Eurofighter technical problems.

"Paul F Austin" wrote in message
...

"Ian" wrote in message
...

"Eric Moore" wrote in message
...
It looks like the F-22 isn't the only aircraft with teething problems.
See:

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040524222142.i5vufze7.html

Anyone care to speculate on how long it will take de-bug this
aircraft?

Can't get the URL to work properly on my machine, but if its the report
I
think it is, a lot of the issues have either gone away (were just
arguing
over the phrases some release documents used) or are only as a result of
the
so called independent assessors (who were funded by the MoD!!!) not
really
liking the UK prime company. Funny how all four partner countries have
the
same flight control software, yet only the UK are "unhappy" If they're
that
unhappy with it, how come a pair of the RAF jets have just flown over my
house??

That may be the case for most of the bugs cited by QinetiQ but some are
serious:

"Corruption" of the flight control computer system means that it could
suddenly switch from "in-flight" mode to "ground" mode in mid-air, leading
to "immediately catastrophic" results.

and

The cockpit flight information displays "frequently fail in flight", and
therefore, whenever a Eurofighter is taken into cloud or bad weather, it
should again be with two pilots.

sound quite serious, although I don't know how a second pilot will help in
the second case.

The corruption of the FCC was never a real issue - it was more to do with
the way the testing was reported. Funny thing is, the tests that were
performed were to a QinetiQ spec. Funnily enough the spec was never
questioned by anybody outside BAe who had concerns that it wasn't the right
thing. As far as I know the "frequent" cockpit display failures means two
in a development fleet just over 10 years old. Suppose 1 every five years is
frequent! Hasn't stopped them flying the things from Warton where its
normally cloudy (although havent seen that many clouds over teh last few
weeks!)