Who eats the loss under such circumstances? Government or Lockheed Martin or are these 200 million dollar jets insured ?
Self-insured. The government absorbs losses itself instead of purchasing commercial insurance.
F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
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Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#12This is wild. You can't get away from these zoom calls even as an F-35 pilot.
I bet, once the gear malfunctioned, Clippy popped up on the screen and suggested to call support.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#13But why was there water in the hydraulic system in the first place?
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Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#14So as a pilot you can't override the software to stop it from "thinking that the plane is on the ground" mode?
Something similar happened recently with A320 when it didn't want to land on an airfield during emergency unless it was flown in a special mode. But F-35 doesn't have that?
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#15> "they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go" Is that not what the pilot did anyway? Or is a "controlled ejection" different from what they did?
I had the exact same thought.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#16[flagged]
The US is the most powerful 3 season military in the world.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#17But why was there water in the hydraulic system in the first place?
Likely contamination of ground handling equipment [1]. Unfortunately can happen. I wonder if the hydraulic fluid is hygroscopic or something?
1. https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#18> "they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go" Is that not what the pilot did anyway? Or is a "controlled ejection" different from what they did?
The article mentioned that the aircraft become uncontrollable once it thought it was on the ground and switched control modes. And then the pilot ejected.
I assume a controlled ejection would have been during controlled flight at a time and location specifically chosen. This ejection was necessary because the plane was uncontrollable in the end.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#19Who eats the loss under such circumstances? Government or Lockheed Martin or are these 200 million dollar jets insured ?
Ultimately the US taxpayers will eat the loss in either case. If the government tried to charge it back to Lockheed Martin they'd just raise the price on subsequent programs to compensate.
The government does insure weapons of war. Who would write the policy?
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#20> "they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go" Is that not what the pilot did anyway? Or is a "controlled ejection" different from what they did?
If I understood correctly, the ejection came after the second touch and go made the plane go into landed mode which made it impossible to fly anymore