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A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

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Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#131

Post by exe34 »

motorest wrote: post #67
stevage wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like in previous reporting I'd seen suggestions that the other pilots had lost confidence in him, and that you couldn't be the leader of a squadron if any of the pilots had any doubts. This story seems to completely discount any "lost confidence" as a made up story.

> This story seems to completely discount any "lost confidence" as a made up story. The "lost confidence" angle would be discarded if it was just made-up nonsense. It is also a convenient angle to pin the blame on a scapegoat who was proven to have zero blame or responsibility. One can only imagine what would have been written on the guy if he crashed and went down with the plane. Certainly we would be reading about…

> human error, of course

Well management is only human...

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#132

Post by bufferoverflow »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #24

If you hate the long form filler and know what a fighter jet is, start (with the knowledge that the pilot is landing in poor weather) at "Suddenly, at 1:32:05 p.m", read until the first two sentences in section 2, then skip to section 5. Edit: That said, there are no answers. It's just the long known story: A pilot ejects from a malfunctioning (but likely flyable) jet, gets cleared in the first two investigations bec…

I hate the long form so much. I come for the information about the plane crash details, and I get the wall of verbal diarrhea about pilot's upbringing.

At least put all that extra nonsense at the end.

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#133

Post by yaro330 »

Sabinus wrote: post #109
yard2010 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The soviet russians nuked Chernobyl with this attitude, it must be good

Your comment reminded me, an excellent showcase of institutional shenanigans is the Chernobyl miniseries on Netflix. Denial, blame, coverups, accountability. It's a very well made series in a grim Soviet setting.

Just please don't take it as a documentary. It's a disservice to the people that actually worked at the plant that day and portrays them as arrogant fools, which none of them actually were.

That Chernobyl Guy on YouTube did great breakdowns.

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#134

Post by fc417fc802 »

XorNot wrote: post #44
daemoens wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.

Yeah this is both bad but also being heavily misreported: the US can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software effectively disables critical functionality which can effectively render a platform useless. Up till now, there was no demonstrated risk of this happening - but that's a broken trust which won't be repaired for generations, if ever.

> can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software

By what mechanism is this mediated? Because that sounds awfully similar to a kill switch in terms of the end result. Analogy by way of enterprise software: "We didn't remotely disable the software you purchased from us. Rather our server simply refuses to service your requests which happen to be required for the software to function." (Evil laugh from man with goatee immediately follows this statement obviously.)

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#135

Post by stdbrouw »

yaro330 wrote: post #133
Sabinus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminded me, an excellent showcase of institutional shenanigans is the Chernobyl miniseries on Netflix. Denial, blame, coverups, accountability. It's a very well made series in a grim Soviet setting.

Just please don't take it as a documentary. It's a disservice to the people that actually worked at the plant that day and portrays them as arrogant fools, which none of them actually were. That Chernobyl Guy on YouTube did great breakdowns.

I feel like in the miniseries, only a handful of apparatchiks and Anatoly Dyatlov are really singled out for being stubborn and stupid?

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#136

Post by windward »

computerex wrote: post #64
spoonjim wrote: post #14

It's not a bad practice to automatically dismiss any pilot who ejects from a plane (other than test pilots) except in cases which are wholly obvious equipment failures. It will ensure that for these planes which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the pilot doesn't eject unless, yes, they really fucking need to eject. Will this mean you accidentally fire some great pilots? Yes. But given the cost of these airplanes…

In other words to you human lives are worth less than F-35s.

This angle doesn't make much sense in the context of a weapon

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#137

Post by georgemcbay »

XorNot wrote: post #44
daemoens wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.

Yeah this is both bad but also being heavily misreported: the US can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software effectively disables critical functionality which can effectively render a platform useless. Up till now, there was no demonstrated risk of this happening - but that's a broken trust which won't be repaired for generations, if ever.

> the US can't shutdown hardware remotely

I agree with the assertion that there's no proof of a full killswitch based on known past events, but the above quoted statement is also a lot more definitive than I'm willing to be.

With a fighter jet as dependent upon electronic support systems as the F35 and which is sold around the world why wouldn't you put a highly classified backdoor killswitch into it just in case?

The idea that such a killswitch might exist is one that could have always reasonably been pondered, what's new is any/all non-US "Western" governments having to seriously entertain the idea that they would end up in a situation where the US would have a reason to use it against them.

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#138

Post by aussiethebob »

sneak wrote: post #20
spoonjim wrote: post #14

It's not a bad practice to automatically dismiss any pilot who ejects from a plane (other than test pilots) except in cases which are wholly obvious equipment failures. It will ensure that for these planes which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the pilot doesn't eject unless, yes, they really fucking need to eject. Will this mean you accidentally fire some great pilots? Yes. But given the cost of these airplanes…

Implicit in this view is that a pilot’s life has a cash value and that value is something less than “hundreds of millions of dollars” or a single digit multiple thereof. The plane in this incident was valued at $136M USD. He was in reality about 1900 feet AGL at the time of ejection. Planes fall around 160 feet per second when stalled. How much money would you accept to not pull an ejection lever for a few more secon…

I think the plane is only $136M in the context of the overall program and it's projected number of planes built over the program lifespan.

The materials and labor for a single plane are far lower.

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#139

Post by neor »

Sabinus wrote: post #116
atmosx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common misconception - often echoed on this site - is that NATO allies and the U.S. operate on equal terms. They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen. Even today, with all this talk around NATO, there’s a massive U.S. military presence at NATO bases across Europe. These forces are, in effect, under U.S. control, stationed in countries like Germany and Italy. And if Germany…

It's only been months of the Trump admin and already the imperial attitudes are coming out. It's 2025, not 1900. Converting the US into an empire isn't going to go as well as you think it will.

Saying that military action is not off the table to take Greenland is literally insane.

Greenland has always been an ally, if for safety reasons the US needs more military presence on the island they could have just asked for it and it would most likely have been approved.

There is zero reason to use force, but if the US would take such steps I wouldn't be surprised if Europe starts replacing the dollar as reserve currency. This could trigger other nations like China to follow. This move would hurt the US economy way worse than the current trade war does.

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#140

Post by randomcarbloke »

guappa wrote: post #130
XorNot wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are going to declare there's definitely a kill switch, then the burdens on them to provide proof. The story being reported as a "kill switch" does not include this capability existing or being used.

I think they're saying there might be one, and we no longer trust the USA to believe there isn't one (and I can't really understand why we ever did, USA has been an unreliable ally even before trump). You made the extraordinary claim that the USA has no kill switch. Where's the proof to your claim?

What an absurd argument to justify the baseless idea.

American-made systems are present in most western developed military hardware, there might be backdoors or killswitches in any of it.

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