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Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

marinecorpstimes.com

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Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#141

Post by hollerith »

db48x wrote: post #139
mmooss wrote: post #77

Has this become a politicized, viral, ideology thing? I keep seeing this story pop up in several places, but it doesn't seem like its impact merits the attention. I'm not trolling and please don't bring the politics and ideology here. I am asking factually. (I'm here because I prefer to avoid those things and as a result can be ignorant of them.)

It’s possible. But note that there has been a lot of criticism of the F–35 since the inception of the program because it’s a multi–role fighter–bomber jack–of–all–trades that tries to satisfy everybody. Partly this is a political problem. Combat airplanes are expensive to design and need political approval. So you have to get every branch of the military to sign on to the project simultaneously, otherwise you’ll neve…

>it needs to be a VTOL for the Navy,

The US Navy does not operate the VTOL variant: they don't need to. The US Marines and the British and Japanese navies operate the VTOL variant (because they don't have supercarriers).

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#142

Post by db48x »

imglorp wrote: post #136
db48x wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book said that ejecting is the correct action when the plane is “unresponsive to the pilot’s commands“. This simple, straight forward statement turns out to be more ambiguous than they intended. Do you eject if the radio doesn’t change channel? No, that would be silly, even though the plane didn’t respond to your command to change the channel. The plane is still flyable without the radio! Common sense says that y…

Fully agree but as usual it was more complicated than this even. Losing controls and instruments in IMC conditions could mean you're straight and level with many minutes to troubleshoot and try things off book, or maybe another attitude like a graveyard spiral towards the deck with seconds to decide. We might not have all the details to armchair fly it.

He didn’t lose the controls _or_ the instruments. He lost his HUD and the primary flight display. But the standby instrument display was still working correctly, and the fly–by–wire system was still accepting input and acting on it correctly. Sure, if those things had failed then ejecting would have been fine. But he didn’t even check them to see if they were still working or not, he just bailed out of a flyable plane.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#143

Post by relaxing »

dundarious wrote: post #107
some_random wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hating the F-35 in general has been a thing for the Anti-American crowd, mainly driven by western peaceniks who don't see a point in military might (largely depleted now) and the pro-Russia/China/etc crowd who need it to be shit so their fighters can seem competent. As is usual the latter "inform" the former.

Criticism of the F-35 is not politically polarized -- critics exist on a broad political spectrum. "Western peaceniks" and "pro-Russia/China/etc" are a small subset.

There’s also the pro-Boeing crowd.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#144

Post by db48x »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #133
KennyBlanken wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This and the fact that he didn't make the slightest attempt to work around it. He had a flyable plane with plenty of fuel, a functioning backup radio and instruments he could have verified primaries against or just switched to, and even failing everything else, he could have verified against what the tower saw on radar for speed, heading, altitude, etc...and then asked the tower to get him to his wingman, and then fo…

The article states he was at 1,900 feet in heavy rain with nonfunctional instument panels. He was there, he's got the experience, and he ejected (which is dangerous too). Maybe the commandant of the Marines would have liked a better headline, but another way of looking at it is the pilot lost his video server and really needed a functioning screen. I just threw away a video card in exactly the same scenario, and I fe…

> with nonfunctional instrument panels

This is incorrect. He lost his HUD and the primary flight display, but not the standby instruments. Those are intended as a backup in case the other systems fail, and they did their job and kept operating. You can't use them to fire missiles or keep track of enemy anti–air radar systems, but you can use them to fly the plane, avoid terrain, and land safely. And he didn’t even check to see if they were still working before he ejected.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#145

Post by db48x »

hollerith wrote: post #141
db48x wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s possible. But note that there has been a lot of criticism of the F–35 since the inception of the program because it’s a multi–role fighter–bomber jack–of–all–trades that tries to satisfy everybody. Partly this is a political problem. Combat airplanes are expensive to design and need political approval. So you have to get every branch of the military to sign on to the project simultaneously, otherwise you’ll neve…

>it needs to be a VTOL for the Navy, The US Navy does not operate the VTOL variant: they don't need to. The US Marines and the British and Japanese navies operate the VTOL variant (because they don't have supercarriers).

Fair enough :)

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#146

Post by db48x »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #137
db48x wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book said that ejecting is the correct action when the plane is “unresponsive to the pilot’s commands“. This simple, straight forward statement turns out to be more ambiguous than they intended. Do you eject if the radio doesn’t change channel? No, that would be silly, even though the plane didn’t respond to your command to change the channel. The plane is still flyable without the radio! Common sense says that y…

> instead of penalizing him He wasn’t disciplined. But he was penalised. Which strikes me as the right balance given the facts. There are two kinds of jobs: those where the person’s employment is more important than their work, and those where it isn’t. This is the latter. He’s still getting paid. But he should not have this responsibility. It you’re making excuses after losing a plane when you shouldn’t have, becaus…

That’s a good way of putting it.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#147

Post by llm_trw »

mmooss wrote: post #74
synapsomorphy wrote: post #7

The report criticizes the pilot for ejecting, but also says he did everything by the book (F35 manual), but the book was wrong. And the pilot should've figured that out? Feels like they just need someone to blame for losing the plane.

At least one concept of it is that officers (and NCOs and maybe others) are expected to succeed when the 'book' is insufficient. Following the manual is not nearly enough. Warfare is chaos; unexpected things happen; the manual is one input but people are expected to take initiative and overcome problems with or without it. It's not extra credit, it's a baseline expectation for the job. Also, this person is a colonel,…

I wasn't aware we were at war.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#148

Post by toast0 »

varjag wrote: post #33
krunck wrote: post #16

The pilot had a justifiable lack of faith in the aircraft and didn't care to be the next pilot victim.

There was exactly 1 (one) fatality involving F-35s. In Japan air force, attributed to the piloting error.

I'm sure had the pilot not ejected and the plane crashed, we'd all be calling it pilot error for not ejecting when in this situation, when the book called for ejecting.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#149

Post by some_random »

Teever wrote: post #131
some_random wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hating the F-35 in general has been a thing for the Anti-American crowd, mainly driven by western peaceniks who don't see a point in military might (largely depleted now) and the pro-Russia/China/etc crowd who need it to be shit so their fighters can seem competent. As is usual the latter "inform" the former.

Do you think that any criticism of the F-35 project is acceptable?

Yeah absolutely, when it's based in actual fact. The F-35 project is a fantastic example of how out of control defense projects can become, it's parts sourcing in partner nations is questionable when those partner nations are liable to go procure S-400, parts commonality between A, B, and C is pretty terrible for three jets that are supposed to be variants, the list goes on.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#150

Post by cfcfcf »

some_random wrote: post #85
mmooss wrote: post #77

Has this become a politicized, viral, ideology thing? I keep seeing this story pop up in several places, but it doesn't seem like its impact merits the attention. I'm not trolling and please don't bring the politics and ideology here. I am asking factually. (I'm here because I prefer to avoid those things and as a result can be ignorant of them.)

Hating the F-35 in general has been a thing for the Anti-American crowd, mainly driven by western peaceniks who don't see a point in military might (largely depleted now) and the pro-Russia/China/etc crowd who need it to be shit so their fighters can seem competent. As is usual the latter "inform" the former.

It being dysfunctional is a convenient stick for this crowd to beat it with, but I wouldn't discount the issues. The U.S.'s allies aren't exactly thrilled with it.
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