F-22 Avionics Require Inflight Reboot

An anonymous reader writes "The Atlanta Journal & Constitution is fronting a lengthy piece on the USAF's new F-22 and its upcoming shootout with the existing fleet of F-15's & 16's. One line in the article really jumped out at me: 'When avionics problems crop up now, pilots must restart the entire system as if rebooting a personal computer.' I did some googling, and this is about as much as I could find: The hardware backbone for the system is the Hughes Common Integrated Processor, which, in turn, appears to be built around the Intel i960 CPU. I couldn't find a name for the operating system, but it appears to be written in about one and a half million lines of Ada code; more on the Ada hardware integration and Ada i960 compilers is here. Any Slashdotters working on this project? If so, why do you need the inflight reboot? PS: Gamers will be interested to learn that nVidia's Quadro2 Go GPU and Wind River's VxWorks Operating System are melded in the F-22's Multi-Function Display."

F-22 BSOD...

[Toasty16]

...Blue Skies of Death

Finally!

[decaying]

My years of Comp Sci with Ada as the language of choice (Uni's not mine).... I struggled with it, and grew to hate it.....

At least I know who uses the bloody thing.... The tutors never could.....

Please reboot...

[Subcarrier]

Apparently, the reboot is only necessary after discharging ammunition. The hardware configuration wizard will pop up and instruct the pilot to reboot the system in order to activate the changes.

Duh..

[Malduin]

If it requires an inflight reboot, there's no doubt what OS it's running. Gotta be Win98. I can see the MS tech support call now..

MS Support: "Thank you for calling Microsoft Customer support. How may I help you?"
Pilot: "Uhh.. I'm spiraling towards the earth, both my engines are out, and my display says 'General Protection Fault' in white text on a blue background."
MS Support: "And what is the system model?"
Pilot: "The the F-22 jet.."
MS Support: "Oh yes, there are known issues that we will not admit to with that particular system. To temporarily fix the problem, simply reboot. Or, if the 5 minute boot time is too long, may I personally recommend that you eject. However, you will have to purchase another license of Windows 98 for $1000 since jet fighter crashes are not a valid reason to receive a new license."
Pilot: "@#$*(! Microsoft!"
MS Support: "Thank you and have a nice day!"

If Slashdotters were working on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

they sure wouldn't be able to say anything about it.

It's a safety feature.

[Black Parrot]

Everyone knows that frequent reboots prevents crashes.

Re: Why do you need the inflight reboot?

[back@slash]

It's so todays pilots feel more at home with their fighter jets computer of course, having grown up with 90's software. You haven't seen the changes to communication protocal yet have you?

typical conversation between pilots
pilot1: u missed ur target fag u suck
pilot2: stfu idiot i'll kik ur ass
pilot1: lol ill show u how to shoot missles loser... im gonna get that camper anti-aircraft fag
pilot2: haha u missed 2... u couldnt even hit ur fat momma

and so forth....

Re:F-22 BSOD...

[Verizon Guy]

I wonder if there are Ctrl, Alt, and Del buttons on the F-22 cockpit console?

Re:Yikes!

[Anonymous Coward]

more like blue sky of death

Re: Drivers?

[Black Parrot]

> Stonent Imagine a Beowulf cluster of whatever this story is about!

They already thought of that. You see, while they rarely mention it at air shows, the realy reason airplanes fly in formation is because those "formations" are actually high-availability clusters for their avionics software.

IMHO the USAF has more acronyms than M$

[InsMonkey]

Apparently one cannot even speculate about modern weaponry without falling victim to TMFA (Too Many Fucking Acronyms). I've often debated over who's TMFA was worse: Micro$oft or the guv'ment. Perdo here is really making a strong case for the latter.

imagine this

[drDugan]

MAVERICK
I've lost him -- where is he?

GOOSE
On your six -- coming hard. Four
hundred. Losing airspeed! He's on
your six and closing fast!
Hard left! HARD LEFT!

Maverick jerks the stick left, and the F-14 takes an
astonishing turn. Jester ROARS past into a wide arc.

GOOSE
Great move. Great

MAVERICK
He should've had me.

GOOSE
Take it down. Let's bug out of
here. Call for a draw.

MAVERICK
No way. Let's reboot. I'll nail him this time.
Going vertical.
...

Re:I had to say it...

[Anonvmous Coward]

Not to be cliche or anything, and I'm sure you could see this one coming a million miles away,

but what happens when it crashes?

Hahahahaha!!!

This reminds me of some trouble I got into in high-school once: Anybody remember Channel 1? It started around 1990-1, and it was a news channel that some schools got. Each episode had a trivia question just before a commercial break.

One day, they asked "What is the most common cause of plane crashes?". I hastily and enthusiastically responded "gravity!!" I got in real serious trouble that day, I forgot that the teacher was also a pilot. The real answer was 'human error', which I had illustrated that day when my teacher shot me down to the principal's office.

Drivers?

[zentu]

So, uh when do they update the drivers for the displays, and when do they know that there was a problem with them? Pilot: Air traffic contol, come in. Air Triaffic contoler: We read you Pilot. What's your problem. P: The heads up display is going fuzzy, any clue what may be wrong?. ATC: Let me see, what version of the Windows F22 are you running? P: The version my machanic put in. ATC: So do you see the blinky red light in the left corner? P: No, I see a green one on the upper right. ATC: Well, you need to come back to base then, you have the old drivers. P: O.K. I will turn around now. ATC: Oh, by the way, the problem with your version is that the ground is actually off by six feet, becareful. P:WTF? Is it up or down? ATC: it varyies, by the driver version....

Re:Duh..

[sql*kitten]

If it requires an inflight reboot, there's no doubt what OS it's running.

RH support: Thanks for calling Red Hat! How may we help you?
Pilot: "Uhh.. I'm spiraling towards the earth, both my engines are out, and my display says 'kernel panic' in white text on a black background."
RH Support: "And what is the system model?"
Pilot: "The the F-22 jet.."
RH support: If you read linux-kernel-bugtraq, you will see that you should have patched your kernel to 2.4.19-pre-alpha-revision-d before takeoff. But no problem, this is Linux after all. Do you have another F22 on your LAN? Just telnet in from there, su to root and restart sendmail.
Pilot: @#$*! Redhat! I'm switching to Debian if I survive!
RH support: Can I interest you in any RHAT?

Re:F-22 BSOD...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if there are Ctrl, Alt, and Del buttons on the F-22 cockpit console?

Sure, Ctrl is on the right control panel, Alt on the left, and Delete on the stick. :-)

Re:Duh..

[Bartmoss]

telnet? on a wlan? better use ipsec, or the enemy will have your f-22's passwords in no time.

F-22 HUD Display: "Your System has been 0wned."

Oops.

Re:F-22 BSOD...

[DragonTHC]

no no, you see ctrl-alt-del is on the stick, though you have to press them at exactly the same time or you'll launch a missile :

Can we say classified?

[AIXadmin]

"Any Slashdotters working on this project? If so, why do you need the inflight reboot?"
Yes lets find someone to discuss the internals of what is undoubtedly classified material.

I can just see it:
"Man executed for posting on Slashdot."

Eurofighter

[Nexus Seven]

I read somewhere that when the computer on board the Eurofighter 2000 fails, the aircraft attempts to reboot it.

If it cannot reboot on the seventh attempt, the aircraft automatically ejects the pilot.

As each reboot attempt takes milliseconds, you could be flying happily along only to suddenly find yourself being catapulted into the air.

Any Slashdotters working on this project?

[echucker]

Even if they were, do you think they could tell the rest of us?

Doubt it.

Re:Duh..

[Grey Brick]

If it requires an inflight reboot, there's no doubt what OS it's running.

FreeBSD support: Thanks for calling FreeBSD! How may we help you?
Pilot: "Uhh.. I'm spiraling towards the earth, both my engines are out, and my display says 'Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode' in white text on a black background."
FreeBSD Support: "And what is the system model?"
Pilot: "The the F-22 jet.."
FreeBSD support: No worries, just send us a full backtrace... you _did_ enable debugging information in your kernel didn't you?!
Pilot: @#$*! FreeBSD! I'm switching to OpenBSD if I survive!
FreeBSD support: RTFM!

Re:Duh..

[GroovBird]

pilot@airoplane:~$ su -c "apt-get install ejection-seat"
Password:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package ejection-seat

Damn!

Re:There Is Something Rotten in Software Engineeri

[joib]

When that attitude changes we'll start seeing software that rivals hardware in reliability..

Or will we start seeing bridges collapse as an everyday occurance? :) Well, hopefully not.

Re:Duh..

[Rogerborg]

• If it requires an inflight reboot, there's no doubt what OS it's running.

Apple support: Thanks for calling Apple! How may we help you?
Pilot: "Uhh.. I'm spiraling towards the earth, both my engines are out, and my display says 'unresolved kernel trap' [arstechnica.com] in white text on a black background, admittedly overlaid on very a friendly GUI. Before that, there was a three second delay accompanied by a busy icon whenever I tried anything."
Apple Support: "And what is the system model?"
Pilot: "The the F-22 jet.."
Apple support: Oh, sorry, we don't plan to support that hardware until version 10.3. Can you use 10.2 Jaguar [aviationartprints.com] until then?
Pilot: @#$*! Mac! I'm switching to BeOS if I survive!
Apple support: Can I interest you in a .Mac subscription?

Re:Duh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Followed closely by the first irrelevant indignant-yet-humorless-response post.

Congrats, you get the coveted No Shit Sherlock Award for the day.

What I know..

[Anonymous Coward]

Any Slashdotters working on this project? If so, why do you need the inflight reboot?

Yes I have entensive knowledge of the internals. I can say that#stat.372//Carnivore active#

Re:Ada ?

[SuiteSisterMary]

I just want the ability to declare something as an int with value 3, divide it in half, and reassign the value back so it is now a float 1.5

Holy CRAP.

Re:F-22 BSOD...

[stilwebm]

You have to find a paperclip, the straighten one end to fit it in the small "reset" hole on the side of the console.

On Debian? Probably more like:

[Just Some Guy]

pilot@airplane:~$ su -c "apt-get install ejection-seat"
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package ejection seat is a virtual package provided by:
ejection-seat-gnome
ejection-seat-gnome2
kseat
gtk-seat++
qteject-o-matic
ncurses-eject
ejection-svga

...all requiring about 31MB of dependency downloads (or 187MB for ejection-seat-gnome2, which may break 'parachute-gnome') over your 9600bps link.

Re:Duh..

[gilroy]

Almost. But of course, if they don't admit the problem, it's not a "known issue". The conversation would be more like:

Microsoft: Oh yes, there are known issues with that system. We should have a hot update in, say, two to six months. Until then, we suggest the workaround of never leaving the ground.
Pilot: But it's a fratzing PLANE!
Microsoft: If you care to read your End User License Agreement, you will see that Microsoft makes no warranty as to the usefulness of the software for any given task, including that for which it was purchased.
Pilot: This is a $500M plane you're responsible for.
Microsoft: Actually, if you read the EULA, Microsoft is not responsible for any damages caused by failure of the software, whether or not those failures were known, or avoidable, or intentional.
Pilot: That's it. I'm ejecting.
Microsoft: Actually, sir, the maker of the ejection seats chose not to use WindowsXP embedded. To preserve the integrity of the Windows experience, your on-board avionics have been instructed not to interoperate with the rogue OS on the ejection seat. But WindowsEJ will be out in first quarter 2003 for your ejection seat pleasure.

MS Pilotclip

[zCyl]

Hello! It appears you are trying to fire a missile, would you like my assistance?