NBC News, you might want to reassign your headline writer to the celebrity gossip section. Headlines seem to be getting worse, or maybe I just have less patience for them.
This headline says the plane "fries" the computers, (1) leaving out any indication that the reports are unconfirmed, (2) suggesting permanent computer damage, and (3) implying some sort of active jamming. Interesting -- if it is true.
The article is a bit more cautious -- it doesn't use the word "fries" -- instead saying it "appears to have triggered a software glitch at a major air traffic control center in California".
IMO, truly frying a computer only happens when you blast it with a heavy dose of radiation (like putting it in the microwave!).
I like the conjecture, but believe that that alone shouldn't be enough. SpaceShipOne, after all, flew to 100 kilometers from Mojave, which is part of the airspace managed by the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center.
Oh! This is nice. SSO was in 2004, and the ERAM system they mention is newer than that, so my observation doesn't actually mean anything. Even better, the prime contractor for ERAM? Lockheed Martin. Manufacturer of the U-2? Lockheed Martin.
It's not LAX, it's the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center.
Quoting from the link: "As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had to stop accepting flights into airspace managed by the L.A. Center, issuing a nationwide ground stop..." including a stop at LAX.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Air_Route_Traffic_C... - "the Los Angeles ARTCC controls en route air traffic over southern and central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, and western Arizona with the exception of military airspace and lower-level airspace controlled by local airport towers and TRACONs." This includes Vandenberg.
The last SR-71 flight was in 1999, which is well before the ERAM computer system which failed here was turned on.
Yes, there have been some launches from Vandenberg. What I don't know is if rockets are required to have a transponder. I did only a brief search, and what I found suggests a "no" answer, at least in 2007:
This is a famous story, and almost surely was LA RTC.
"Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?" There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. "Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground."
I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: "Ah, Center, much thanks, we're showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money."
I fully confess to being almost ignorant on this topic. I am only conjecturing.
I'm curious though to know how often aircraft go above 62,000 feet. While the F-15 reached over 100,000 ft., the same page lists a service ceiling of 65,000 feet. And while the SR-71 easily flew at higher altitudes, it stopped flying before the affected computer system started running.
I can easily think of other problems; perhaps there was a problem with the U-2's transponder, or perhaps it's a combination of altitude and speed, ... or I'm sure you can conjecture scenarios as well as I.
That is exactly what I thought. For the uninitiated 2^16=65,536, so 16-bit storage limit for the elevation variable or a function of the elevation somewhere in the code. It will be interesting to see what they find.
I just learned that commercial transponders register from -1000 to +62,000 feet, so another possibility is a built-in assumption that no transponder will be above that point.
This headline says the plane "fries" the computers, (1) leaving out any indication that the reports are unconfirmed, (2) suggesting permanent computer damage, and (3) implying some sort of active jamming. Interesting -- if it is true.
The article is a bit more cautious -- it doesn't use the word "fries" -- instead saying it "appears to have triggered a software glitch at a major air traffic control center in California".
IMO, truly frying a computer only happens when you blast it with a heavy dose of radiation (like putting it in the microwave!).