New F35 issue - no cannon pew pew until 2019 due to software glitch

[Mar]

And if you don't live to see the recall?

[PR3D4TOR]

Then your family can't sue the Air Force, because they're above the law.

[Vulcan]

Has anyone hacked an F-16 yet? After all it is a computer controlled plane with comm links and everything a UAV has. The pilot would be a helpless passenger if someone got into the computer. How about an Airbus? No. Hacking a plane is something that only happens in movies. Jamming an old primitive radio controlled drone has happened. Big difference.

As one drone developer put it when asked about the danger of autonomous machines going haywire: It is only an issue if it consistently kills the wrong people. Then it's a product recall issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident

Oops what's that - you have your foot in your mouth?

A Christian Science Monitor article relates an Iranian engineer's assertion that the drone was captured by jamming both satellite and land-originated control signals to the UAV, followed up by a GPS spoofing attack that fed the UAV false GPS data to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its home base in Afghanistan. Stephen Trimble from Flight Global assumes UAV guidance could be targeted by 1L222 Avtobaza radar jamming and deception system supplied to Iran by Russia.[17] In an interview for Nova, U.S. retired Lt. General David Deptula also said "There was a problem with the aircraft and it landed in an area it wasn't supposed to land".[18][19]

American aeronautical engineers dispute this, pointing out that as is the case with the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the Tomahawk, "GPS is not the primary navigation sensor for the RQ-170... The vehicle gets its flight path orders from an inertial navigation system".[20] Inertial navigation continues to be used on military aircraft despite the advent of GPS because GPS signal jamming and spoofing are relatively simple operations

A bit of he said she said going on, but it DID land in a place it was not supposed to which makes it highly likely someone helped the Iranians bring it down with a GPS spoofing attack.

[PR3D4TOR]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident
Oops what's that - you have your foot in your mouth?

Not if you're actually able to read.

Jamming an old primitive radio controlled drone has happened. Big difference.

"A Christian Science Monitor article relates an Iranian engineer's assertion that the drone was captured by jamming both satellite and land-originated control signals to the UAV..."

"American aeronautical engineers dispute this, pointing out that as is the case with the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the Tomahawk, "GPS is not the primary navigation sensor for the RQ-170... The vehicle gets its flight path orders from an inertial navigation system".[20] Inertial navigation continues to be used on military aircraft despite the advent of GPS because GPS signal jamming and spoofing are relatively simple operations."


So you just go ahead and believe whatever the Iranians say. Your naiveté won't make it reality.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Has anyone hacked an F-16 yet? After all it is a computer controlled plane with comm links and everything a UAV has. The pilot would be a helpless passenger if someone got into the computer. How about an Airbus? No. Hacking a plane is something that only happens in movies. Jamming an old primitive radio controlled drone has happened. Big difference.

As one drone developer put it when asked about the danger of autonomous machines going haywire: It is only an issue if it consistently kills the wrong people. Then it's a product recall issue.

If the F16 was remotely operated and it was used in operations against a developed country most likely it would happen. As it is, I doubt any of the F16 systems actively listen to outside commands nor does it do autonomous decisions which could be affected by ECM. Once there's no pilot and you manage to mess up the computer making the decisions, all bets are off.

[PR3D4TOR]

Usually it is the pilot who messes up not the computer. Controlled flight into terrain is the leading cause of all fatal aircraft accidents in the world.

You still don't get the meaning of "autonomous". There will be no controllers in bunkers with joysticks and screens. The future UCAVs won't need outside communications to complete their mission. No more so than a human pilot. You give them a mission and they will fly off and complete that mission on their own using their own best judgment and set of parameters and ROE. There will be no way of "hacking" it. You can jam its sensors perhaps and make it more difficult for it to find its target, but you'd have to blind it with a laser because these killing machines will have eyes, magnitudes better than the Mk.I eyeball of a human pilot, and if it can see you, you won't stand much of a chance.

Take the sensor fusion system developed for the F-35. The pilot isn't actually looking outside the cockpit anymore, but at a synthetic surround image generated by the F-35's sensor systems. The biggest problem in system design like this is always to make it simple enough that a human can operate it effectively and not be overloaded. The computers have to dumb down the sensor inputs so that a human can understand it. Computers don't have that limitation. In the F-35 the sensors will collect information and the computers will classify contacts and display them on the sensor fusion display with an icon and ID data, friend or foe threat assessment and recommended action. The UCAV will have missiles off the rails against all targets and already making evasive maneuvers from any possible counter attack before the human eye can even register the first SU-27 icon on the display.

Autonomy is the watchword.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Usually it is the pilot who messes up not the computer. Controlled flight into terrain is the leading cause of all fatal aircraft accidents in the world.

You still don't get the meaning of "autonomous". There will be no controllers in bunkers with joysticks and screens. The future UCAVs won't need outside communications to complete their mission. No more so than a human pilot. You give them a mission and they will fly off and complete that mission on their own using their own best judgment and set of parameters and ROE. There will be no way of "hacking" it. You can jam its sensors perhaps and make it more difficult for it to find its target, but you'd have to blind it with a laser because these killing machines will have eyes, magnitudes better than the Mk.I eyeball of a human pilot, and if it can see you, you won't stand much of a chance.

Take the sensor fusion system developed for the F-35. The pilot isn't actually looking outside the cockpit anymore, but at a synthetic surround image generated by the F-35's sensor systems. The biggest problem in system design like this is always to make it simple enough that a human can operate it effectively and not be overloaded. The computers have to dumb down the sensor inputs so that a human can understand it. Computers don't have that limitation. In the F-35 the sensors will collect information and the computers will classify contacts and display them on the sensor fusion display with an icon and ID data, friend or foe threat assessment and recommended action. The UCAV will have missiles off the rails against all targets and already making evasive maneuvers from any possible counter attack before the human eye can even register the first SU-27 icon on the display.

Autonomy is the watchword.

Autonomy becomes disorientation when the machine faces ECM. And no machine is even a light year away from being so autonomous that it could be allowed to go to a real combat mission with live ordnance and anywhere near friendly troops.

[Serenity]

Autonomy becomes disorientation when the machine faces ECM. And no machine is even a light year away from being so autonomous that it could be allowed to go to a real combat mission with live ordnance and anywhere near friendly troops.

I had a friend who flew P-3s in Iraq/Afghanistan (Why in god's name we had P-3s in the middle of the desert, I don't know...) and he said, time and again, the scariest thing he and his squadron ever faced was sharing airspace with drones.

[PR3D4TOR]

Autonomy becomes disorientation when the machine faces ECM. And no machine is even a light year away from being so autonomous that it could be allowed to go to a real combat mission with live ordnance and anywhere near friendly troops.

Not a light year (illogical choice of unit anyway), but the British expect the Taranis to enter active service sometime in the 2030's. It will replace all their Tornado bombers.

[SilverZ06]

Autonomy becomes disorientation when the machine faces ECM. And no machine is even a light year away from being so autonomous that it could be allowed to go to a real combat mission with live ordnance and anywhere near friendly troops.

A light year is a measure of distance not time.

[Serenity]

A light year is a measure of distance not time.

I can see distance being used as a metaphorical unit of measure here. "We're MILES from a solution" etc.

[Vulcan]

Not if you're actually able to read.

"A Christian Science Monitor article relates an Iranian engineer's assertion that the drone was captured by jamming both satellite and land-originated control signals to the UAV..."

"American aeronautical engineers dispute this, pointing out that as is the case with the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the Tomahawk, "GPS is not the primary navigation sensor for the RQ-170... The vehicle gets its flight path orders from an inertial navigation system".[20] Inertial navigation continues to be used on military aircraft despite the advent of GPS because GPS signal jamming and spoofing are relatively simple operations."


So you just go ahead and believe whatever the Iranians say. Your naiveté won't make it reality.

Who cannot read? The US admitted the drone LANDED in a place it was not supposed to, right into the hands of the Iranians. If you don't think the Iranians had something to do with that (with some soviet help I'm guessing) then you need to take a look in the mirror. Of course the US would deny, nobody wants to look that stupid. It's not like the military haven't lied before. So who is naive?

[PR3D4TOR]

Again you show your inability to read properly. You even contradict yourself saying first the "US admitted the drone LANDED", and then "Of course the US would deny" only two sentences later.

"On 6 December 2011, U.S. officials acknowledged that a drone crashed in or near Iranian airspace... U.S. military sources confirmed that the remains of an RQ-170 had been captured by Iranian forces."

US gov/mil has never "admitted" or acknowledged that the drone was hacked, nor that it wasn't. How could they (Don't answer that, rhetorical). They speculate that the drone malfunctioned and crashed.

If it was so easy that the Iranians could do it US drones would be falling out of the sky everywhere. The Iranians can't even build a decent car.

"Bill Sweetman, an author with an interest in military planes, speculated that the Iranians did not shoot down the plane (citing the lack of burn marks, holes, or outward damage) or hack into the system, postulating that a system failure downed the plane, and that the plane could be intact from what is known as a "flat spin" or "falling leaf departure"."

Just like this Hawk prototype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfSyHAoxUfs

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Again you show your inability to read properly. You even contradict yourself saying first the "US admitted the drone LANDED", and then "Of course the US would deny" only two sentences later.

"On 6 December 2011, U.S. officials acknowledged that a drone crashed in or near Iranian airspace... U.S. military sources confirmed that the remains of an RQ-170 had been captured by Iranian forces."

US gov/mil has never "admitted" or acknowledged that the drone was hacked, nor that it wasn't. How could they (Don't answer that, rhetorical). They speculate that the drone malfunctioned and crashed.

If it was so easy that the Iranians could do it US drones would be falling out of the sky everywhere. The Iranians can't even build a decent car.

"Bill Sweetman, an author with an interest in military planes, speculated that the Iranians did not shoot down the plane (citing the lack of burn marks, holes, or outward damage) or hack into the system, postulating that a system failure downed the plane, and that the plane could be intact from what is known as a "flat spin" or "falling leaf departure"."

Just like this Hawk prototype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfSyHAoxUfs

You mean the totally intact remains Iranians published later?

[PR3D4TOR]

Then why didn't you post a picture this "totally intact" drone? In all the pictures I've seen it looks like it had been banged up pretty good and later fixed up.

The original is on the right, and it looks like a rather crude repair job.




This is what a crashed Predator drone looked like after it spun in. If they glued the tail back on it would look in better condition than the RQ-170 in Iran.




Why don't you guys do a tiny bit of research next time before opening your virtual pie holes and spewing all this crap. (Again rhetorical.)