Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 693 posts

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#271

Post by karaterobot »

hollerith wrote: post #266
kunwon1 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert on aircraft procurement or government contracts (I'm an engineer who used to work on fighter jets) - that being said, it's my understanding that the F-35 is actually a very successful project, and a very affordable one at that. I haven't got any citations or evidence to present, I could be wrong about all of this, it's a topic I've got only casual knowledge about. A broad overview of my understanding of…

If F-35 is such a failure, how come many countries have chosen to buy it? Consulting this next page, I count 8 countries besides the US that have taken delivery of F-35s, plus many that have ordered it, but not yet taken delivery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... The UK for example currently has a fleet of 32, and Australia has 50.

I'm not taking a side on this particular issue, but there are many reasons a person or a country might buy something that wasn't very good, even if they knew it wasn't. Maintaining a relationship with the vendor (aka a foreign nation with whom you maintain diplomatic/economic relations) is a big one.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#272

Post by hulitu »

tornato7 wrote: post #3

Interesting. The article doesn't say why the pilot ejected. If the jet were able to continue flying for hours in autopilot, maybe the pilot ejected a bit prematurely, no? Though it it continued flying I would expect it to be on ADS-B.

> maybe the pilot ejected a bit prematurely, no?

He just wanted to be sure. With all those issues F35 had i wouldn't think twice when to eject. /s

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#274

Post by hulitu »

bmitc wrote: post #42
RetroTechie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think there's clear procedures for pilot of such a craft? If x occurs & can't be fixed by doing y or z, then eject. > Though it it continued flying I would expect it to be on ADS-B. This is a military aircraft. Depending on its mission, transponders may or may not be enabled. What did surprise me: if a 2-plane mission, why didn't the other jet follow the now-empty one? As a opposed to landing right after. Low on…

It would seem to me that a missing F-35 is a pretty big security threat.

> It would seem to me that a missing F-35 is a pretty big security threat.

If you believe what is written on HN: actually no, not at all.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#276

Post by ceejayoz »

mrtksn wrote: post #243
ceejayoz wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military pilots absolutely make all sorts of decisions, like "that looks like a civilian target, maybe I have incorrect info" or "a little kid just ran into the target area" or "the controller says I just shot at friendlies". I would not currently trust an AI to handle those very well. What would an AI have done in this situation? What should it have done? "Russian pilot deliberately fired missiles at a Royal Air For…

AI can absolutely say "that looks like a civilian target, maybe I have incorrect info" or "a little kid just ran into the target area" or "the controller says I just shot at friendlies". What makes you think that AI can't incorporate those into decision making? Pilots do these through instruments anyway.

> What makes you think that AI can't incorporate those into decision making?

The fact that state-of-the-art AI already fails at much simpler decisions.

In the case of the Black Sea incident, the potential consequences include global thermonuclear war.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#277

Post by tivert »

gonzo41 wrote: post #162
tivert wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the Ukraine war and Russia's poor showing has proved that in some ways the west is overestimating the capabilities of it's enemies. That attitude is a recipe for overconfidence and failure, and is probably the biggest reason for Russia's poor showing in Ukraine. Also, from what I've read, electronic warfare is one of the areas where the Russians have shown strong capability. It's a mistake to misinterpret "…

WRT to Ukraine, it's a mistake to think that competence at EW and incompetence at land warfare balance each other out when the fight is primarily land warfare. And you need to be better at the land warfare to win. Also, the B21 is reported to be designed for remote control. And that's the sort of thing you put the really big weapons on. I understand the idea behind reducing attack surface. But the JSF is a hub of int…

> WRT to Ukraine, it's a mistake to think that competence at EW and incompetence at land warfare balance each other out when the fight is primarily land warfare. And you need to be better at the land warfare to win.

That's not what I said or meant.

What I'm saying is: it's stupid to design something for an adversarial situation like war, under the assumption that your adversary will be incompetent and unskilled. You seemed to be inferring that US adversaries would be incompetent at EW, because Russia's competence at land warfare has been far less than was previously assumed, and I don't think that follows at all.

> Also, the B21 is reported to be designed for remote control. And that's the sort of thing you put the really big weapons on. I understand the idea behind reducing attack surface.

If a military jet will not regularly remotely operated, it makes total sense to not implement remote operation features at all. Adding the feature introduces unneeded risk, as well as development cost and weight.

And (IMHO) if you do add a remote operation feature (because you think you'll use it), it should be locked behind a physical shutoff, so it cannot be adversarially-activated when it's not wanted. That would mean it would likely be of little use in a case like this.

> But the JSF is a hub of interconnected technology it's not unreasonable to think they don't have a software package for all sorts of remote options.

I don't see how it as all reasonable to think they've developed such a feature without any kind of evidence. The only hits I get trying to find information were for scale-model RC planes, stuff about F-35 pilots controlling drones, and this speculative article from a likely non-reputable website (https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/09/16/american-stealth-f-...) which outlines extensive modifications required and ultimately concludes such a thing would be a bad idea.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#278

Post by avidphantasm »

They should be ashamed to make this request. How much money do we give them every year for “defense”? This is embarrassing. Fire everyone in this chain of command, all the way to the top. Oh, wait, Tuberville won’t let the Senate confirm any general officers. What a laughing stock we have become.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#279

Post by dylan604 »

kkielhofner wrote: post #230
mschuster91 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why the regulations on passenger aircraft got tightened up, it's easier to get rid/impede the attack vector than to overcome the physical limitations of a radar antenna in a fighter jet's nose cone vs a many meters large ground radar antenna.

All of these TFR violations are early/inexperienced Cessna 172 pilots (or similar) who aren't up on TFRs, just lost, etc. They often can't even manage the radio and just go completely silent, blissfully unaware anything is happening until an F-16 shows up next to them hailing them saying things like "US military armed fighter aircraft. Acknowledge this by rocking your wings.", etc. Of course assuming the fighter even…

>Although they're obviously faster and more maneuverable it gets back to the first scenario I mentioned

This reminds me of Barry Seal taking advantage of his slower aircraft with a million dollar door to avoid the faster jets with short legs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODIZKyevVxQ

of course, the majority of that movie turned the creative license knob to an 11

Post reply on HN