Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

idahonews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 278 posts

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#191

Post by userbinator »

mc3301 wrote: post #32
ElProlactin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm reminded of a short video clip I saw a while back with a dollar-counter on-screen. Different kinds of weapons were fired, each one bigger and more expensive than the last, the counter spinning upwards all-the-while. And here's me thinking: man, just don't shoot two or three of those anti-aircraft missiles, give the cash to me, and I could buy a house and live comfortably with my family.

If it weren't for the military, you might not have a country left to live in.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#192

Post by MaciejR »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #159
mlyle wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah.. the roaring sound and precision of military aerial display teams can't be denied, and are an awesome experience. But it's something you see someone doing in a Pitts or Extra or maybe even a Citabria or 150 that makes you question your understanding of the laws of physics :D

It is not the same. Having a jet do a low pass is something that you will remember for a long time. Or having it go vertical with full after burners, especially close to sunset where you can see it better. The other factor is showing how good you are: sure, you can do formation flying in an Extra 300 or a C150, but doing it in a fighter jet show precission and skill, because it will not forgive you as easy as a slowe…

As an aerobatic pilot that owns an Extra and has flown with several fighter pilots, I can tell you flying an Extra requires a lot more talent than a fighter jet.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#193

Post by kakacik »

samiv wrote: post #187
mschuster91 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the pseudo-"arguments" I absolutely hate to read. The problem with America's healthcare is not the military, foreign aid or wars. It simply is not. The problem is the insane amount of waste in the US healthcare system. Y'all already spend much, much more per capita on healthcare than everyone else on earth by a wide margin [1], but get markedly lower returns in life expectancy [2]. Y'all need to cut th…

Americans will never be able to "solve" obesity at a national level in their free liberal "business first" world. After all obesity is a consequence of the biggest industry of all, the fast food industry. And a lot of profits are predicated on sick fat people from fitness to dieting to health care and pharmacy. There are very little profits to these giants if the population was slim and healthy.

Who cares about those companies, whole industries can come and go as markets dance their daily dance.

The fact is, every single country on earth figured this out better than US. Which ain't so bad, but the stubbornness to even admit a failure due to some primitive patriotism or whatever and fix it is quite something. Well, you do you.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#194

Post by samiv »

kakacik wrote: post #193
samiv wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans will never be able to "solve" obesity at a national level in their free liberal "business first" world. After all obesity is a consequence of the biggest industry of all, the fast food industry. And a lot of profits are predicated on sick fat people from fitness to dieting to health care and pharmacy. There are very little profits to these giants if the population was slim and healthy.

Who cares about those companies, whole industries can come and go as markets dance their daily dance. The fact is, every single country on earth figured this out better than US. Which ain't so bad, but the stubbornness to even admit a failure due to some primitive patriotism or whatever and fix it is quite something. Well, you do you.

It's not stubbornness.

It's simply the outcome of a system that puts private profits before public good (in this case health, but you can see the same thing play out in other sectors too such as education).

Everything is working as designed.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#195

Post by venzaspa »

momo26 wrote: post #115

kudos to the Martin-Baker seats and the pilots' training, ejecting at that low altitude after a collision is incredibly hazardous. Using high-value electronic warfare assets for aerobatics seems like an unnecessary risk when regular Hornets could do the exact same job for the crowd.

Always enjoy looking through the Martin-Baker site for their database of successful ejections. They've saved a lot of lives!

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#196

Post by philipwhiuk »

XorNot wrote: post #181
gspr wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The optimal loss rate is not zero. Fine, but surely if the achieved loss rate is projected to fall below the optimal one, then the optimal way to compensate is something else than crashing planes at airshows? Like, I don't know, dismantling for spares. Or scrapping. Or even target practice.

Air shows are pilot flight hours training. This could've happened on any random training exercise just the same. Flight hours are one the key differentiating factors in air force quality and a major US advantage is that their pilots have a lot of them.

*a male US advantage

major?

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#197

Post by philipwhiuk »

jcgrillo wrote: post #108
userbinator wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pilots themselves initiated their ejections.

Admittedly I have nowhere near the flight hours, training, or expertise of these pilots, but having flown airplanes myself I can totally imagine in an off-nominal situation (which I have been in before) conscious focus is fully on flying the airplane even if your rote lizard brain is procedurally going through the motions of pulling the ejection handles or otherwise responding to the emergency. My instructor's words-…

Sufficient training overrides your lizard brain.

But yes, pilots still trying to fix stuff when they should have ejected is a common problem.

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#198

Post by [deleted] »

lostlogin wrote: post #177
dnautics wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the pilots need to fly hours to keep their pilot rating anyways. So aside from the slightly elevated risk to the civilian observers, and the occasional risk due to maneuvers (I think they doing something particularly showy in this case?), the extra cost to the taxpayer do this is ~nil.

What sort of hours do you log for a crash? Does it end when the ejection starts, or feet-on/the/ground?

[deleted]

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#199

Post by [deleted] »

watchful_moose wrote: post #185
lostlogin wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of hours do you log for a crash? Does it end when the ejection starts, or feet-on/the/ground?

if the pilot doesn't have their hands on the stick flying the plane, i don't think those hours (... less than single digit minutes?) count.

[deleted]

Re: Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely

#200

Post by ExoticPearTree »

MaciejR wrote: post #192
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the same. Having a jet do a low pass is something that you will remember for a long time. Or having it go vertical with full after burners, especially close to sunset where you can see it better. The other factor is showing how good you are: sure, you can do formation flying in an Extra 300 or a C150, but doing it in a fighter jet show precission and skill, because it will not forgive you as easy as a slowe…

As an aerobatic pilot that owns an Extra and has flown with several fighter pilots, I can tell you flying an Extra requires a lot more talent than a fighter jet.

Never got to do aerobatics, just “normal” flying.

I saw a RedBull race and was impressed about the agility of the pilots.

But I like jets more because they go faster. And they have afterburners. And they go vertical faster than any propeller plane will ever be able to. And the margin of error is smaller. Espcially closer to the ground.

Post reply on HN