July 12, 2008

Mission critical software. I’ve never understood how people building systems that decide between life & death sleep peacefully at night.

One of my favorite bombers of all time - the B-2 Stealth Bomber took a $2BN joyride into the turf because a malfunctioning moisture sensor fed irrational data into the Operational Flight Program (OFP) of the B-2. The pilots didn’t have a chance in saving the bird.

B-2 Stealth Bomber

Further research into the incident yielded that the original OFP was written in a language called JOVIAL. The irony of a language called JOVIAL taking a plane like that for a JOYride is amusing. It wouldn’t have been so had either of the pilots died.

Apparently JOVIAL is at the heart of the National Airspace System (NAS), probably the most complex aviation system on Earth. Regardless, the US Air Force upgraded the B-2 software/hardware sub-system to a Pentium/C combination. All good then.

I always thought Air Traffic Control systems were built on Ada. Which is probably the next language I am going to get into, just for kicks.

Next post Dubai - Solar Giant? The story of the U.A.E. is a pretty amazing one. The journey since independence in 1971 has been simply spectacular, with a lot of it documented