Royal Navy's new £3.5bn aircraft carrier runs on Windows XP

[iggy]

Nothing to worry about, it doesnt have any planes to launch anyway.

[boxcat]

The reason its kept like this is often down to OEM equipment not being able to run on anything but Windows XP.
This is honestly not a problem; the systems are isolated from the outside world so the only way they could be infected is by someone physically introducing a virus on-site.

[Rubarb]

Id be more concerned if it was using windows 10 and all the crap that contains.

[Xlucine]

It was reported 18 months ago that XP would not be in use on the carriers when they are operational
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/1...raft_carriers/
Making sure the ship works with the previous system before transitioning to a newer system for full operational capacity isn't a bad idea, there must have been a design freeze on the state of the ship during testing several years ago.

Like the nuclear launch systems that rely on 8 inch floppies? It's a path to obsolete un-maintainable systems.

Edit: This was the article I was thinking of, makes Windows XP seem rather up to date... https://arstechnica.co.uk/informatio...8-inch-floppy/

8" floppies aren't a bad choice. How much would it cost to keep low rate production running for ~50 years vs the cost of certifying a new system for nuclear weapons? The lack of USB ports or internet access also makes the system very very easy to airgap from the normal transmission routes for computer viruses (and that's assuming a modern virus would know what to do on the computer or can even fit on the storage)

[Saracen]

The reason its kept like this is often down to OEM equipment not being able to run on anything but Windows XP.
This is honestly not a problem; the systems are isolated from the outside world so the only way they could be infected is by someone physically introducing a virus on-site.

And that is exactly my approach, with several of my systems which are, to much criticism on here, running XP.

When I point out that they are running XP, the usual uninformed criticisms inevitably occur, despite the fact that these systems have been running unpatched, unamended, and without either virus infection or even a single crash, for years. Well, a decade or more.

Why? Because they're isolated, air-gapped, have zero external connectivity and are doing the same tasks now that they were doing 10 years ago. Also, I'm the only one with physical access, and I have backups, disaster recovery and even spare hardware ready to go in the event of problems or hardware failure.

And if I can get year after year of rock-solid use, in such controlled circumstances, out of XP, I'm sure the Navy can manage it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

People forget how long it takes for the development of critical military systems - a lot of military programmes are measured in decades,so once the design is frozen it can be years before they finally are built in large numbers. The fact is all of these systems are dedicated towards singular tasks and going with older hardware and software means they are well characterised for reliability and error purposes. Moving to newer hardware and software increases the changes of unforeseen errors being missed - just look at the recent Skylake HT bugs. You simply can't have such an issue crop up for a critical military system like the air defence radar system on the ship - it literally only needs one unforeseen error and that is the end of your ship.

Edit!!

An example is the F22 which is one of the most advanced fighters in service - it has radar systems considered state of the art but where driven by ancient Intel i960 CPUs from the 1980s and by the time development had ended and the aircraft had entered LRP,it had been discontinued.

[cflymo]

"Twin propellers produce enough power to run 1000 cars". No they don't. The engines do that. Why on earth drag in an infographic from elsewhere if you aren't going to bother checking that it doesn't contain a load of tosh?

[peterb]

"Twin propellers transfer enough power to run 1000 cars".

Better?

(And I though I was pedantic! )

Although that isn't strictly true because it is energy that runs something not power (power being the rate of energy consumption) so it should really be something like " The engines have the equivalent power output of 1000 average family sized cars"

The less attractive statistic would be the "The engines consume the same energy in one hour as 1000 average size family cars.

or if you want to take into account transmission efficiencies

"The propellors transmit the same amount of power to the water as 1000 average size family cars transmit to the road" so version 1 is probably better.

I'll submit it to the Royal Navy's copywriters as a snappy slogan, with a recommendation that they include the specific model of car.

However as the precise shaft horsepower (The traditional method of rating a ship's engine output) of the power plant is probably classified, the comparison is hardly likely to be accurate anyway

But it gets more complicated as the main propulsion engines are electric motors, power by a combination of diesel generator sets and gas turbine alternator sets so the combination of engine plant needs to be taken into account.

Perhaps the best description - taken from the Rolls Royce publicity leaflet https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media/...cm92-58802.pdf

is

The propellers, manufactured in our facility in Sweden, will each deliver around 50,000 hp - the highest power propeller ever produced by Rolls-Royce...

[Ttaskmaster]

The MOD procurement process is a joke.

The procurement process for every company I've ever worked for is far worse...

[Ironbuket]

These are narrower and not as high as the US carriers, but are of comparable length. Why do they look so tiny in the pictures are the tugs in those pictures massive? It really doesn't look that impressive I was expecting something bigger. When you look at a US carrier you cant help but be impressed by the size, looking at this the word meh, rather than wow comes to mind

[Strawb77]

These are narrower and not as high as the US carriers, but are of comparable length. Why do they look so tiny in the pictures are the tugs in those pictures massive? It really doesn't look that impressive I was expecting something bigger. When you look at a US carrier you cant help but be impressed by the size, looking at this the word meh, rather than wow comes to mind

i would assume that the people on deck are sort of normal size

[peterb]

US carriers generally have an angled flight deck which adds to the size, but generally they are bigger.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

LOL,we need to buy our propellers from Sweden,land of the Moose??

[Ttaskmaster]

US carriers generally have an angled flight deck which adds to the size, but generally they are bigger.

I understand this is to give longer cat runs to the bigger, heavier planes that need more space in which to get up to launch speed. ISTR something a friend (former US Navy pilot) said about the Russians having lighter planes, some of which didn't even need cats to launch as the engine power was sufficient to get them up to takeoff speed.

[peterb]

LOL,we need to buy our propellers from Sweden,land of the Moose??

Yes and the antlers blades are bolted on and can be changed individually!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yes and the antlers blades are bolted on!

I wonder if they will pass the Moose test,since Moose can even be a water hazard:

http://cryptodane.blogspot.co.uk/201...time-they.html