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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

#181

Post by adrr »

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.

Or that F-35 failed its goals. Double the price. 50% more expensive than estimated operational cost. Its 3x the price to operate than a F16. Planes are obsolete technologies, should have invested in drones/loitering munitions. In 10 years, its all going to be drones.

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

#182

Post by laverya »

Syonyk wrote: post #31
Havoc wrote: post #5

Yeah I mean bailing on a plane that keeps going for 10+ more minutes was never going to be a good look

The problem here is that when you make the call to get out, you don't know that. There's no shortage of "planes that can no longer maintain flight" according to all sorts of standards continuing to do so - a few that come to mind were a B-36 that had several engines fail and several others unable to make full rated power, was unable to hold altitude, and so the crew bailed out. The plane somehow managed another 200 m…

Don't forget the Cornfield Bomber! The pilot ejected from this F-106 (a single-seat, single-engine all-weather interceptor) after passing through 15,000 feet in a flat spin - and the plane promptly exited the flat spin and proceeded to a soft landing in a farmer's field.

And it was truly a soft landing - the plane's engine was still running after coming to a stop, and the aircraft was returned to service!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

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

#183

Post by gorfian_robot »

as I read it the issue is command of VMX-1 which does test and evaluation. the commandant is saying he doesn't think this guy is a kick ass test pilot. test pilot is role which involves a lot more skills and expectations and to be the commander of the squadron everyone should think you are the next Chuck Yeager (USAF, yes I know)

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

#184

Post by gorfian_robot »

gorfian_robot wrote: post #183

as I read it the issue is command of VMX-1 which does test and evaluation. the commandant is saying he doesn't think this guy is a kick ass test pilot. test pilot is role which involves a lot more skills and expectations and to be the commander of the squadron everyone should think you are the next Chuck Yeager (USAF, yes I know)

(also seems weird that a $100M airplane can't figure out how to land itself if the pilot ejects ...)

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

#185

Post by db48x »

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

Thrust is important but actually secondary to steering. You don’t necessarily bail right away if you lose thrust because you could still be able to glide to somewhere you can land. You might also be able to fix the problem. Of course if you’re already at low altitude or you’re in bad weather then you might not have a lot of time to try such things, but the rest of the time you do.

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

#186

Post by akira2501 »

jtbayly wrote: post #53
Manuel_D wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The radios did not work. One was out, the other was “basically functional.” At 2000 feet, while in VTOL mode, how long do you have to figure out if your backup radio is “basically functional”? And to evaluate whether the standby flight display was working properly? And to figure out whether the plane is accelerating up and out of VTOL mode like you told it to or heading toward the ground?

The F35 does not have a dedicated radio control panel. It's a menu driven operation through a multi function display. More damningly these electrical overload failures are known on the platform.

The plane is just a poorly designed death trap.

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

#187

Post by bubaumba »

Similar case from soviet era:

On 4 July 1989, a pilotless MiG-23 jet fighter of the Soviet Air Forces crashed into a house in Bellegem, near Kortrijk, Belgium, killing one person. The pilot had ejected over an hour earlier near Kołobrzeg, Poland, after experiencing technical problems, but the aircraft continued flying for around 900 km (600 mi) before running out of fuel and crashing into the ground.

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

#188

Post by bawolff »

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 disagree, penalising people for making mistakes where procedures are bad tends to cover up root causes and causes more problems in the long term.

After all, its not like flying planes is a new phenomenom. Why were the procedures still bad after all this time?

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

#189

Post by xnyan »

Syonyk wrote: post #34
jasonlotito wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VMX-1 is in charge of assessing the Corps’ aircraft and helping develop and refine tactics, techniques and procedures to fly them in combat successfully. > What sucks for the pilot is he followed procedure He was the commander. He defines those procedures.

In other words, he was a rather experienced pilot in that airframe and knew it better than most pilots should. And still decided that the successful outcome of the flight was in doubt based on the condition of the airframe and systems failures, in the middle of the situation. He survived. Working as intended, as far as I'm concerned.

From the article:

> Over the next 25 years, Del Pizzo became an experienced combat pilot with more than 2,800 hours in the cockpit, 32 hours of which were in the F-35B.

It's the other way around, he has relatively little experience in this particular airframe.

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

#190

Post by ethagknight »

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…

>> However, the report said its standby flight display and backup communication system “remained basically functional.”
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