Three first paragraphs from the article:
On 30th April (2010), Odra, the last Polish computer that was working uninterruptedly for more than 30 years was shut down. The computer was the pride of the Polish IT industry of the communist period.
For Capt Tedd Reachmond, the night flight on 27th March 1999 had an unexpected ending.
The F117 stealth attack aircraft which he piloted was performing a combat mission over Serbia when it got into the range of the Tamara passive radar system manufactured in the former Czechoslovakia. The Rodan 10 computer that controlled the system detected a very small contact. In the memory of the device which was a military variant of the Odra 1325, sample echoes generated by the B2 and F117 aircraft were stored.
A second-long analysis, conclusion: it’s an enemy aircraft. Another second: range, speed, altitude, flight path. The data are sent to a Soviet-made S125 Neva SAM system. Serbian Colonel Zoltan Dani gives a short command: “Launch the missile”. A few seconds pass, there is an explosion explosion and USD 120 million worth aircraft begins its last descent.
It’s hard to say who was more surprised: Capt Reachmond, floating under the canopy of his parachute or analysts at the Pentagon. According to their information, equipment manufactured in the Warsaw Pact countries by no means could detect and destroy high-tech stealth aircraft. However, this assumption was not stored in the memory of the old Odra computer. It was doing its job. Please...
Better article about this event:
http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2005/11/secrets-of-1999-f-117-shootdown.htmlMyself with Dani Zoltán.
(Im holding the piece of the F117A
)
