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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

#151

Post by guappa »

randomcarbloke wrote: post #140
guappa wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. There might be. That's the problem.

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

#152

Post by guappa »

guappa wrote: post #94
wongarsu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also refuse to update the electronic countermeasures systems installed in Ukraine's F16. Not a kill switch, but it is impacting the usefulness of the planes. Whether actual kill switches exist is unknown. But if you were a European country, would you take the chance of buying fighters from a country threatening to invade multiple of your allies based on their assurance that the rumors about kill switches are not…

Well denmark is going ahead to buy F-35 from their enemy that wants to invade them.

I guess my comment above is downvoted because stating easily verifiable factual truths is not welcome?

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

#153

Post by guappa »

dgroshev wrote: post #141
jajko wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well unless we in Europe want to do in direct conflict with US (ie for Greenland), this is mostly irrelevant extra capability. As Ukraine shows, peer conflicts are won by other means, not stealth air superiority over sheep herders with AKs. Some general's wet dream of dogfights in Maverick's style are modern day fantasies. What those planes are used for are just lobbing glide bombs or shooting missiles. Their biggest…

> As Ukraine shows, peer conflicts are won by other means, not stealth air superiority I don't think you can conclude that when neither of the belligerents has the capability. As Gulf War shows, training and capabilities (including stealth) do enable SEAD/DEAD to an extent that unlocks air superiority.

Perhaps you're not aware that this happened? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...

USA has air superiority only against 3rd world countries, and even then, history shows that air superiority has never won any war.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #132
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.

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by heavymetalpoizn »

Propelloni wrote: post #102
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…

That's a fantasy, unless you think Germany is occupied by the USA. But that's not the case. Occupation ended in 1954, since then the USA military is stationed in Germany (and Italy) due to contracts. This so called deployment contracts have been confirmed in 1990, when Germany became a sovereign nation again. I know, the current USA is not big on "rule of law" anymore, but even a bad deal maker should understand that…

[dead]

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

#156

Post by rob74 »

TomK32 wrote: post #104
instagib wrote: post #71

They had one short sentence in there that he still had a tiny alternate primary flight display. Still had control surfaces. He knew he was descending and his authorized air space. Pull up, look at the pfd, do some resets, follow helmet malfunction protocols. There was very little about a devils advocate side to the story. I could imagine others joking about ejecting for minor warnings or trolling him. Especially in t…

Even if he would have trusted the alternative controls the jet has, he was in clouds over a densely populated area going 350mph just 750 feet above the ground, far below the 6000 feet the article quotes from the manual. "In fact, the F-35B’s flight manual said, “the aircraft is considered to be in out of controlled flight (OCF) when it fails to respond properly to pilot inputs,” adding, “if out of control below 6,000…

Well, that's the crux of the issue: apparently the aircraft still did respond properly to pilot inputs. Of course, it's totally understandable to get spooked by all the electronics failing and decide to rather bail out than bet on the plane still being flyable, but if you go by the book, he shouldn't have ejected...

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

#157

Post by Peanuts99 »

IshKebab wrote: post #74
gtsop wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He means that he prefers for that poor lad to have died trying to save a piece of metal. Simple stuff, there is no going around it. For some people money is above human life.

Money is above human life at some point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life But in this situation it sounds like the plane was highly likely to crash anyway so the estimated value you would save by potentially sacrificing him is low. Also I think the calculation is probably quite different in this situation compared to e.g. paying for safety measures in advance.

If I'm in a jet travelling towards the floor and I have the chance to survive by ejecting I will pull the level 10 times out of 10. The value of my life to me is approaching infinity in relative terms to the cost of a jet my employer pays for.

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

#158

Post by graemep »

blatantly wrote: post #80
computerex wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes. There is a finite $ value on a human life from a government point of view. For your loved ones it is infinite. But for a government with X funds and Y lives to save, there has to be a price. If someone ejects on every little problem, you spend billions more on that and billions less on some other life saving initiatives. Putting aside the bad ejection survival stats.

Yes, governments will assign a value to human lives for making decisions.

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

#159

Post by mohsen1 »

charlie90 wrote: post #123

Im not a pilot or anything, but looking at the cockpit of the f35, it seems pretty weird that the whole thing is a big touch screen. Reminds me of cars replacing physical controls with touchscreens...

Plus it's running Kubernetes for all of that!

https://thenewstack.io/how-the-u-s-air-force-deployed-kubern...

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

#160

Post by dgroshev »

guappa wrote: post #153
dgroshev wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As Ukraine shows, peer conflicts are won by other means, not stealth air superiority I don't think you can conclude that when neither of the belligerents has the capability. As Gulf War shows, training and capabilities (including stealth) do enable SEAD/DEAD to an extent that unlocks air superiority.

Perhaps you're not aware that this happened? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid... USA has air superiority only against 3rd world countries, and even then, history shows that air superiority has never won any war.

I don't understand what that link is supposed to prove. A single F-117A getting shot down in Yugoslavia due to complacency and chance doesn't negate Nighthawks bombing SAM defended areas with impunity. Iraq had a strong and integrated AD network for the time.

Air superiority alone doesn't, but it's a massive force multiplier.

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