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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

#151

Post by grahamj »

db48x wrote: post #119
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.

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…

Hopefully thrust as well

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

#152

Post by hindsightbias »

derekp7 wrote: post #89
s1artibartfast wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems reasonable to me. If someone lost a 110 million dollar asset in a questionable way, I wouldn't have trust and confidence in their ability either. Flying cutting edge military jets isn't exactly a human right.

That's all well and good, except the next pilot facing a potential loss of aircraft will probably hesitate (worrying about getting shafted), and keep trying to recover the craft until it is too late. Then you have a crashed plane, and a dead pilot. People make better decisions when there is precident for a no-fault management style.

Back in the day, a carrier deployment w/o the loss of an aircraft was considered subpar because it was taken as evidence of not pushing the boundaries enough.

Or so I was told by a USN pilot.

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

#153

Post by zdragnar »

llm_trw wrote: post #147
mmooss wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Train like you fight, because you will fight like you train.

You don't need to be at war for a soldier to prepare for it.

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

#154

Post by acjohnson55 »

grahamj wrote: post #151
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…

Hopefully thrust as well

I'm not a pilot, but a plane can be landed without propulsion.

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

#155

Post by kelnos »

llm_trw wrote: post #147
mmooss wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure the last time we were not at war, unfortunately.

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

#156

Post by some_random »

cfcfcf wrote: post #150
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.

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.

Is it dysfunctional though? There have been issues with it (landing gear and helmets come to mind), but they don't seem to be out of the ordinary for fighter jet development. As for allies, they keep ordering F-35s (or at least trying to) so it seems like they're at least fine with it.

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

#157

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

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…

I think this comment helps to contextualize the decision in a balanced fashion. If you just read the article probably you come to the conclusion that he should not have been relieved. This helps explain why he was relieved

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

#158

Post by the__alchemist »

Manuel_D wrote: post #18
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.

> Del Pizzo’s F-35B malfunctioned and its primary displays and communications cut out as Del Pizzo was attempting to land through rain at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina. However, the report said its standby flight display and backup communication system “remained basically functional.” > The report said Del Pizzo followed the F-35B manual’s recommendations for ejecting from an out-of-control jet but also criti…

Do you know what CFIT is?

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

#159

Post by s1artibartfast »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #135
wbl wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The customer demands the best, because if they do not have it the adversary will have it, and that is unacceptable. Even given that 110 million (assuming current 2024 dollars) is pretty cheap: the Grippen comes in at around that based on Brazilian purchases and is much less capable, being a 1990's design.

Woah, I could not believe this post, until I looked it up. Wiki says: > That is 150M USD per plane. However, this might include maintenance costs, which would make it different from most F35 purchases that I have seen. Does anyone know any more specific details? Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen

The wikipedia page lists 9 digit flyaway costs for other Gripen versions, so even if it includes some support, the bulk of the price is the jet.

Edit: 5th generation jets are just incredibly expensive. I can't imagine how mad Turkey was when the US bilked them for their F35s, keeping both the jets and the billions Turkey paid.

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

#160

Post by the__alchemist »

le-mark wrote: post #88

It’s unfortunate neither the Navy nor the Air Force want anything to do with the close air support role. The Marines are the smallest arm of the US military but they “do it all”, except tanks, they got rid if they’re Abrams some years ago.

The USAF has done, and continues to do CAS as an important mission.

Edit: I will clarify. USAF multirole fighters (And the A-10) train to, and execute CAS in combat regularly. Even bombers do from time-to-time.

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