Anyone here an expert in Chinook software?

[NotAllThere]

A friend of mine worked on some heat-seaking torpedo software. There was a concern that a torpedo could hit the ship that fired it. Someone came up with the idea that is the torpedo turned 180 degrees then it should self destruct. This was coded up.

They decided to test this - sailed to testing ground and armed some missiles. Fired one, told it to turn 180 degrees and it self destructed. The ship then turned 180 degress and the armed missiles blew up! No one had coded that the missile should only self destruct if fired.

And before you laugh a naval rating lost his life.

[The Lone Gunman]

A friend of mine worked on some heat-seaking torpedo software. There was a concern that a torpedo could hit the ship that fired it. Someone came up with the idea that is the torpedo turned 180 degrees then it should self destruct. This was coded up.

They decided to test this - sailed to testing ground and armed some missiles. Fired one, told it to turn 180 degrees and it self destructed. The ship then turned 180 degress and the armed missiles blew up! No one had coded that the missile should only self destruct if fired.

And before you laugh a naval rating lost his life.

Even if I had not read the replies above I would have questioned this. I have done 2 years weapons testing and it would have been found with some elementary tests. To be released to the real world the weapon would have had to go through some very serious testing first and a full simulation would have found this error before it was loaded into a mock up, way before it was live tested.

[DiscoStu]

Saw the Public Sector MOD apologist trotting out the 'lessons learned" bollux over this.

I expect no heads will roll

If you're happy with crappy money, I think working in the public sector would be quite nice. Little accountability, almost impossible to get fired, a nice 6 month "stress" break every couple of years on full pay, flexible working where you come in for 4 hours a day and still seem to accrue a flexi-day off once a fortnight.

I can feel a plan B coming on

[EternalOptimist]

Dont know much about Chinook software but I used to fly an Apache helicopter in years gone by. The HUD, IFF and weapons systems were pretty near perfect, I used to love it , especially the combat missions, until my near fatal crash.
My zx spectrum went wonky one day and it crashed, I was so distraught I nearly stuck me ead in the gas oven.

[xoggoth]

I think that's the one I nearly worked on a few years back.

If so, the reason the things have been stuck in a shed for 8 years is they did not have airworthiness certificates and the reason for that was inadequate softare documentation. I was supposed to do a reverse engineer job from the assembler but the contract never came through.

[Marina]

A friend of mine worked on some heat-seaking torpedo software. There was a concern that a torpedo could hit the ship that fired it. Someone came up with the idea that is the torpedo turned 180 degrees then it should self destruct. This was coded up.

They decided to test this - sailed to testing ground and armed some missiles. Fired one, told it to turn 180 degrees and it self destructed. The ship then turned 180 degress and the armed missiles blew up! No one had coded that the missile should only self destruct if fired.

And before you laugh a naval rating lost his life.

Sounds to me like an urban legend - I thought a torpedo would only arm itself after launch.

(But then it did take the RN literally about fifty years to design the current models following WW2. So who knows what cock ups there could have been while ironing out wrinkles throughout that time.)

[Marina]

Dont know much about Chinook software but I used to fly an Apache helicopter in years gone by. The HUD, IFF and weapons systems were pretty near perfect ..

I read somewhere that one Apache has the combined firepower of the whole Grand Fleet at Jutland.

Seems a bit hard to believe, but all the same I wouldn't want to be the wrong end to find out.

[Marina]

That's the version of the Apache armed with the nuclear tipped missile option, then is it?

Er, no, just all the missile thingies and machine guns, etc, basically that clobber on the wings. (I'm only passing on what I read.) Also, they may be talking about "focused" fire power, or density, assuming the weaponry is more accurate.

[EternalOptimist]

Er, no, just all the missile thingies and machine guns, etc, basically that clobber on the wings. (I'm only passing on what I read.) Also, they may be talking about "focused" fire power, or density, assuming the weaponry is more accurate.

Well I guess it all depends upon how you measure these things. They dont half tell you a load of cobblers in the forces though, like 'this is the bestest tank in the world, FACT.' - The idea is that soldiers etc have got to have the highest confidence in their kit.

[malvolio]

Sounds to me like an urban legend - I thought a torpedo would only arm itself after launch.

(But then it did take the RN literally about fifty years to design the current models following WW2. So who knows what cock ups there could have been while ironing out wrinkles throughout that time.)

Friend of mine is ex-RN (you may have seen him at Diana and Charles's wedding, he was the special shiny guard stood to the right of the door when they came out....), he claims to be one of the few naval men to have torpedoed a cow.

Doing some live firing training with dummy (or at least, unarmed) Mk. 8 torpedoes off a destroyer somewhere off the south coast many years ago, someone got it entirely wrong and fired the thing to turn right (towards land) instead of left (towards America). Ran up the beach at some speed, thorugh a fence and knocked over an innocent cow.