Oh, it’s always the little things…

It’s the most advanced fighter ever made. Costing about $125 million each, the F-22 Raptor is stealthy, incredibly fast, packed full of amazing technology, and can kill enemies from hundreds of miles away without them ever knowing it was there (reminds me of a line from Jurassic Park about velociraptors ). But during a flight across the Pacific to Japan, a bug in multiple computer systems caused all six Raptors’ computers to completely crash when they crossed the International Date Line. Fuel systems, flight systems, navigation, and some communications systems were taken down, and attempts to “reboot” the computers while in-flight proved futile. Luckily, it was a clear day and the F-22s had their tanker aircraft as guides to bring them to the nearest airbase.

Pretty sad that after 20 years of development and one of the biggest contracts in military history, they get taken down by something that is probably fixable with a half-dozen lines of code. Lockheed’s got some explaining to do.

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