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

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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course we have airshows and dedicated teams for that. There are the patrouille Suisse, patrouille de France, Frecce Tricolori... After the Ramstein Air Base disaster security was tightened a lot though.

I’ve seen PdF perform, they are pretty impressive in the maneouvers they execute. It is worth mentuoning though they do all that in trainer jets, not actual fighter jets. Which is not that cool. I would loved it more of they would fly actual fighters.

> I would loved it more of they would fly actual fighters.

For that I'd say it's that France is saving its actual fighters for combat units because it doesn't has enough jets, unlike the US

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

#212

I don’t know anything about anything but it feels kind of amazing that all four ejected with good looking parachutes given the orientation of the conglomerated plane.

Something that seems interesting to me is that they all ejected at nearly the identical time. I'm curious if those systems are automated in case of scenarios like an unconscious pilot. If so, there may be automated clearance/angle systems, but that's speculation on top of speculation.

It looks like there is a switch with "both"/solo"/"forward" option and the "both" option automates that tiny delay between both ejections. On the other hand ejections from both planes at same time is just pilots reaction speed.

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

#213
post #3

These are pretty expensive and specialized electronic warfare planes that are identical to a regular F18 in aerodynamic performance. Sucks to lose two of them for an airshow display. Isn’t that what the Blue Angels are for?

What is the real purpose of airshows anyway? It always seems like very elevated risk for very little reward but I might just be missing what the reward is.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes

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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the real purpose of airshows anyway? It always seems like very elevated risk for very little reward but I might just be missing what the reward is.

Too many comments are trying to overanalyze, or just show off their insightful cynicism. We do airshows because they are cool . Lots of us love airplanes. Humans do all kinds of activities for entertainment that are not strictly justifiable returns on investment. I hope we never get that boring, though every year we do seem to go that direction.

> Humans do all kinds of activities for entertainment that are not strictly justifiable returns on investment.

Military propaganda absolutely is about strictly justifiable returns on investments.

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

#215

It's crazy to me that Americans feel like they can't afford socialized healthcare, but performing tricks in $70M jets is something that must proceed at all costs.

Yes because over in the rest of the world (or "the country of Europe" to be exact), we all have "socialized healthcare" where we pillage the wealthy and just spend shitloads of tax money on it. That would go very great, and is not a flawed idea whatsoever. /s

yeah, it's pretty fucking great homey

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

#216
post #187

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.

The counter argument is that the free market also allows lots of money to be made on anti-obesity drugs which incentivises them to be researched.

Maybe we wouldn’t have had GLP-1 (at all or as quickly) without the huge market that is the USA.

Not saying I fully buy this argument but it is at least plausible defence of libertarianism.

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

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Healthcare is expensive because we buy fancy airplanes? It seems at least as likely to do with the incredibly high salaries we pay doctors. And the fact that we use like 50% more healthcare services than a typical single-payer society.

Healthcare is expensive because we buy fancy trade groups and licensing bodies and fractional monopolies, etc, etc.

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

#218

It's crazy to me that Americans feel like they can't afford socialized healthcare, but performing tricks in $70M jets is something that must proceed at all costs.

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…

The waste is a byproduct of a many-layered insurance system forced between patient and provider. Everyone in the chain wants their pound of flesh. That problem will exist until the government provides a managed alternative and takes corporate profit out of healthcare.

And that all comes down to the appetite for social spending. It's patriotic to funnel $tn to arms suppliers but only a Commie would want health, dental, mental and social care free for all.

It's not a pseudoargument, it's pointing out the madness in US public spending. This money was available to blow stuff up, kill kids in another country. Why not spending something similar to improve the US domestically.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that seems interesting to me is that they all ejected at nearly the identical time. I'm curious if those systems are automated in case of scenarios like an unconscious pilot. If so, there may be automated clearance/angle systems, but that's speculation on top of speculation.

It stuck me as well. My uninformed guess is that it took both pilots roughly the same amount of time to run through their OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop and conclude their plane was not recoverable and eject. And for both crew members of the same plane ejecting at the same time, I think the ejection of the second personnel is automated should the first one eject. (Not familiar with the F-18 fighter at all b…

Off topic but ...

"What is the Boyd Theory? To many it is simply the OODA loop depicting the human behavioral cycle of decision-making. To others it is a description of command and control. To true believers, it is a profound theory of warfare."

-- Some other Military Dude

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare is expensive because we buy fancy airplanes? It seems at least as likely to do with the incredibly high salaries we pay doctors. And the fact that we use like 50% more healthcare services than a typical single-payer society.

> Healthcare is expensive because we buy fancy airplanes? This is a bad faith rebuttal that intentionally tries to distort the comparison. Here's the salient point you're trying to ignore: many other countries have lower healthcare costs and better health outcomes because they've prioritized investing in healthcare systems that work better for their citizens. Government budgets are not unlimited and when your country…

Saying we should trim fat to spend more on healthcare is like saying we should just keep adding pumps rather than fixing the hole in the ship.

I think it beyond anything that could be construed as honesty to call such advocacy "good faith".

Let the people have their stupid circuses. The actual cost of airshows is fairly low on an annual basis. The DOD is gonna make a bunch of C5s pack random crap around, make a bunch of pilots do training hours, make a bunch of NG units practice crowd control, might as well use all that expense to put on a show. Better for PR and for morale and for training that way (turns out everyone gives more of a crap about doing a good job when the public is there).

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