I’m so confused? Is it that they can’t make a gps tracker that works after a catastrophic crash?
F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
481–490 of 693 posts
Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if some of the "autopilot" functionality for military aircraft is to swan-dive into water/forest if everyone has already ejected. If it's going to crash (and can't autoland, which it probably shouldn't attempt even if it could if something ejection-worthy happened), might as well obliterate the thing in a safe place.
The thing you’re thinking of is the pilot. If the plane is capable of control, the pilot will move it on a trajectory away from populated areas if possible. Protecting innocent people on the ground in the case of an emergency was always top of mind, you can see this in the crash reporting for multiple real world incidents (in airframes with, and without ejection seats, where the last actions of the aircrew were steer…
> By the time a pilot ejects they’ve exhausted EVERY other option to control the aircraft, no AI is going to regain control at that point.
See, you say that, but this one seems to have done a good job of flying off to who the fuck knows where after the pilot ejected.
Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
But why? Don’t these billion dollar machines have a GPS tracker on them?
They have transponders that transmit their identity and location on the most modern, but those depend on being active (for some reason the one in the F-35 was not) and on there being receivers nearby to pick them up. At lower altitudes in remote locations coverage is spotty. So it's not a guarantee.
Why would an AirTag not work in this scenario? I’m guessing it would be a security risk?
Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#484Sounds like a job for Rainbolt
Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't these aircraft get 10Hz GPS updates and send them to StarLink as they are going down? It's 2023 already.
Well, for the plane in the parent comment's article, that reason is likely because the design for that plane was started in 1972.
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Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing you’re thinking of is the pilot. If the plane is capable of control, the pilot will move it on a trajectory away from populated areas if possible. Protecting innocent people on the ground in the case of an emergency was always top of mind, you can see this in the crash reporting for multiple real world incidents (in airframes with, and without ejection seats, where the last actions of the aircrew were steer…
> By the time a pilot ejects they’ve exhausted EVERY other option to control the aircraft, no AI is going to regain control at that point. It seems like they probably bail out when they've exhausted every option of being able to land it and survive. There are likely some scenarios where there's limited controls remaining, that wouldn't provide high enough odds of guaranteeing someone's survival, but that could optimi…
In flight school lore, during a training exercise, a plane righted itself from "uncontrollable flat spin" after ejection. Basically, pilot input can fight against the natural stability of the plane's design.
Also:
> During a training mission from Malmstrom Air Force Base, on Feb. 2, 1970, his F-106 entered an uncontrollable flat spin forcing him to eject. Unexpectedly, the aircraft recovered on its own and made a gentle belly landing and skidding for a few hundred yards on a field near Big Sandy, Montana, covered by some inches of snow.
Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have transponders that transmit their identity and location on the most modern, but those depend on being active (for some reason the one in the F-35 was not) and on there being receivers nearby to pick them up. At lower altitudes in remote locations coverage is spotty. So it's not a guarantee.
Why would an AirTag not work in this scenario? I’m guessing it would be a security risk?
First, yes it would be a security risk.
Second, AirTags depend on there being a set number of iOS devices nearby to provide location data and an internet connection. You're not going to get that in a rural area.
Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#488So a similar thing happened near some friends' in France. A military jet crashed into the forest near their house, but the air force couldn't figure out where it had gone. Eventually a farmer noticed that a new pond had appeared on his land. The jet made enough of a crater when crashing that drained the nearby swamp and created a new pond deep enough to conceal the full fuselage, thus completely hiding the airplane.…
It's relevant to note that the aircraft disappeared from radar in the evening while doing "low altitude exercises" and was discovered the next morning (bad weather preventing the rescue teams from finding it earlier).
The linked article mentions that the pilot and navigator were considered missing. Other news reported also the presence of human remains near the crash site.
Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Turkey seems awfully broken up about not being allowed to buy the F-35.
Turkey had a choice between S400s from Russia and F-35s and they chose the S400. Theyve since doubled down on that choice. Realistically it was probably the better choice. The US MIC was probably more cut up about it than Turkey which is probably why this stunt was pulled: https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/06/29/us-could-buy...
Russian air defence has had a rather poor showing lately, so perhaps not.
Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got that and I was trying to answer in the least sarcastic way I could. I’ll try again. Autopilot isn’t an all knowing AI that is better at dealing with emergency than a pilot. In the region of flight that involves a pilot ejection, especially in a plane like the F-35, the “autopilot” that would be created that could successfully scout a target area that was safe to crash in, eject the pilot, then somehow move the…
I was not thinking of some highly advanced AI, just something ultra simple like: after ejection, attempt to pitch the plane to nosedive as vertically as possible. The intent being to to crash the airplane as badly as possible to prevent the enemy from recovering anything useful from the crash site.
Modern ejection systems are zero-zero systems designed to allow ejection at zero speed and zero altitude which means that the aircraft may not have enough energy to successfuly destroy sensitive components across the full ejection envelope.
Why not rig it with explosives around the sensitive components and avoid the messy endeavor of trying to orient the plane for maximum destruction after ejection when that is likely to be unreliable at best?