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

marinecorpstimes.com

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

#411

Post by dylan604 »

refurb wrote: post #351
Prbeek wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

After reading this, I thought the opening music for Top Gun was about to start playing

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

#412

Post by cafard »

whatshisface wrote: post #401
ajuc wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

That is all true, except there's another reason people learn to DIY. That is when they have a basically functional government and economy but live in a rural area. The US libertarian ethos stems from a cultural memory of pioneers and farmers that couldn't be served by a centralized state.

Ok, but who acquired the land for them?

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

#413

Post by whatshisface »

cafard wrote: post #412
whatshisface wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is all true, except there's another reason people learn to DIY. That is when they have a basically functional government and economy but live in a rural area. The US libertarian ethos stems from a cultural memory of pioneers and farmers that couldn't be served by a centralized state.

Ok, but who acquired the land for them?

[flagged]

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

#414

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #397

It all makes sense, but it must have a chilling effect on any military aviator reading this who finds themselves in a position to consider doing the same.Z Cirrus flight instruction uses the military statistic that historically military aviators have had a really strong negative bias to ejection during training compared to in combat. Part of the rationale was that of course ejecting during combat is easy to save face…

Is this just the consequences of rapidly ballooning costs of modern fighter jets? At a tenth of a billion dollars each, there's not much room in the budget for what are even understandable aircraft losses. If I'm not mistaken nothing else is nearly as expensive except the B2. In some ways, losing one of these things is getting pretty close to losing a naval vessel.

Acknowledging this to be the case might help people to understand why they're demanding perfection even if it's risky for the pilots.

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

#415

Post by smurpy »

I see this discussion as failing to touch on two main points.

This coverage does a poor job of conveying whether he could tell that the craft was climbing, though evidently it was. A crucial detail in his situation was whether the vehicle was responding to his control directions and whether its trajectory was upward, hence without an immediate threat of crash. There is a faint indication that he should have known that his aircraft was in fact climbing and that, as a consequence, he was going to have time to problem solve.

It sounds like the group he led is tasked with establishing the limits of and determining the norms for the operation of the various craft they fly. This suggests that a greater spirit of discovery and exploration of the letter of the rules was in order than he happened to exhibit on that occasion.

He had that command taken away, not his flight privileges, because the shortcoming he exhibited was indicative of his personal unsuitability for exploring the limits of his vehicle and the policies for its operation — in short for doing that particular, exceedingly demanding job. He gets his choice of other posts, but not continuing that crucial and complicated role for which he evidently did not have the right stuff. No shame. Peter Principle avoided. Everybody did the right thing, including his commanders.

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

#416

Post by walrushunter »

jyounker wrote: post #287
db48x wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn’t lose the controls _or_ the instruments. He lost his HUD and the primary flight display. But the standby instrument display was still working correctly, and the fly–by–wire system was still accepting input and acting on it correctly. Sure, if those things had failed then ejecting would have been fine. But he didn’t even check them to see if they were still working or not, he just bailed out of a flyable plan…

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I've seen too many software systems that failed in undetectable ways, and the user was disbelieved. The damn thing is fly-by-wire and if the instruments are failing for unknown reasons, then I could easily believe that the controls started glitching too, and that this isn't reflected anywhere.

Interesting because I'm willing to give the US Marine Corp, which conducted a comprehensive investigation before firing him, the benefit of the doubt.

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

#417

Post by BiteCode_dev »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #414
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #397

It all makes sense, but it must have a chilling effect on any military aviator reading this who finds themselves in a position to consider doing the same.Z Cirrus flight instruction uses the military statistic that historically military aviators have had a really strong negative bias to ejection during training compared to in combat. Part of the rationale was that of course ejecting during combat is easy to save face…

Is this just the consequences of rapidly ballooning costs of modern fighter jets? At a tenth of a billion dollars each, there's not much room in the budget for what are even understandable aircraft losses. If I'm not mistaken nothing else is nearly as expensive except the B2. In some ways, losing one of these things is getting pretty close to losing a naval vessel. Acknowledging this to be the case might help people…

I'm already surprised that they are not looking at the number, realizing that pilots cost much less to train than planes to build, and draw conclusions from there. The army has been more cynical in the past.

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

#418

Post by walrushunter »

derekp7 wrote: post #89
s1artibartfast wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems reasonable to me. If someone lost a 110 million dollar asset in a questionable way, I wouldn't have trust and confidence in their ability either. Flying cutting edge military jets isn't exactly a human right.

That's all well and good, except the next pilot facing a potential loss of aircraft will probably hesitate (worrying about getting shafted), and keep trying to recover the craft until it is too late. Then you have a crashed plane, and a dead pilot. People make better decisions when there is precident for a no-fault management style.

Precisely, the next pilot will not bail out so quickly, saving a $100M plane. Encouraging pilots to exhaust all options before they eject is the entire point.

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

#419

Post by dotancohen »

nradov wrote: post #392
dotancohen wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was transitioning the aircraft from mode 4 (STOL) to mode 1 (normal flight) when he made the decision to bail. The wings were not generating lift - without computer control the aircraft could have rolled severely. Pilots eject when the wings are level. If he was facing the possibility of severe uncontrolled roll (or believed he was) then ejecting now before the roll was a good call. At least so far as his wife and…

The wings were generating lift and not stalled. Changing the flight control mode doesn't imply that the aircraft was in vertical flight.

Going from mode 4 to mode 1 on the F-35B (I don't know about the AV-8 family) has a significant portion of the flight below stall speed. I don't think that we know at what portion of the flight this happened.

And that's an insignificant detail in the rest of the post anyway, a nuance that does not invalidate the rest of the points made in the post you are replying to.

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

#420

Post by bumby »

ajuc wrote: post #352
InDubioProRubio wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 f…

>And they trust their state and follow the rules a lot less

It was my understanding that the opposite was true in Ukraine early in the conflict. Russia suffered high casualties because they still relied on a central command structure and field leaders were reluctant to make decisions without the express validation of their superiors. This led to them being sitting ducks as they waited for confirmation, and resulted in many high level soldiers being killed because they had to travel to the front lines to communicate orders for any effect.

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