Two F-15s participating in the Y2K Flag were injured, neither seriously, when their planes crashed Tuesday. The cause is under investigation.
This should not have been a surprise! The DOD knew that the F-15 had Y2K problems. The Navy Tomahawk missile also has problems. Good thing they didn't decide to test their missiles?
Department of Defense. During Bill Curtis' 27-year career as a military computer programmer, he wrote more than a few lines of code that were century-insensitive. "I made decisions that we could only use two digits for the date," he confesses. Now, as the head of the Department of Defense's Y2K office, Curtis is in charge of fixing his own--and everyone else's--software screwups. It's a job nobody else wanted. Although the Pentagon began Y2K planning in 1995, repairs of the most vital computer systems were only 9% complete this spring. The F-15 and the Navy's Tomahawk missile are two of 34 as yet undebugged weapons systems cited in a report scheduled to be released this week. When pressed, Curtis admits that even the military's most "mission critical" systems--perhaps 2,800 in all--won't be ready in time. Officials insist that America's nuclear arsenal is more or less fail-safe, which means that if the computer systems go haywire, the missiles won't launch. Whether the same is true of Russia's nukes is an open question.
cgi.pathfinder.com
Strangely enough, Jim Garamone (American Forces Press Service) wrote this last July.
For high-technology, computer-dependent DOD, a Y2K computer glitch might cause an F-15 fighter pilot to crash.
af.mil
Interestingly, just last month they sounded confident.
"During this portion of the Y2K Flag, we're concentrating mainly on the third phase with some command and control elements added in," Dowty said. In each test, we set the clocks to various critical dates -- such as December 31, 1999; January 1, 2000; February 28 and 29, for the leap year. As the clock ticks to the midnight hour, we carefully monitor what happens."
Once past midnight, pilots check their onboard systems to ensure they operate correctly in the Year 2000 environment.
"The good news is that as we're looking at these systems, we're just not seeing many problems at all," said Dowty. "So far, we haven't encountered any problems with any of our munitions. Even our most date-sensitive equipment, the global positioning system receiver, had zero failures."
af.mil
Did you notice that their GPS didn't have a problem Y2K? But I don't see where they tested the GPS rollover date 8/21/1999-8/22/1999!
B.K.
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