A few months back Flight International had an interesting story about an F-22 Raptor canopy that jammed, trapping the pilot for five hours until he could be cut out by power-saw. I have been thinking about this recently:

The Raptor stealth fighter, heralded as the most technologically-advanced fighter in the world, entered service in January after 19 years of development. Each jet costs around $134 million per unit.

The canopy became stuck in the down and locked position and could not be opened manually after the pilot cycled the mechanism several times, following a pre-flight warning that the canopy was unlocked.

The cause of the malfunction has not been determined. The cost of replacing the canopy, which belongs to an aircraft from the 27th Fighter Squadron at Langley AFB, Virginia, is estimated at more than $180,000.

This seems pretty bad at first glance, but if the pilot had to eject and the canopy was jammed shut the results would be tragic. Interesting to note the software terminology used to describe the situation:

On 10 April 2006 at approximately 08:15, aircraft 03-041 had a Red Ball for a canopy unlock indication. Attempts to clear the problems by cycling the canopy failed. The final cycling of the canopy resulted in it being in the down and locked position.

“Tower to 03-041. Please press ctrl-alt-del on your keyboard. Over.” My guess is a manual override might next be implemented.