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F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

cnn.com

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Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#171

Post by FridayoLeary »

efitz wrote: post #41

F-35 is a boondoggle. $200M for one fighter plane is insane. If the USA ever had to go to war with this weapon, a huge number of them would be offline at any given time, and every single airframe loss would cause a huge dent in overall combat power. I don’t understand why our military and political leaders keep trying to buy ridiculously overpriced Swiss Army knife weapons (lots of flexibility but great at nothing) i…

the price is much lower today. Cheaper then the latest f15. I was also skeptical of the project but its really proved itself. The simple fact is that stealth abilities gives it an ubeatable advantage. It expands the capabilities of an army so much its indispensible. 5 years ago i would agreed with you but im forced to change my opinion in the face of the evidence. The f15 is going nowhere like the b52, but it cant come close to the f35.

Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#172

Post by borlox »

UltraSane wrote: post #69
sschueller wrote: post #38

Switzerland, if they want something they can fly for air policing is forced to buy the F35 at what every price the US feels fit (even though the contract with Lockheed states a fixed price, naive politicians and consultants found out the hard way). Of course the CHF to USD conversion is fix at a shit rate from many years ago and from what I understand there is no way around that because the SNB did the conversion bac…

Israel's attack on Iran using the F-35 proves it is a very effective, if expensive, weapon.

That's been a single strike.

I wonder how good it would still be when the enemy had resources and time to adapt in an ongoing conflict. In russia's war with ukraine, we saw tactics and tools quickly evolving.

Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#173

Post by keepamovin »

codyb wrote: post #99
airstrike wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there was ever a risk of the plane crashing with the pilot still in the cockpit, despite the fact that the headline sort of leads people to that conclusion. The pilot could eject at any time. Still dangerous, but more of a debugging session to avoid other similar costly in the future than a Hollywood-like "if we don't solve this now the pilot dies"

Doesn't ejecting from a plane potentially break bones? I think it's pretty intense. Good on the pilot for doing the debug session

It risks career. 2 ejections and you won’t fly for the military any more.

Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#175

Post by FridayoLeary »

lazide wrote: post #164
haberman wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, that was a moment when I realized that the received wisdom about military things can be just completely wrong. I had considered myself to be reasonably informed about the F-35, and how "everyone knows" it's a boondoggle. I think this started with a long-form article I read in 2013, "How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane": https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-…

Iran isn’t really a near peer adversary, however. But I guess that is the F35’s target market? Do you expect it would do as well over Ukraine? Or if there was a spat with China over Taiwan (for example)? It is possible for both things to be true.

They had some pretty advanced anti aircraft systems. Also they are invisible to radar so they were truly surprised attacks coming out of the blue. So yes, it would be.

Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#176

Post by tonyarkles »

seethishat wrote: post #73
freefaler wrote: post #14

So 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?

"On the ground" = WoW sensors. WoW sensors have been around a long time (see link). And, humans probably should not have any say about that. If humans could override WoW, then the landing gear could be deployed or retracted when it should not and cause a lot of damage due to human error. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACARS

Yeah, when I saw that it was related to WoW sensors I was reminded of a chat that I had with an experienced aviation engineer a few years ago when we were considering adding them to the UAS I'm working on. "Every system I've ever worked on that relied on WoW sensors has had some kind of unexpected adverse event due to the sensors either triggering when they weren't supposed to, or not triggering when they should have. If you can figure out a different way to do what you're trying to do, please do."

Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#177

Post by tsunamifury »

reactordev wrote: post #140
quest88 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I take it you never flew VFR over Nebraska corn… Yes, papi lights are operated by radio. However, not everyone has fancy radios and only has handhelds, their Nokia phone, or their right arm wave… It’s not all class C+ out there. I will point out that PAPI lights as part of a PCL system are operated using mic clicks on CTAF radio. These systems are expensive and sometimes you’re landing in a grass field and just need…

It’s interesting now that a side effect of LLMs is that people can say anything outside their experience is just a hallucination. I didn’t realize how the fear of hallucination could enable this level of belligerence.

Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#178

Post by pear01 »

haberman wrote: post #137
scottLobster wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure about that? You should look at the F-35's performance in Israeli hands in their recent strikes on Iran.

For me, that was a moment when I realized that the received wisdom about military things can be just completely wrong. I had considered myself to be reasonably informed about the F-35, and how "everyone knows" it's a boondoggle. I think this started with a long-form article I read in 2013, "How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane": https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-…

Do you have any reason to attribute this to the fact they were F-35s? For comparison, how many jets were lost during "shock and awe"? Israel operates with impunity in Iran all the time, often on the ground. I'm not sure the fact they used F-35s is actually relevant here but if you have a source on that it would be interesting to read. Given the state of Iran it is hard to imagine the same could not be achieved with a last generation aircraft... it would not be surprising if by the time a peer power conflict starts manned aircraft like the F-35 will already be obsolete...

Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#179

Post by loloquwowndueo »

“Attempts to fix the landing gear caused the fighter jet to think it was on the ground, ultimately leading to the crash.”

Why isn’t there a way to override this and tell the plane “no we are not on the fucking ground, keep flying goddamnit”?

Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

#180

Post by selectodude »

megaloblasto wrote: post #155
crote wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbus is fully fly-by-wire. Without some kind of computer intervention, nothing would be stopping an accidental bang against the flight stick from causing a maneuver violent enough to rip the wings off. An Airbus can operate in three modes. With Normal Law, the airplane will refuse to do anything which will stop it from flying. This means the pilot cannot stall the airplane, for example: the computer will automatica…

How does a pilot switch between the three modes? Just switches on the dash?

It automatically downgrades modes as sensors break. You can force into alternate law by pulling some fuses if you really want to.
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