The RAF is taking delivery on their new recon aircraft, Astor, named after the radar rather than the airframe. (Airborne Standoff Radar). It's a twin engine jetliner (a Bombardier Global Express) with the radar mounted in a canoe shaped pod underneath the fuselage. It is said to be sensitive enough to detect men walking on the ground. It's a smaller and cheaper version of the USAF Jstars and Rivet Joint. Size reduction comes from leaving off the 20 odd flying radar observers and just data linking the radar "take" to a ground station, resulting in a much smaller aircraft overall.
The computers onboard that do all the work are running Windows. Aviation Week interviewed a British official. He said "There are lots of things we would like to do better-- such as faster boot times...." Later one he admits that rebooting the Windows computers can take as much as finve minutes. That's Windows for you, sluggish and crashprone.
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