing.
Wut.
There aren't any memory leaks when you write in C?
Not me.. I never use malloc or free....
Where you *could* write a ATC system in C, why would you? Given that this system was envisioned and designed nearly 20 years ago, I have a feeling they used the accepted tools of the trade for the day and have upgraded to new platforms since.
My best guess here is that what failed is the system engineering followed by failure to performance test. As you move from C++ applications to say Java, your memory and CPU requirements go up, way up. What may work GREAT in the lab, may consume way too many resources when put into production. My guess is the SE failed to specify the memory constraints and the system integration team didn't test them. Which is about par for the "government contract" course...
LOL... Well, if we have an EMP event, your car may run but there is going to be some serious electrical grid issues... I don't think I'd buy from Mr. Baker, but having a few months of food around that doesn't require refrigeration might be a good idea, along with some way to get water, and protect yourself (aka a couple of guns and ammo to match).
You need humans in the cockpit because RF jamming is too easy to do. Data links like you suggest require high bandwidths, which requires a lot of RF energy. In an contested environment electronic warfare is to be expected. Even low observable spread spectrum data links are easily disrupted and without the link, your drone is stuck running some program to try and figure out what to do. With a human in the thing, they can adapt, adjust and make judgments about how to best proceed.
Plus, radiating RF to the pilot on the ground is an excellent way to announce your presence. It's almost like lighting a candle in a dark room. Everybody will see you. You don't need to do that with the human onboard.
So humans are still valuable in the cockpit. Drones have their place, but they will not soon replace the human for the really complex tasks and split second judgments that war requires.
Well, having a cellular data modem there and being able to actually access it are totally different things. It's going to require a cellular data subscription and phone companies just don't give that kind of thing out for free and they would likely get pretty upset if someone hacked into their system to get to your car once they find out.
Actually, the best protection here is to be nobody in the first place. I believe that there are a lot of people who have a heightened sense of their own value in the grand scheme of things. I don't know how many times I've had to wade though pictures of people's lunch/dinner on social media. Obviously people think they are more important than they really are. Who's going to hack your car and why? Personally I'm not worried, even if I had a cellular data modem equipped vehicle, I'm too cheap to subscribe to any services that would use it and even if I did, there is nobody who would be interested in hacking MY car. There are a whole bunch of more dangerous things in my life than that, so I'm not worried about it.
Why bother.. The antenna is ALREADY illegal if you attach it to your part 15 device...
have Virginia suddenly going Blue.
Suddenly blue? So, they haven't ever elected a democrat before now?
Virginia might be considred PURPLE, with some pretty dark shades of blue. They may have a Republican governor, but they do have two democratic senators and a couple of house seats..... They've voted to elect the democratic candidate in the last two presidential elections.
Virginia has been BLUE for at least the last 8 years... What would be sudden is if it started electing republicans....
I'm betting the only conclusion we can really draw is that the vendor for these systems stopped making their regularly-scheduled payments to the appropriate campaign organizations.
Ah, no.. The fact is that the OTHER vendor started making bigger donations to those in power and the incumbent vendor decided to take the money and run.
Got to admit it took me a bit to catch the sarcasm in that... Well played...
Wow.. I just checked and found the OnStar FMV for under $100 on Amazon...
Still, I don't think a manufacturer will just throw that in when they can charge $300 for floor mats.
Car makers are VERY cost aware. Take a look at a modern car and the "options" available. Now days, option packages come in very large chunks.... You want the leather seats, butt warmers and power doors in the mini-van you are going to get the upgraded entertainment system and power doors too. No you cannot opt out of any of them, it's all or nothing. They do this to cut costs like you suggest...
However, just select the highest trim model that doesn't include all the integrated data link junk and you will be fine. A automobile rated cell phone module is going to be massively more expensive than that $100 throw away hand held so they won't throw it in to save money. My guess is that this module will run north of $800 to design and manufacture if it's something integrated into the car and not that "Replace your rear view mirror OnStar" device that goes for about $300 (and integrates with nothing in your car.)
So, I don't think you will get some stealth data connection if you don't buy an option package that has it up front. It's going to be way too expensive to just "throw it on" so we don't have to worry with varying the assembly process to keep it off.
I've seen a foggy day in San Fran, I can assure you that solar panels will be largely ineffective during those events... But my point here is that if you loose half of your capacity on some day, you will need to be prepared with the storage necessary to tide you over pulse additional capacity to charge that storage when the sun is shinning.
Most people don't realize that this can multiply the capacity necessary by multiple times and increase costs by many multiples over the "It works on a sunny day" kind of installation. This is the PROBLEM with solar really... Yea, when the sun shines it's great stuff, but any other time it's either useless or WAY too expensive for what you get and you end up needing to be on the fossil fueled grid anyway.
You test EMP by using large voltage spikes. What are spark plugs run with? High voltage spikes.... Stands to reason that a generally well shielded set of electronics inside a metal box which was designed to generate high voltage spikes on purpose, would tolerate an EMP from an external source fairly well.
See Page 115 and following:
http://empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
Apparently their testing involved 37 vehicles with approximately 10% showing signs of being upset by strong EMPs and nearly all of those not permanently damaged by the pulse.
If you are concerned about somebody "hacking" your car over some network connection, just don't buy a car with a network connection. and your problem is solved.. If there is no cellular data connection, there is no way for anybody to hack your car using a data connection. So no "OnStar" or other such convenience services that involve data connections to your car.
If that doesn't meet your definition of safe enough, understand what you are trying to protect yourself from. MOST of the demonstrated hacks we've seen of late REQUIRE physical access to the vehicle at some point. You are going to need to provide PHYSICAL security for that car parked in the public parking lot in front of the grocery store to protect yourself from this stuff. But that's always been the case. These new "hacking" techniques don't make it any worse.
In short, don't worry about it. Buy a cheap car w/o all the quickly outdated "data connection" based services and stop being a worry wart... Well that and don't be a high profile target.... Who's going to hack my Honda Accord? I'm just a middle aged, middle class guy with my 2.3 kids driving a cheap car. I'm not important enough to be a target...
Safe from EMP as well.
ANY car made today is going to be safe from EMP. They did a test a few years ago and found that out of 12 vehicles subjected to EMP events similar to what would be experienced form a nuclear device outside of the immediate blast damage area, only TWO showed any signs of being affected in any way. Both of those vehicles where "fixed" by turning the key off and then restarting them.
I conclude from this study that modern vehicles are pretty much immune to EMP for the most part. Most would not even notice the pulse and just keep going down the road. Some (Say 10%) would stop running and the majority of those would restart after being powered off. Chances are the number of vehicles needing repairs would be less than 1%.
So.... Just own two vehicles of different makes and chances you will be just fine.. At least as far as immediate transportation is concerned. Having electrical power at home IS going to be a problem though...
The F-4's advantage was speed, and that it had in spades. It was horrible at anything that required maneuverability. Roll rate was OK, but turn rate was pretty low. It was HEAVY and had high wing loading so it turned like a pig. It was pressed into service to do multiple roles, but only because that's all they had, not because it was well suited for being anything other than a radar guided missile platform.
You didn't want to dog fight in the thing, dropping bombs was a chore, but you could get there and back quickly.
The problem with the A-10 is that the airframes are all about done. Due to the types of missions they fly, metal fatigue is setting in and it's time to either replace the airframes or start watching the wings fall off. They are great aircraft, it's just worn out and not easily refurbished.
This comparison favours planes with small internal fuel tanks.
Actually, it puts ANY stealth aircraft at a definite disadvantage. When you are trying for stealth, you don't want or have external stores because such things are GREAT at reflecting radar.
However, the point is somewhat valid. If the F-35 cannot turn with an F-18 or an F-16 then it's a loosing platform in a dog fight. But that's really NOT what the F-35 is supposed to be for. I though it's *primary* mission was one of Close Air Support, dropping bombs and shooting tanks at or near the front lines. In which case, being a nimble fighter in a dog fight is nice, but not your primary concern. The only way it becomes a concern is when doing CAS in a contested air space, in which case, you are in serious tactical trouble before you get into the air. If you are bombing and get jumped, figure on getting shot down, if you are loitering waiting for a call and get jumped, where is that AWACS warning and call to the F-22's to deal with the bad guy? Either way, somebody messed up and now the F-35 driver is going to pay the price.
The A-10 is quickly reaching the end of it's useful life. They are suffering serious problems with metal fatigue as most of the airframes have been flying well beyond their intended lifespan. These need to be rebuilt or junked, likely junked.
Also, nobody has built an A-10 in a few decades. Where we could stand up the tooling and a production line to build them again, that costs serious money. So the cost pre unit you are looking at would be considerably higher than before.. All you'd really be saving is the NRE (Non Recurring Engineering) costs, but I'm guessing that if we decided to go down this path, there are parts of the aircraft we'd really like to revamp as we retool.
I'm not saying that buying a few hundred A-10's wouldn't be a good deal and keep us in close air support aircraft for decades, I'm just saying that it's not the cheap alternative that it may seem up front.
The future's probably in souped-up drones anyhow. You don't have to worry about pilot safety etc. and can gamble more in a dog-fight. Manned planes will not go away, but will become a niche.
Drones have their place, but for doing close air support and air superiority roles you really need a human in the cockpit making decisions about who's where and what needs to be shot at and what doesn't.
I see Drones in Air Combat roles, but not alone. I can see them as radar platforms, putting the radar source and the thing that's going to shoot you in different locations. I also see them used as decoys, providing a multitude of possible targets for air defense systems to categorize and figure out how to deal with. But in each of these cases there are human equipped aircraft directing the activities from fairly close range and deciding what gets shot at.
For the close air support role, drones are basically useless as bomb delivery platforms, especially if the situation on the ground is ever changing. Drones have a role in the CAS role, but it's more about being a forward observation platform and possibly doing the laser designation for human run aircraft to drop bombs on.
My point here is that Drones are CHANGING how we do tactics and not replacing humans in the cockpit. They are being integrated into the existing fighting tactics making the result better than the sum of it's parts. There are things Drones do well and things humans do better and the smart money devisees tactics that uses the strengths of both in unexpected ways.
True, but having a Gun did help the F-4 Phantom, as did revising their tactics. Go back and watch "Top Gun" for a bit of a history lesson on that (just don't figure the air to air sequences are anything close to realistic).
The Phantom's issue was TURN RATE. It ran fast in a straight line, real fast, but when you wanted to turn, it was so heavy and high wing loading made it nearly impossible to make it turn. When you get close, turn rate is king. Or as the Falcon 3.0 game says in the introduction "Rate Kills!" You have to get that nose pointed at the other guy and if you can turn faster, you eventually win.
What changed for the Phantom was the tactics... They started AVOIDING the dog fight, if the missile wasn't going to work, you didn't choose to get into a dog fight and if you happened to get in a turning fight, you looked for a way to exit. With the Phantom's great speed this means you'd accelerate away from the fight if the missile missed or if you found yourself in a turning fight it was time to hit full AB and use your thrust to weight advantage to climb out of it.
Pork aside, empires have been lost because politicians couldn't reverse previous bad decisions. The world is not all safe and cosy, Putin is invading Eastern Europe, China is threatening the Phillipines and Japans boundary, even building artificial islands and landing strips in their territorial waters.
Fix it or dump it, but don't pretends it ok.
Build more F-22's then restart the F-18 production line... This F-35 thing needs to die because it is sucking the life blood ($$) out of the Pentagon and is likely to produce a less than ideal aircraft. I've said from the beginning of this boondoggle, the F-35 has too many requirements and will keep over-running it's costs and under delivering its capabilities because they are trying to stuff 10 lbs of garbage in a 2 lb box.
Dog fighting is what military planes do.
Not all of them, in fact, very few of them are for dog fighting.
You'd loose trying to dog fight in a C-5. It doesn't fire weapons, and it's turning rate is about as bad as it can get. Dog fighting is best left to the few aircraft with the "F" designation, although some of them carry the "F" in their name more for show than actual practice. Generally the active types of "F" aircraft are pretty limited in numbers, where the other utility types "C, U, A, B" usually have more active types and a lot more active aircraft.
The suit isn't patiently frivolous on it's face. Which is a REALLY low bar to clear. It just means that somebody isn't just making up some crackpot legal theory for the lawsuit and that there might be some evidence.