F-35 radar software fails in the air
By Richard Chirgwin
March 8, 2016
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has run into yet another software bug, according to a report in IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.
The glitch is in the software that operates the fighter’s radar. During flight, Jane’s reckons, the radar software becomes unstable.
The report quotes US Air Force Major General Jeffrey Harrigian as saying “What would happen is [pilots would] get a signal that says either a radar degrade or a radar fail – something that would force us to restart the radar”.
He said the problem was discovered in 2015, and that Lockheed-Martin is now running a fix through its test labs, with a patch due this month.
The USAF believes the glitch won’t get in the way of it reaching “initial operational capability” for the F-35 between August and December this year.
The F-35’s software has been raised again in Australia courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Background Briefing program over the weekend.