In case anyone was wondering, he sent 109 million dollars into the great beyond.
Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
191–200 of 508 posts
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
> its not like flying planes is a new phenomenom. Why were the procedures still bad after all this time?
It’s a new plane!
Also, a pilot blaming procedure for a bad call is ass covering. That’s not appropriate for a mission critical role.
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#193Think about it - a single plane costs anywhere from 1/8 to 1/10 of a billion dollars. Anyone flying one should try pretty darned hard to save it.
I would hope that there's more to it than money. Loss of a plane can have a wider impact, but surely the gear is the expendable part. This isn't Warhammer 40k.
Nobody is saying that people are expendable. I'm saying that if you're responsible for a machine that costs as much as 250 families' homes, you should know that that machinery and you should try damned hard to make it work. After all, that's what everyone else does in every non-military airplane because you can't eject from non-military airplanes.
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
As a civilian, I would have expected that if there's anywhere where you're supposed to follow protocol even if it means expensive mistakes happen, it's the Marines. My mental model of the military, and especially the Marines, is that it's an organization that values discipline and prioritizes following the chain of command.
That's even more true if getting it wrong means you could die.
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, because he was not fired for ejecting from an unsafe aircraft, which is what you're claiming would be the situation where the pilot would hesitate. He was fired because the General didn't feel he'd shown the judgement and skill commiserate with his station. The cardinal rule for an in-flight emergency is that if the plane is flying, you're OK in that moment, there's no need to panic. He was fired because as a tes…
kinda makes you wonder about his opinion on the overall reliability of the F-35 if he made that call.
From what I read that seems plausible given the pilot was a seasoned test pilot; so it seems odd he was just being panicky.
Imagine just being struck by lightning, loosing main displays, and being at 1200 feet. All on top of flying in a plane with a reputation for electronic failures.
I'd be concerned too that the plane was about to freak out. 1200 ft isn't far.
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#196Earlier 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…
> It’s a new plane!
First flown in 2006. Introduced 2016.
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The U.S.'s allies aren't exactly thrilled with it. Since Russia invaded Ukraine and the European countries prioritized defense, the F-35 seems to win every competitive bid.
Not any other realistic stealth options. China has the J-20 and Russia sort of has the SU-57 but that has seen limited production.
So it's far better than anything anyone else has built.
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey taxpayer! You don't like the estimated $1.5 trillion going to Lockheed Martin for their hunk of junk F35? Then you're just like Forbes, Bloomberg, the Washington Post and the other anti-American ChiComs who are saying all this because "they need it to be shit". Your rant is almost as inspiring as the Palantir CEO's flag waving speeches where he rants against the anti-America crowd who question why their tax dolla…
Your post is his point
How does the GP represent anti-Americans or peaceniks?
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#199My dad was reprimanded for not following orders ejecting when the engine on his F-86 failed. He did the calculations and figured he could make the field, which he did. They said the pilot was far more valuable than the airplane.
Planes were cheaper then. I wonder if the higher costs of today's planes results in any pressure to try to save planes that in your dad's day would have been considered not worth the risk? An F-86 ranged from $180-$580k in 1950 dollars, depending on the model. That's around $2.4-7.8 million now. That's quite a bit lower than the statistical value of human life that is currently used by the government for regulatory a…
I look at, say, the war in Ukraine, where they have a fresh supply of planes from allies, but their roster of pilots is diminishing. In this situation the pilot is far more valuable than the plane. And probably always the case during war when aircraft production is at a maximum.
Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying
#20049 years of age strikes me as pretty old to be piloting an F-35B. Even civilian commercial pilots have to retire at 65.