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A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

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Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#51

Post by wongarsu »

daemoens wrote: post #34
pjmlp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed, and the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. US has killed the allies trust. Had these two events not happened, and most likely sales would not have been cancelled regardless of the F-35 issues.

No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.

They also refuse to update the electronic countermeasures systems installed in Ukraine's F16. Not a kill switch, but it is impacting the usefulness of the planes.

Whether actual kill switches exist is unknown. But if you were a European country, would you take the chance of buying fighters from a country threatening to invade multiple of your allies based on their assurance that the rumors about kill switches are nothing but unsubstantiated rumors?

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#52

Post by maxglute »

pjmlp wrote: post #16
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My feeling is that the F-35 is "too big to fail" Allies cancelling orders may force Washington’s hand: the cost of additional jets, parts, et cerera skyrocket if spread over fewer planes.

That is only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed, and the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. US has killed the allies trust. Had these two events not happened, and most likely sales would not have been cancelled regardless of the F-35 issues.

My tinfoil hat theory is perversely US probably wants LESS foreign F35 orders. US accounts for 80% of long term F35 procurement (~2500/3100). Capitalization / replacement of airframes across US forces is at attrocious levels. If anything US better off absorbing 100% of next 20 years of LH production, and get full F35 buy years earlier, i.e. by late 2030 instead of projected 2045s sharing with partners. Especially now LH seems to have finally sorted out Tech Refresh 3. US probably wants LH to focus on upgrading/delivering US airframes and get as much US airframes to TR3 and then block4 standards. IIRC airforce general said he would not want take pre TR3 F35s to Pacific fight. If US is serious about countering PRC in decade of concern, they need all the airframes.

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#53

Post by oconnor663 »

russellbeattie wrote: post #12

Seems like there was already a thread about this. But after reading the article, my one takeaway is this: Pilots can decide in less than a minute to bail out of a fighter jet aimed at who knows what and that's OK?? I don't expect every pilot to go down with their plane, but holy crap. That plane could have taken out half a street of houses. I'm not sure how one pilot's life is worth more than potentially dozens of in…

If you're going down in zero visibility, what good can you do staying in the jet?

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#54

Post by atoav »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #24

If you hate the long form filler and know what a fighter jet is, start (with the knowledge that the pilot is landing in poor weather) at "Suddenly, at 1:32:05 p.m", read until the first two sentences in section 2, then skip to section 5. Edit: That said, there are no answers. It's just the long known story: A pilot ejects from a malfunctioning (but likely flyable) jet, gets cleared in the first two investigations bec…

To me that smells like a plane that is too expensive to lose and someone higher up was looking for an excuse.

Sure the pilot with his life on the line could have risked the investment into his education on top of the investment into the aircraft to figure out whether an ill-prepared procedure was really ill-prepared — but should that really be the expectation?

If you rely on your pilot having to interpret written procedure in a very specific way by mind magic, that is on those who wrote the procedure. I am not sure if "ignores the procedure of a aircraft that expensive" is the skill you are looking for, even if it safes the aircraft for the moment.

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#55

Post by gtsop »

sneak wrote: post #22

Maybe this will start to teach people that being a cog in a giant machine that only pretends to care about you (while really doing everything to put you in service to its own strategic goals of mass murder) isn’t really a great life decision. More high profile stories like this would be great, in my view. The DoD spends tons of our tax money on advertising and marketing and partnerships (all those sports game flyover…

> I find it difficult to sympathize with those who actually perpetrate foreign invasions, be they Russian or American. It’s hard to care about justice for someone whose job and daily practice is to blow up people they’ve never met and never posed a threat to them.

I completely agree, but I feel this is an entierly different topic (no less important). What they did to him is clearly wrong and the importance of this conclusion is to help us think about similar situations in other settings than the US air force. It is like a philosophical dilema, should you punish someone for trying to save their life and causing damage that could have been avoided? Not everyone answers the same.

Again I agree with your angle, it's perfectly valid

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#56

Post by libertine »

daemoens wrote: post #34
pjmlp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed, and the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. US has killed the allies trust. Had these two events not happened, and most likely sales would not have been cancelled regardless of the F-35 issues.

No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.

The kill switch first reported wasn't for jets, but was for HIMARS[0], which stopped receiving data for strikes.

But everyone viewed this kill switch as a way broader than HIMARS, and rightfully so.

It will be foolish to assume that the USA has the capacity to turn HIMARS targeting capacity off, literally incapacitating the system which was built in the 90s, but somehow won't be able to kill switch a F35... This is disingenuous.

No country should trust their national security on the whims of one guy sitting in the White House, that can decide to side with the enemy and make your jets stop working because of disabled services.

[0]https://x.com/olliecarroll/status/1897340316942000271

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#57

Post by BartjeD »

daemoens wrote: post #34
pjmlp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed, and the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. US has killed the allies trust. Had these two events not happened, and most likely sales would not have been cancelled regardless of the F-35 issues.

No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.

The USA commander in chief said otherwise; You're spreading disinformation ;)

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#58

Post by yard2010 »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #24

If you hate the long form filler and know what a fighter jet is, start (with the knowledge that the pilot is landing in poor weather) at "Suddenly, at 1:32:05 p.m", read until the first two sentences in section 2, then skip to section 5. Edit: That said, there are no answers. It's just the long known story: A pilot ejects from a malfunctioning (but likely flyable) jet, gets cleared in the first two investigations bec…

The soviet russians nuked Chernobyl with this attitude, it must be good

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#59

Post by travisgriggs »

kelnos wrote: post #30
makeitdouble wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going through the past threads, a lot of comments are about how the backup instruments were still on and functioning, while in this article he's said to have 0 visibility and no idea what is still accurately working and what is not, with no possible communication and the HUD rebooting 3 times before going dark.. Did more information come up during the time period ? Either way, asking a pilot to not bail out in these…

He was a test pilot; he's supposed to put his life at risk. Not just that -- and this is something the (current) article touched on -- he is also supposed to consider that ejecting could mean his plane crashing somewhere where it's going to kill one or more people; it seems he only considered that after he was on the ground. He didn't know what was working because he didn't try to figure it out. All he did was tell t…

> He was a test pilot; he's supposed to put his life at risk.

Are you sure about this?

It takes a lot of time and hours to get a pilot to the point they can probe the edges that test pilots do. The whole goal is to actually keep them alive so their experience and observations can be used. And that just compounds. So while they fly maneuvers and situations that would absolutely overwhelm me as a 300 hour private pilot in my Tecnam, my feeling is that even at that point they fly at less relative risk than I do. They are experts in mitigating, and preparing for risk.

There are old pilots and bold pilots. I do not believe that being a test pilot is a mandate that forces one to transfer to the bold club.

Re: A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

#60

Post by computerex »

kelnos wrote: post #19

This was discussed four months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42098475 From my memory at the time, I was initially fully on the side of the pilot, but after reading through the discussion, I wasn't really sure anymore. He didn't try to see if his flight controls (pitch, yaw, roll) were still responding, he didn't make use of the backup instruments, he didn't try the backup radio, and he had enough fuel to…

Extremely easy for you to write this treatise from the comfort of your armchair.

Do you understand this failure occurred at less than a thousand feet AGL?

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