Open systems ADA technology demonstration program

On 20 March, 1997 McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (now Boeing), and NAWC-China Lake conducted a demonstration flight as part of the Open Systems Ada Technology (OSAT) program, co-sponsored by the Ada Joint Program Office, the Open Systems Joint Task Force, and the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office. The flight, of a specially modified AV-8B Harrier, accomplished several key objectives: first known application of the Ada95 programming language to flight software; application of the POSIX commercial standard in a real-time flight software domain; application of commercial hardware, software and development tools to avionics; demonstration and evaluation of object oriented design and mixed programming languages for real-time flight software; application and evaluation of data error detection/compensation technology developed by Wright Laboratory under the Data Fusion Integrity Process (DFIP) Program. The test aircraft was a two-seat TAV-8. The host mission computer was an improved version of the PowerPC 604 system, which was employed in MDA´s Common Operational Flight Program (OFF) demonstration flights in 1996. The test profile entailed six releases of MK-76 practice bombs over China Lake´s Baker Range, using different dive angles and release altitudes. Although accuracy was not an explicit test objective, all six drops were scored as hits under standard accuracy criteria. This paper summarizes selected key findings and lessons learned which resulted from this program.