Air Force Official Declares Y2K Preparedness A-OK

BY JOHN HEILPRIN

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

HILL AIR FORCE BASE -- A top Pentagon official in charge of preparing for the Year 2000 computer bug said Wednesday only 4 percent of the Air Force systems still have problems. During an inspection at Hill Air Force Base, Brig. Gen. Gary Ambrose, director of the Air Force Year 2000 Office, said that Y2K compliance is the Defense Department's "No. 1 peacetime priority."

The visit by Ambrose, who testified March 2 on Y2K compliance before a House committee in Washington, D.C., coincided with a series of Y2K and missile tests that Hill's 729th Air Control Squadron and other Air Force officials have been conducting recently in the Utah Test and Training Range near Wendover. The tests were to see if the planes, missiles and other air combat systems will work. So far, the testing found glitches with some radio transmissions in older planes and with clocks handling Leap Year dates in C-130 military planes, Ambrose said.

Aside from the New Year's and Leap Year dates, there also has been concern about the computers when they show 9-9-99 for Sept. 9, 1999, such as one problem involving "a system monitor that became unstable." "The sorts of things we've seen have been minor like that. Nothing catastrophic, certainly, and no major failures in aircraft systems," he said.

Hill pilots dropped 14 AGM-88 HARM and eight AGM-65 Maverick missiles, or about $3.68 million worth, during the annual Operation "Combat Hammer" testing of weapons throughout the Air Force, according to Tech Sgt. Todd Cyrus. Air Force pilots from bases in Idaho, Florida, Arkansas, Nevada, South Dakota, New Mexico, Louisiana and North Carolina have dropped even more missiles on the Utah range.

From what he has seen so far, Ambrose, who formerly commanded a reconnaissance aircraft wing, suggested civilians should take the Y2K problem seriously. "There is great potential for things to go wrong," he said. "On the other hand . . . there are a lot of predictions out there of catastrophic impacts. I don't think that we'll see that. "American businesses, especially the large enterprises, have taken Y2K very seriously based on what we see," he continued. "The electric power grid is going to work, and utilities will be good, and the banking system is going to work because those folks are working all of this very hard."

-- Norm (nwo@hotmail.com), May 21, 1999

Answers

cool

-- cool hand luke (at@dotcom.com), May 24, 1999.