The software system for maintaining the F-35 fighter jet gives false-positive readings 80 percent of the time, the House Armed Services subcommittee has learned – a problem that could lead to even more delays with the jet’s development.
The software system for maintaining the F-35 fighter jet gives
false-positive readings 80 percent of the time, the House Armed
Services subcommittee has learned – a problem that could lead to
even more delays with the jet’s development.
The F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), a
next-generation software system designed by Lockheed Martin to
identify maintenance issues, is plagued with problems and could
delay development.
Meanwhile, in other defence news, big problems with F-35
fighter jet program… pic.twitter.com/4n7pt7NtlY
— Jason Fekete (@jasonfekete) April
14, 2015
Speaking to the subcommittee on Tuesday, Air Force Lt. Gen.
Christopher Bogdan said “ALIS has a long way to go.”
“We have taken steps in the last two years to change
fundamentally the way we develop ALIS, but it takes time to
realize those results,” Bogdan said, the Airforce Times
reported.
Bogdan said the maintenance software was a supplemental add-on
and not a central part of the plane.
Members of the House Armed Services subcommittee heard from
workers last month that the program is sluggish and slows down
maintenance instead of streamlining the process.
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“When we asked them how many false-positives, I thought it
would be a high number because it is a new system,” said
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), subcommittee chair,
according to Investor’s Business Daily. “But when they
said 80, I was taken aback.”
When asked by Chairman Turner about the false-positive readings,
Bodgan said he would look into the numbers.
The software, which includes 5 million lines of code, is supposed
to identify what is wrong and what is working on the jet, and
provide information on identifying replacement parts. It has been
called the F-35’s “brains.”
Turner told the committee that ALIS doesn’t have a spell checker
and raised concerns about the software’s ability to catch errors
worse than grammatical ones. The current ALIS system is in
computer racks and weighs 800-1,000 pounds, which makes it
cumbersome in combat environments. A smaller, two-man portable
version is being developed which should be ready in July.
Last year, the Government Accountability Office found the ALIS
failed to meet basic requirements like identifying faults and
failures.