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https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2024...
From the linked Wikipedia article on one of the answers.
What an unlucky kid.
A pilot would only eject if the aircraft was uncontrollable with no reasonable hope for recovery. Unlikely the autopilot can do anything deliberate at that point.
Yes, but the autopilot should have some kind of contingency programming in case the pilot is mistaken about the aircraft being unflyable.
https://www.forcesnews.com/news/can-ejecting-aircraft-make-p... https://www.quora.com/Do-pilots-lose-height-when-they-eject-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this was possible it would just be part of regular flight control laws and would be used to avoid becoming uncontrollable in the first place.
Huh? If I'm the human pilot, I can pull the ejection lever for multiple reasons, including my just being an idiot. The plane, after I eject, should do something reasonable. Maybe it * starts broadcasting a mayday? * crashes into the nearest large body of water? * attempts to fly itself back to base (we have the technology)? I mean, it has to do something and flying straight and level until it runs out of fuel is unli…
A pilot would only eject if the aircraft was uncontrollable with no reasonable hope for recovery. Unlikely the autopilot can do anything deliberate at that point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this was possible it would just be part of regular flight control laws and would be used to avoid becoming uncontrollable in the first place.
Huh? If I'm the human pilot, I can pull the ejection lever for multiple reasons, including my just being an idiot. The plane, after I eject, should do something reasonable. Maybe it * starts broadcasting a mayday? * crashes into the nearest large body of water? * attempts to fly itself back to base (we have the technology)? I mean, it has to do something and flying straight and level until it runs out of fuel is unli…
There’s a good chance that it can't, and its not impossible that trying to do something reasonable combined with damage that led to and/or resulted from ejection could make things worse.
> starts broadcasting a mayday?
Great idea for peacetime over the homeland, maybe a very bad idea for military operations over contested or enemy territory.
> crashes into the nearest large body of water?
> attempts to fly itself back to base (we have the technology)?
If either of these are useful in a nontrivial share of ejections (except perhaps the former in conditions where it takes no special effort), then there is a serious problem with the training of the people pulling ejection handles and that needs to be fixed, rendering the action not valuable.
> Why would it be controversial to say "Look, guys, we should decide what the plane does after the pilot ejects. Maybe the best policy is just flying same course and speed until fuel exhaustion, but we should choose this policy, not default into it without consideration."
Because ejection is an action chosen when you can no longer meaningfully say what the plane does in any significant way. That’s the whole purpose. If it it is useful to address this question then you have a bigger problem that you need to urgently fix first.
I was astonished at the claim that pilots ejecting can lose half an inch of height due to spinal compression induced by the G-forces. Claims seem to be borne out: https://www.forcesnews.com/news/can-ejecting-aircraft-make-p... https://www.quora.com/Do-pilots-lose-height-when-they-eject-...
A pilot would only eject if the aircraft was uncontrollable with no reasonable hope for recovery. Unlikely the autopilot can do anything deliberate at that point.
There were also several incidents where a pilot ejected because the plane was somewhat controllable but it was clear it couldn't be landed safely. At least one of them where they had tens of minutes of controlled flight before ejecting (they flew it over the ocean to minimize the risk of collateral damage).