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See the original image at popularmechanics.com

Could One Email Have Stopped a $1.4B Stealth Bomber Crash?

popularmechanics.com — Small errors, it now turns out, caused a large accident.

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  • j1a1g1, on 07/03/2008, -4/+32even a text message could have stopped it
    • Nidy1, on 07/04/2008, -2/+30Trn on heat b4 u calibr8. Nd dnt 4get teh pizza fri. lol.
    • Niightwitch, on 07/04/2008, -3/+1Check O ring.
    • wolfkeeper, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3Arguably they could also have saved the aircraft if the mechanics had a common wiki on best practices.
    • MacSuxWindozSux, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5C-3PO: "I believe the Negative Power Coupling is polarized."
  • johlorax, on 07/03/2008, -13/+9Yeah, thats what they get for cutting costs...I'm sure if we just spend another 250 million tax payer dollars per plane, we can figure out a way to fix this water leak.
    • opticwind, on 07/04/2008, -1/+13Did...did you read the article? It has *nothing* to do with budget at all...the pressure/moisture check used by other maintenance crews were unofficial at best. 300 million dollars wouldn't have changed anything.
    • ferrariman60, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3I'm pretty sure the article was simply discussing how the failure to communicate led to some crews knowing how to dry the sensors and some didn't. Why spend a ton on trying to fix a leak when there's a simple, quick, no cost fix? I hate to use the tired acronym, but please, RTFA.
  • belowir, on 07/03/2008, -4/+56That article had? many unnecessary? question marks?
    • segiterrus, on 07/04/2008, -2/+7hah i second that, More Questions were asked than answered...
    • howdareyou, on 07/04/2008, -0/+11Those questions marks weren't on purpose. pretty sure it's some sort of HTML error?
      • rockchops, on 07/04/2008, -0/+12Usually means unrecognized character in the data fed to the display engine. Probably a newline character or carriage return.
  • wille1623, on 07/04/2008, -10/+5No, but Chuck Norris could have.
  • opticwind, on 07/04/2008, -6/+35That's right folks. One of our top military aircrafts is vulnerable to rain.
    • noahhoward, on 07/04/2008, -13/+2And your point? Sophisticated computers are sensitve AMAZING!
      • djepik, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3So fix them.
      • noahhoward, on 07/04/2008, -1/+1Yes lets add hunderds of pounds of water-profing and fill all the voids with foam THAT will get off the ground I'm sure. Please people, think.
      • unreg, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3NoahHoward: Seems plenty of other aircraft manage to fly with in wet weather.

        This was a poorly implemented systems in an other pretty sophisticated piece of kit.

      • djepik, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3I was thinking more along the lines of having sensors for water that adjusts the air pressure sensors appropriately. Or even sensors for water that makes a "check engine" light (or military equivalent) go off.

        I think this was a problem from "head-in-the-sand" designers/programmers who forgot that the B-2 wasn't going to just fly around in a laboratory.
      • noahhoward, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1"NoahHoward: Seems plenty of other aircraft manage to fly with in wet weather.

        This was a poorly implemented systems in an other pretty sophisticated piece of kit."

        Oh for gods sake are we really this stupid, diggers? OTHER PLANES are not kept in the air entirely by computers and sensors, other planes aren't even close to being as sophisticated as this. There are only an handful of newer planes that even have the potential for having this problem.
    • Ajajadude, on 07/04/2008, -1/+14War has been called on account of rain.
    • jbaruffa, on 07/04/2008, -5/+3No, it is vulnerable to sensors being recalibrated due to pooling water not being boiled off. If the plane is running, and the heat is boiling the water, rain it no concern.
    • dsmx, on 07/04/2008, -1/+4Last time I checked every stealth plane is vulnerable to rain.
      • Ajajadude, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1You think it uses the same kind of technology that the Wicked Witch of the West was using?
    • SIRBERUS, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1In other news, native american "Rain Dancers" are being round up and interrogated.
  • Smudded, on 07/04/2008, -0/+11Is this not how most mistakes work?
  • Grafs, on 07/04/2008, -0/+27It was probably filtered as spam.
  • OffPiste, on 07/04/2008, -11/+6Greetings and Salutations!

    I am the vice-chairman of a small Nigerian Bank................
  • quaxon, on 07/04/2008, -7/+7Join your countries army, America wont let you die!
    You dont have to fight ground wars, Just kill from the sky!
  • TargetDog, on 07/04/2008, -3/+26It seems to me that the FCS should not be able to overrule the pilot. Kind of HALish, "I don't think so Dave..."
    • Aethirig, on 07/04/2008, -0/+17The B-2 is inherently unstable and requires a computer to make thousands of adjustments a second to fly stably. The latest fighters are all that way, too.
    • noahhoward, on 07/04/2008, -0/+16If it wasn't able to override the pilot the thing would crash a whole lot more often.

      One of the test pilots of the original flying wing bomber design was killed when he put the aircraft into what should have been a routine stall. Because of the dynamics involved in the shape when it stalled it went into an uncontrolable backwards tumble and fell out of the sky. Years later during the B-2 Program on of the test pilots from the original program told the pilot not to try to stall the plane. When the B-2 landed the test pilots met and he asked "Did you try to stall it" the response was "The damn thing won't let you."

      The computers are the only things capable of keeping the plane in the air.
      • Virgule, on 07/04/2008, -4/+3"The computers are the only things capable of keeping the plane in the air."

        Not really. German engineers got such a "flying wing" to fly beautifully without any computers whatsoever as soon as the '40s:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWOb6lFDPbo
        It start at 3:30

        The more you know...
      • TKardinal, on 07/05/2008, -0/+2Those don't have to be stealthy, which defines the aerodynamic surfaces, nor do they fly at the speeds the B-2 does. Yes, it's possible to have a stable flying wing, but not as a viable warplane, which is why the B-35 and B-49 never made it.

        The B-2 really is aerodynamically unstable, anyone who knows anything about them knows that. And it's not exclusive to flying wings; it's the case with F-117's, F-22's, and F-35's as well. That's modern aircraft for you, and it is what enables these planes in the first place.

      • noahhoward, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1Virgule the early US version flew too until you stalled it. It is a flaw in all flying wings but as TKardinal points out it is more of a flaw with stealth aircraft where the primary consideration for the shape is stealth not aerodynamics.

        They actually lost one of the F-22 prototypes to a computer failure, it was flying along beautifully then a cable broke or something and it dropped like a rock.
  • pyro789x, on 07/04/2008, -4/+24So what the hell is the point of even having a pilot there if the computer is going to take control every time it thinks the pilot is being an idiot?
    • Ajajadude, on 07/04/2008, -0/+12Computers aren't very photogenic.
  • kookbutt, on 07/04/2008, -3/+13In the military information mostly just travels one way. Down the chain of command and very rarely up the chain of command. There is no real communication of information in the military. It is all about showing other people that you have more rank and power over others therefore you know more than some E3 tech. It is up about power games in the military.
    • noahhoward, on 07/04/2008, -4/+2You are full of *****.
      • DrugMirror, on 07/04/2008, -1/+4He isn't lol.

        That's how it is.
      • noahhoward, on 07/04/2008, -2/+2No, actually it isn't if it was the military wouldn't function at all, the officers I work for wouldn't have to submit reports every ten minutes, and I would not have to report the status of the ship every hour.

        If you don't think information flows you're not paying a bit of attention.
    • PrometheusBorn, on 07/04/2008, -1/+5Depends what department of the military you are referring to.

      A technical division, such as the Nuclear Navy, has very open communications. For example, if there is something that can be learned in one place, it is communicated very well to all other plants to prevent a reoccurrence.

      The article hear gave me the impression that there is little kind of discipline that Hyman Rickover taught us in the Nuclear Navy.

      If the Air Force can't have the same principles, they shouldn't be trusted with a dime of our tax dollars, much less trusting $1.4B per plane. Who said we should give them more money??
  • chicofaraby, on 07/04/2008, -9/+8Or we could stop wasting our tax dollars on useless military crap. That would stop these crashes.
    • prahareturns, on 07/04/2008, -2/+3Are you actually suggesting that the United States does not require a military force or do you feel that we are wasting money on high-tech maintenance intensive weapons and we should re-allocate our money to traditional military weaponry and infantry?
      • chicofaraby, on 07/04/2008, -2/+3I'm saying we would be perfectly safe spending 10% of our current stupid level of war machine spending.

        I'm saying that no nation is going to attack the USA knowing we are crazy enough to nuke them into rubble.

        I'm saying that our military spending is beyond all proportion to anything that resembles "defense." We are the problem in the world today. No other nation threatens and, in fact, kills as many innocent people as the USA. None. Not China, not Iran, not North Korea. No one.

        We are wrong to continue to waste money that could help people on weapons for which we have no real need.
    • senfo, on 07/04/2008, -4/+3Yeah, so we can be invaded by all the other countries that have them. Good idea!
      • chicofaraby, on 07/04/2008, -2/+3Like? Which nation is going to invade the US? Iraq? Grenada? Panama?

        That's simply an absurd claim.
    • Virgule, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2He suggest a 1.4B dollar machine is not well spent money.

      I could feed my family of 5 three meals a day for the next 3500 years and by "meal" I mean a full table fiesta.

      Also, 20 aircrafts is, like, so totally going to prevent an invasion.
      • dragonfire417, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2 "could feed my family of 5 three meals a day " - Isn't that what an honest day's hard work is for??

        "Also, 20 aircrafts is, like, so totally going to prevent an invasion." I can see that you understand little about military aircraft, as these were not designed to "prevent an invasion."
      • ragingflamerboy, on 07/04/2008, -0/+1OMG DRAGON U R SO RITE OBVIOUSLY
      • chicofaraby, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2"these were not designed to "prevent an invasion.""

        True. These are designed to kill civilians in other nations. They are not defensive. They are useless unless you are trying to build an empire.
  • Ilyanep, on 07/04/2008, -2/+8Wow I thought overly smart computers without override settings only existed in movies.
  • ericjohnson0, on 07/04/2008, -3/+9FYI- Here is a video of the accident and an excellent detailed analysis concerning the crash of that B2

    http://thesaloon.net/blog/_archives/2008/6/17/3749 ...
  • fearstriken, on 07/04/2008, -2/+6For want of a nail the horseshoe was lost
    For want of a horseshoe the steed was lost
    For want of a steed the message was undelivered
    For want of a undelivered message the war was lost
  • kingUssop, on 07/04/2008, -9/+4So we paid 1.4 billion for a piece of ***** that explodes in the rain. Why doesn't that surprise me.
  • virtualonliner, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2What scares me more than the crash itself...FTA
    "The FCS then took control; triggering a premature takeoff, automatically driving the airplane into a 30-degree, nose-up pitch and overruling the pilot’s efforts to regain control."
    WTF???
    • kdesu, on 07/04/2008, -1/+2Courtesy of noahhoward:

      "If it wasn't able to override the pilot the thing would crash a whole lot more often.

      One of the test pilots of the original flying wing bomber design was killed when he put the aircraft into what should have been a routine stall. Because of the dynamics involved in the shape when it stalled it went into an uncontrolable backwards tumble and fell out of the sky. Years later during the B-2 Program on of the test pilots from the original program told the pilot not to try to stall the plane. When the B-2 landed the test pilots met and he asked "Did you try to stall it" the response was "The damn thing won't let you."

      The computers are the only things capable of keeping the plane in the air."
  • DulcetTone, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4The pilot NEVER directly commands the control surfaces in a plane like this. He expresses the motions and angular rates he'd like to see, and a computer figures out the control surface motions that will deliver it. It's necessarily subject to problems with sensor feedback.
  • kelmaster1, on 07/04/2008, -1/+8There are probably 1.4 billion ways this plane could fail. When something goes bad it is usually just one thing, that's all it takes. You're dealing with highly sensitive and technological equipment. The military isn't all stupid, the people who work on these planes are well trained and educated, including the pilots.

    It's easy for a spectator to say "what a bunch of idiots". When you're dealing with millions of components that could potentially go wrong one slight mistake could ***** it all up, and it wasn't even really a mistake, it was an electronics error (from what it sounds like). ***** happens, only this was a big *****.

    The real issue is that we're spending 1.4 billion per plane.

    • triad203, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1As is mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the reason it the unit cost is 1.4B is that Congress canceled funding for the majority of them. If they had made hundreds, the R&D costs would have been defrayed far more.
  • whytey, on 07/04/2008, -2/+1Is that area51?
  • dragonfire417, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1Actually they were designed to take out infrastructure, to clear out areas that are hostile and dangerous to our country. You do realize that there are people out there who would like to see our country destroyed. We need to stop them.

    What would you like to see? No military aircraft, no nuclear weapons, no weapons. Let's disarm. Then when China decides they need more room and resources, they will just come over here and take what they want. We will say, "Please don't take our resources, we are good people." Then they will laugh in our faces, take what they want and be on their way. We will have no way to defend ourselves. What kind of a country do you want to live in? We live in the real world, my friend. If you don't fight to protect what is yours, it will be taken away.
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