Lockheed has an opening for engineers with VAX experience for the F22(lockheedmartinjobs.com)
lockheedmartinjobs.com
Lockheed has an opening for engineers with VAX experience for the F22
https://www.lockheedmartinjobs.com/job/california/f-22-avionics-systems-engineer-senior/694/8842471
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I worked for Lockheed Martin for more than a decade and I have many of the qualifications listed, including VAX experience and a special access clearance. Of course, Lockheed laid me off fourteen years ago and I retired three years ago, so I guess I won't be applying.
I started my career working for British Aerospace in 1989. We used VAX/VMS as our development platform (Code was CORAL 66 and then ADA). I spent some time supporting the Sea Harrier flight test operations - so I would have fitted this job perfectly about 28 years ago!).
I'd like to say that I'm astonished that modern aircraft still use the 1553 bus, but nothing surprises me when it comes to the use of stone-age tech in military hardware. For example, the other Harrier I worked on in the early 90s (GR-7 - same as US AV8B) still used core memory.
I'd like to say that I'm astonished that modern aircraft still use the 1553 bus, but nothing surprises me when it comes to the use of stone-age tech in military hardware. For example, the other Harrier I worked on in the early 90s (GR-7 - same as US AV8B) still used core memory.
Modern is relative. F-22's first flight was 1997. F-35 development started in 1992, first flight of X-35 was 2000 and F-35's first flight was 2006.
There is absolutely noting wrong with using old technology. Being modern just for the sake of being modern is wasteful.
There is absolutely noting wrong with using old technology. Being modern just for the sake of being modern is wasteful.
So a couple of the comments here have been mentioning the high pay of people with specialties like this in the context of LM and other defense contractors. My impression from Glassdoor and general conversation with software developers has been the DCs pay pretty low for software in general compared to FAANG or even other engineering companies. Is it true that people with obscure specialties at places like LM can command high salaries? Or have I been misled that LM pay is on the lower side? Or is it all relative?
(Reposting at the top level because it makes more sense to hopefully get more discussion)
I had a job maintaining fortran code on an openVMS OS running on itanium hardware.
Itanium was intel's failed attempt at a 64bit architecture and that's the platform VMS decided to port to. That made hardware expensive and as of recently obsolete (i think hp discontinued that integrity line of servers)
VMS doesn't natively support TCP/IP, because it predates it. The VMS communication protocol was called decnet. So you can imagine that porting vms-specific fortran code to work on a modern network stack was non trivial.
Also, everyone with VMS knowledge was a hacker. No real design or plan, just go in an change a thing here and a thing there and get it working.
All that being said, it was interesting to work on an OS that is so different from linux, specifically the file system had versioning.
Itanium was intel's failed attempt at a 64bit architecture and that's the platform VMS decided to port to. That made hardware expensive and as of recently obsolete (i think hp discontinued that integrity line of servers)
VMS doesn't natively support TCP/IP, because it predates it. The VMS communication protocol was called decnet. So you can imagine that porting vms-specific fortran code to work on a modern network stack was non trivial.
Also, everyone with VMS knowledge was a hacker. No real design or plan, just go in an change a thing here and a thing there and get it working.
All that being said, it was interesting to work on an OS that is so different from linux, specifically the file system had versioning.
Here's the backstory: http://web.archive.org/web/20100310163744/http://www.stsc.hi...
Reminds me of my first job out of uni, 18 years ago. I was working on the SPARK toolset, and one of our customers was the Eurofighter, who still used VAX VMS for their development.
We had to maintain an old Micro VAX box in the office to periodically test that the toolset still worked on it. I seem to remember that the massive regression test suite that would run in a few hours every night on a PC would take days on this box.
Our main worry was that one day we'd turn it on and the drive would fail to spin up. I seem to remember there being a periodic reminder to just turn the damn thing on and let it boot every so often, then shut it down, just to make sure the drive was still ok.
We had to maintain an old Micro VAX box in the office to periodically test that the toolset still worked on it. I seem to remember that the massive regression test suite that would run in a few hours every night on a PC would take days on this box.
Our main worry was that one day we'd turn it on and the drive would fail to spin up. I seem to remember there being a periodic reminder to just turn the damn thing on and let it boot every so often, then shut it down, just to make sure the drive was still ok.
Development of F22 started in 1980's. Last VAX machines were manufactured in 2005. There is quite a lot of VME bus based legacy (but speciallized and working) measurement and test equipment still around. I have no involvement in the project, so can not tell for sure; yet would be surprised if any of this is part of the flight hardware.
ISTR that the avionics code is written in Ada, and runs on top of Intel i960 processors, and that the Ada compiler for that target only runs on VAX/VMS (not even OpenVMS, but specifically VMS on the VAX).
Did I use DEC and VAX stations? Yes I did.
Would I want to relive that period of time? No I would not.
Is that muscle on my face twitching due to PTSD? Yes, Yes it is.
Is that muscle on my face twitching due to PTSD? Yes, Yes it is.
This is surely about VME industrial bus, not about VAX processors or computers.
VAX? Like - what? The one introduced on October 25, 1977??
Hmm, makes me wonder why I let that experience drop off my resume.
Oh yeah ...
Oh yeah ...
Basic Qualifications:
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science or related technical focus.
• Experience in COMM and Navigation.
• Avionics experience
• Experience with aircraft operations.
• Microsoft Office
I love the MS Office req at the end. "Yes, we see you've got a BS in engineering, you're an expert at avionics and COMM control systems, but do you know anything about MS Word?"
• Experience in COMM and Navigation.
• Avionics experience
• Experience with aircraft operations.
• Microsoft Office
I love the MS Office req at the end. "Yes, we see you've got a BS in engineering, you're an expert at avionics and COMM control systems, but do you know anything about MS Word?"
They claim this is for the F22, but I wonder if some enemy tech has been 'obtained' and they want to backward engineer it?
The wiki page shows some stats of a plane that is (publicly) 22-23 years old and VAX is 42 years old. To me, that math does not add up.
Just a curious thought.
The wiki page shows some stats of a plane that is (publicly) 22-23 years old and VAX is 42 years old. To me, that math does not add up.
Just a curious thought.
[deleted]
Security through obfuscation. Lockheed, good morning!
Wow. It takes tens of system engineers writing hundreds of requirements to do something as crazy as write a new 1.5 Mloc software system on VAX in the 90s. Any smaller team wouldn’t have considered it.
Do the job requirements really need to list ms excel and office three times?
[oops]
I think all engineers with VAX experience are extinct ...or retired.