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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

#171

Post by lesuorac »

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.

Meh, the only thing you need to know about Chernobyl is

* The soviets designed a nuclear reactor and engineering plan/blueprint to making power plants

* That engineering plan required certain safety tests to be preformed before actually operating the plant

* Chernyobl did not pass those safety tests before plant operation

* Chernyobl then tried to run those safety tests after the plant was in operation (for some time).

* Chernyobl then catastrophically failed the safety tests due at least to the test setup being incorrect (you aren't supposed to be operating the plant before hand).

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

#172

Post by echoangle »

jiggawatts wrote: post #169
FpUser wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Weep for the poor C++ developers forced to shoehorn modern software into a computer that isn’t yet as powerful as a battery-powered consumer device most people have upgraded three times already." You might be surprised by what kind of functionality can be squeezed out of "weak" CPU when programmers know how to work on hardware with limited resources.

Having written 4KB assembly demos for BBS sites back in the 80s and 90s, I would not be surprised at all. What does surprise me is a $110M plane that is being upgraded at the low-low-cost of a mere $300K each to this: https://www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/high-performance-i... Yes, that "High-Performance Integrated Core Processor" is pulling 4.5 kW to produce as much computer power as a typical PC in the late 199…

Is it possible that there is a mistake on the page and they mean 450 Watts?

The "1 ATR SHORT" version lists 2 modules and takes 300 Watts, so 450 Watts would line up perfectly for the "1 ATR LONG" which takes 3 modules. 4.5 kW doesn't make a lot of sense here.

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

#173

Post by echoangle »

mohsen1 wrote: post #159
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...

I didn't watch the video but the article only mentions the F-16, not the F-35.

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

#174

Post by jiggawatts »

echoangle wrote: post #172
jiggawatts wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having written 4KB assembly demos for BBS sites back in the 80s and 90s, I would not be surprised at all. What does surprise me is a $110M plane that is being upgraded at the low-low-cost of a mere $300K each to this: https://www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/high-performance-i... Yes, that "High-Performance Integrated Core Processor" is pulling 4.5 kW to produce as much computer power as a typical PC in the late 199…

Is it possible that there is a mistake on the page and they mean 450 Watts? The "1 ATR SHORT" version lists 2 modules and takes 300 Watts, so 450 Watts would line up perfectly for the "1 ATR LONG" which takes 3 modules. 4.5 kW doesn't make a lot of sense here.

The typo-free spec sheet is an extra $150K.

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

#175

Post by Kim_Bruning »

guappa wrote: post #151
randomcarbloke wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If true (The sourcing is a tad dubious?), it doesn't need to be a literal kill switch. Withholding software updates can be problematic enough.

https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2025/03/09/russian-media-claim...

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

#176

Post by echoangle »

bjornsing wrote: post #150
kelnos wrote: post #19

This was discussed four months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42098475 From my memory at the time, I was initially fully on the side of the pilot, but after reading through the discussion, I wasn't really sure anymore. He didn't try to see if his flight controls (pitch, yaw, roll) were still responding, he didn't make use of the backup instruments, he didn't try the backup radio, and he had enough fuel to…

Personally I think the risk he exposed others to gets too little attention. That jet could have come down anywhere. I can understand it’s a nerve wrecking situation and that ejecting is a likely outcome in any event, so “sooner rather than later” might feel like the better option. But sending the jet off as a cruise missile could have been avoided.

If you don't see anything, staying in the aircraft doesn't make it any less of a missile. If he didn't eject, he could have still crashed into houses exactly like it could have after ejecting.

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

#177

Post by IshKebab »

Peanuts99 wrote: post #157
IshKebab wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course. This calculation obviously only applies to an abstract life.

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

#178

Post by jpgvm »

rcakebread wrote: post #146
kopirgan wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes 750m doesn't give much room for errors or time

It was 750 feet, not meters. So much less room.

Even if he held the glide without visibility (harder than it sounds) he would have had less than 60s before eating dirt (rate of descent was ~800ft/min).

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

#179

Post by amenhotep »

atmosx wrote: post #165
Propelloni wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I find it refreshing, however, that the "we are the evil empire now" idea is getting out of the closet. Call a spade a spade. “Good” and “evil” are moral constructs that haven’t played a meaningful role in documented geopolitics since at least the 4th century BC. There’s a well-known quote often attributed to Hastings Ismay that captures NATO’s original purpose. I won’t paste it here as it might come off as a bit h…

Evidently you don't know much about humiliating moments for NATO members.

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

#180

Post by Sabinus »

stefanfisk wrote: post #125
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.

Don’t you mean HBO?

Ah you're right, too late to edit.
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