Re: Ada Success Story II

[Ken Garlington <GarlingtonKE@lmtas.lmco.com>]

Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-93 wrote:
> 
> Dale Pontius <pontius@BTV.VNET.IBM.COM> writes:
> >There was a flyoff between the YF22 and the YF23, which the YF22
> >won. What were they doing for flight software on the flyoff? I
> >could believe hacked F16 software, or something like that, except
> >isn't the F22 the first plane to use thrust vectoring?
> >
>     For the record, the Pratt engines used in both the YF22 & YF23 had
>     engine controls programmed in Ada. The contract officer overseeing
>     our development efforts looked at how we develop control software
>     in Ada and pronounced himself "suitably whelmed" and in commenting
>     on our use of Ada said words to the effect of: "to think, I had to
>     see it from an *engine* company" (as opposed to an avionics
>     company, most of whom were staying away from Ada in droves.)

The YF-22 flight control system, which was coupled with the Pratt (and
GE)
engines to make the integrated flight propulsion system, was also
programmed
in Ada using the TeleSoft VAX/1750 toolset. This software was developed
by General
Dynamics Fort Worth Division (now Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft
Systems).
The YF-22 flight control software design was an evolutionary product,
based on our work
on the AFTI/F-16 and F-16 digital flight control systems. See:

  Garlington, K. and Tyrrell, A. "A Case Study: F-16 Ada Digital Flight
Control
  System," AIAA/IEEE 8th Digital Avionics Systems Conference, October
17-20, 1988

I never wrote a paper about the YF-22 flight control system. I might
write one 
about the F-22 flight controls at some point, but I'd like to get it
flying first :)

I have been told that the YF-23 flight control system was written in
JOVIAL. I can't
prove that our use of Ada (which wasn't required, by the way) helped us
win, but
it's a nice thought.

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