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Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

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Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#351

Post by refurb »

Prbeek wrote: post #340
cdot2 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US air force fought significant enemy air forces in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and in the Balkans. Their doctrine has not remained untested since 1945.

Take Vietnam for instance where the Soviets supplied the Vietcongs with AD systems and at times manned them The Americans lost over 10,000 aircrafts over a 10 year period which is an average of 3 per day. The US airforce cannot survive the attrition rate that a war with Russia or China would bring.

While 10,000 sounds like a lot, about 25% were accidents, and 75% in combat, so 7,500.

That's 7,500 aircraft lost over 5.25 million sorties, or 14 lost per 1,000 sorties.

The loss rate was 5 times higher in Korea and 25 times higher in WW2.

And as the other comment mentioned, most were helicopters (5,600) and UAV's (1,000). Only 3,400 fixed wing, manned aircraft were lost.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#352

Post by ajuc »

InDubioProRubio wrote: post #328
Hilift wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote was Russian observations on their securing valuable technical information, but lamenting on their inability to overcome their capability gap through spying due to changes in tactics of their "main adversary". In WW2, a major factor for the US Naval success in the Pacific was a change in attack doctrine. Aircraft would attack relentlessly from multiple directions, overwhelming the Japanese defenses. In the…

[flagged]

It works the exact opposite way.

People from totalitarian shitholes improvise a lot more than people from functioning democracies (because they have to improvise to survive daily life). And they trust their state and follow the rules a lot less (and for a good reason - their state exploits and lies to them to a degree you can't imagine living in a free country).

USA wouldn't send its army to Mexico with 12 hours of fuel telling the soldiers it's exercises. After selling half the fuel and ammo on black market and providing them with faulty non-spec tires so that significant percentage of their vehicles just broke the first week it actually had to drive somewhere.

Russian army did all of the above, on a massive scale. Nobody in Russia was surprised except maybe putin. IMHO he was more surprised that Ukraine was organized than that his own army wasn't.

Think for a while how you'd adapt to living in such a society. One of the first things is that you pretend to do what they tell you and then completely ignore it and do whatever you can to survive. And then to adapt to that - the army has units that shoot at you from behind if you don't want to be a "meat wave" in the next frontal attack.

Army won't provide you shoes your size? Steal. Army won't provide you drones or anti-drone measures? Cope cages and loot Mavics from malls. Etc. In totalitarian countries (and I've lived in one so I'd know) everybody had to learn DIY cause you couldn't trust the economy/country to provide you with the things you need.

Oligarchy and libertarianism is the same system, just looking from POV of rulers vs ruled. When society doesn't work people have to be libertarians. When everybody's a libertarian - oligarchs rule and society doesn't work.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#353

Post by kzrdude »

db48x wrote: post #226
Aeolun wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HUD freaking out, that means I can't trust my instruments, that means I'm in immediate danger! PUNCH OUT! Isn’t that indicative of what an absolute shitshow of a plane it is?

Eh, it was struck by lightning. It lost several non–critical systems as a result. Both the HUD and the primary flight display turned off and came back on a few seconds later. Both showed numerous error messages and warnings when they came back on. Both failed a second time before he could read or understand all of the warnings. It was certainly suboptimal, but not necessarily indicative of a poorly designed or engine…

How was the pilot impacted by the lightning? Maybe he had a few systems shaken up as well

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#354

Post by krisoft »

dangle1 wrote: post #47
justsomehnguy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is still definitely an aircraft that can land safely. This is not a prop plane. It's a heavy jet which should be almost stalling to land safely . Tower guys can roughly guide you on the course and speed but there would be at least 1-2 seconds lag between the reading, reading and acting. I wouldn't say what you can "definitely land safely " in these conditions.

Interesting detail in TFA is that the pilot had converted to the plane's short take off and vertical landing mode, but instead carried out a missed approach procedure when his helmet-mounted display malfunctioned.

What do you mean by "instead"? Would you have expected the pilot to guess where the runway is without his instruments? He was flying in IMC. Meaning he couldn't see where he was going.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#355

Post by vessenes »

gorfian_robot wrote: post #183

as I read it the issue is command of VMX-1 which does test and evaluation. the commandant is saying he doesn't think this guy is a kick ass test pilot. test pilot is role which involves a lot more skills and expectations and to be the commander of the squadron everyone should think you are the next Chuck Yeager (USAF, yes I know)

That’s exactly how I read this: did the Marine general staff think, on review, that this guy had “the right stuff” to lead their test pilot division? Nope.

The plane situation sounds shitty in the extreme, and an F-35’s electronics fritzing sounds, um, real bad, and sadly, not shocking, but the Marines’ elan and doctrine at its core involves dealing with stuff like this successfully, in the field, with little support. I imagine that the people around him felt fairly similarly, and so, end of story. He won’t be moved up to general staff, he’ll get some fine deployments until he decides to head out, which given his age, he’s opted out of a couple times, it’s fine, and he’ll be fine. Just, unfortunately, like you say, he wasn’t Chuck Yeager when it came down to it.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#356

Post by aleph_minus_one »

whizzter wrote: post #336
rightbyte wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sort of quotes are cute but not really usefull. Probably counterproductive. There is 0 people in the US Navy that did service in the 2WW. There has been multiple generations. There is no way there is that much of institutional inertia, if the quote was correct at the time. Punnishing failure disincentives a lot of things. It has drawbacks.

It fits perfectly if you look at it from a "balls" standpoint, this pilot ejected for whatever by-the-book reason when his electronics were bad and yet the airplane continued for 11 minutes just on autopilot. How would you expect a pilot that gives up so "easily" to lead other men into a high risk-high reward operation when he gives up himself so easily? Yes, maybe he was at low altitude during the descent and found…

> It fits perfectly if you look at it from a "balls" standpoint, this pilot ejected for whatever by-the-book reason when his electronics were bad and yet the airplane continued for 11 minutes just on autopilot.

> How would you expect a pilot that gives up so "easily" to lead other men into a high risk-high reward operation when he gives up himself so easily?

If you use an ejection seat, there is also a given high probability that you will never be capable of flying a fighter jet afterwards, so it also takes quite some balls to make the decision to use it.

Also, the pilot did not "give up", but decided that it is smarter to retreat and save lives instead of going to death. In a a high risk-high reward situation, I strongly prefer hyperrational risk calculators (in opposite to risk avoiders - the common person in society) over hypermasculine risk takers - but I'm a nerd.

So, the only explanation that I have is that the military wants to bully around and show macho behavior.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#357

Post by rightbyte »

whizzter wrote: post #336
rightbyte wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sort of quotes are cute but not really usefull. Probably counterproductive. There is 0 people in the US Navy that did service in the 2WW. There has been multiple generations. There is no way there is that much of institutional inertia, if the quote was correct at the time. Punnishing failure disincentives a lot of things. It has drawbacks.

It fits perfectly if you look at it from a "balls" standpoint, this pilot ejected for whatever by-the-book reason when his electronics were bad and yet the airplane continued for 11 minutes just on autopilot. How would you expect a pilot that gives up so "easily" to lead other men into a high risk-high reward operation when he gives up himself so easily? Yes, maybe he was at low altitude during the descent and found…

It cuts both ways.

Personally I wouldn't want to be led by someone that rather hit the ground in a ball of fire than risk the embarrassment of ejecting.

A pilot that eject has at least shown that he has the balls to lose...

Fighter jets fall out of the sky quite often. I don't get why it suddenly is such a big deal with F35. It seems like some hardware fanboyism.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#358

Post by 2-3-7-43-1807 »

db48x wrote: post #119
synapsomorphy wrote: post #7

The report criticizes the pilot for ejecting, but also says he did everything by the book (F35 manual), but the book was wrong. And the pilot should've figured that out? Feels like they just need someone to blame for losing the plane.

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…

a plane doesn't change a channel of a radio. a plane has a radio which changes its channels. the plane is what flies.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#359

Post by SonicScrub »

adrr wrote: post #181
dundarious wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticism of the F-35 is not politically polarized -- critics exist on a broad political spectrum. "Western peaceniks" and "pro-Russia/China/etc" are a small subset.

Or that F-35 failed its goals. Double the price. 50% more expensive than estimated operational cost. Its 3x the price to operate than a F16. Planes are obsolete technologies, should have invested in drones/loitering munitions. In 10 years, its all going to be drones.

> Planes are obsolete technologies, should have invested in drones/loitering munitions. In 10 years, its all going to be drones.

This is speculation on what the future will be, not our current reality. In the War in Ukraine, reliance on cheap drones has more to do neither sides ability to achieve air superiority due to AA systems. Introduce stealth and/or effective SEAD tactics (suppression of enemy air defense) into that mix, and the situation changes very quickly. For a recent example, see the Israeli strikes on Iranian air defense systems.

The future is more likely to be hybrid, where drones, and "loyal wingman" data-linked with manned systems are used to get the best of both worlds. The F35's sensor suite and data-link capability are designed for that.

Re: Marine pilot loses command after ejecting from F-35B that kept flying

#360

Post by stainablesteel »

gambiting wrote: post #342
InDubioProRubio wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Why would such a person be anywhere near the front line?

because their family has been doing it for generations and they keep winning
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