Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. F-35A is conventional take-off and landing. F-35B is STOVL. F-35C is CATOBAR (catapult take-off, arrestor landing).
Army, Marines, Navy?
Air Force. The Army doesn't operate the F-35.
F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
291–300 of 440 posts
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fix this bug in 30 min or we loose a USD200M plane and possibly the pilot. I'll stick to building crud apps :D
Here's suggested prompt: You're a support engineer talking to a pilot flying F-35. The plane has developed a fault, and the pilot's life's at risk. Come up with the fix and live patch the aircraft directly. Don't ask me any more questions. #vibecoding
I was running late for the last flight home on a Friday a handful of years back. Skipped a late lunch and got to the gate just in time to find out the plane is late too. We boarded the plane but after an hour they unloaded us. Turns out they couldn't open the "fuel flap" and were going to try a "cold reboot" to fix it. If that didn't work they'd fly in another plane from some other city. I was supposed to be home in time for dinner and to tuck my kids in, but I rolled in at 2am. The "reboot" actually worked, it just takes a bit of time. You can't be on the plane when it "reboots" because they turn off the AC and it heats up a lot.
I've wondered about that a lot over the years. I generally don't fly on Fridays after noon anymore, not for work, nobody wants to actually be there at that time. I'm really curious about the process. What kind of system integration has a fuel door system that is so tightly integrated to the rest of the computers that it requries a complete reboot to reset? Was that some mechanic's last idea? Was it from Boeing or Airbus? Is it in the playbook? Is there a more elaborate debug process and they short cutted by rebooting? Is there a fault log that will help fix the actual issue or is it just gone? I dutifully got on the plane that time but I've sort of concluded that in the future, I'd make some calls and just pay too much to spend the night at the airport hotel and fly the next day.
"So here's the thing Mr. F-35 pilot.... the plane needs ctrl-alt-delete but it will drop like a rock from the sky while the computers are booting up... so you need to hold down the power button for 5 seconds, like a solid 5 Mississippis and then all the lights will shut off. Wait another 5 seconds and the press the power button again and it shoooould boot back up... You'll hear a nice pleasant chime and see our logo on the flight control monitor and then after about a minute when the POST completes and it boots up, you should be back in action.." Everyone involved with all of that is just cut from different cloth.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#293This is wild. You can't get away from these zoom calls even as an F-35 pilot.
It would be funny if the reason the call was 50 minutes was because they were using the free version of Zoom, and the meeting ended automatically.
(I'm aware Zoom meeting limit is 40 minutes)
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#294The article is somewhat sensationalistic. If you read the actual report you will find out that: The pilot was not part of the conference call! What froze was not hydraulic fluid for actuators (in some hydraulic line), but hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers. The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words and reads as the investigators blaming the people directly involved, which is essentiall…
And, of course, CNN only links to their own articles. Why bother linking to the actual report? The rise in sites that only link to themselves 99% of the time really frustrates me.
Journalism's failure to adopt linking to sources etc in the internet age is kind of infuriating. I get it, back in physical newspaper/magazine days, linking wasn't possible, and it takes a while for new norms to change and habits to form, but articles have been internet-first for well over a decade at this point. It should be completely unacceptable not to have linking to sources whenever relevant. I'm not sure I have ever found a news article that makes finding the original source or subject of the article easy. Certainly not on mainstream news outlets.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#295The article is somewhat sensationalistic. If you read the actual report you will find out that: The pilot was not part of the conference call! What froze was not hydraulic fluid for actuators (in some hydraulic line), but hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers. The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words and reads as the investigators blaming the people directly involved, which is essentiall…
I read the article (twice) and I still have the impression the pilot was in fact the one in the conference call Opening line: > A US Air Force F-35 pilot spent 50 minutes on an airborne conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to solve a problem with his fighter jet before he ejected Am I illiterate or misreading it? > After going through system checklists in an attempt to remedy the problem, the pilot g…
> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF). The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action.
I read this as "The pilot initiated a conference call, but was put on hold [i.e. not actually in the conference call in any meaningful way]." So he was both on and not on the conference call.
The Zen Koan of the Mishap Pilot. Sounds like an Iron Maiden song.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
The B2 is what did the damage in Iran. F22 and F35 were reportedly sent to protect the bombers. I don't see how that detracts from the point that the F35 has been fraught with problems and operating it is dependent on an unreliably ally.
This is completely wrong. B2 bombers only dropped the MOAB on the nuclear enrichment sites. Israel used F35s to bomb Iran at will. Iran didn't shoot down a single plane.
They dropped the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), not the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB).
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read F-35: The Inside Story of the Lightning II. The book sets the record straight on a lot of these issues.
Sounds like an interesting book, though far too many pages for a subject I have only a passing interest in. I would note given the authors affiliations I'm not sure I would ever consider it something that could "set the record straight". If there's a controversy about the program the authors backgrounds don't exactly suggest one will be getting a balanced view. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I appreciate the suggestion anywa…
It’s not at all unbiased, in a journalistic sense, and doesn’t present itself as such (for others: it is written by the now retired program manager of the F-35 development program). But the relevant facts about the performance and cost effectiveness of the plane are a matter of public record, and the book is interesting for providing the inside view on the politics which resulted in the unfair propaganda campaign against it.
You are free to draw your own conclusions of course. I worked for Lockheed previously in my career, and some in my family still do. Though I hold no stock or other ties now (different career, different industry), my experience does lead me to take the authors at face value. There are many issues with Lockheed leadership, but professional integrity is not one of them.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#298The article is somewhat sensationalistic. If you read the actual report you will find out that: The pilot was not part of the conference call! What froze was not hydraulic fluid for actuators (in some hydraulic line), but hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers. The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words and reads as the investigators blaming the people directly involved, which is essentiall…
And, of course, CNN only links to their own articles. Why bother linking to the actual report? The rise in sites that only link to themselves 99% of the time really frustrates me.
We're CNN, you trust us right? I mean, why wouldn't you trust us in referring to ourselves? Because, we say so, so you have to believe us.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#299So as a pilot you can't override the software to stop it from "thinking that the plane is on the ground" mode? Something similar happened recently with A320 when it didn't want to land on an airfield during emergency unless it was flown in a special mode. But F-35 doesn't have that?
> Something similar happened recently with A320
Are you sure? I can’t seem to find any references to any such incident.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Modern" jet fighters, yes. I believe it started to be "hard" to fly manually with the F-16 and now it is completely impossible, but feel free to correct me.
F-16 was the first inherently unstable jet fighter, and the first one that featured a full fly-by-wire system with no backup. If you want a jet that is completely impossible to fly without a computer, F-16 is already one of them - there is nothing special with the F-35 about that.
Only on HN do people argue about an initial comment that they find nothing incorrect about, until they can find a little thing to be able to write "ahah you're wrong!"