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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

#71

Post by margalabargala »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #65
margalabargala wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those downvoting you, the "justifiable lack of faith" here, above and beyond what was enumerated in the article, is that at the time this happened there had been two fatal F35 malfunctions/crashes in the preceding six weeks. I don't blame the pilot for not wanting to become another statistic.

Per the article, the other crashes weren't F35s. They were a "F/A-18D Hornet in southern California, which killed its pilot, and an MV-22 Osprey crash in Australia that killed three Marines." I dont blame someone if they were to get scared and bail, but I also dont blame the marines if they dont want people like that flying their 110 million dollar jets.

Somehow I missed that. Thanks.

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

#72

Post by ahoka »

Syonyk wrote: post #31
Havoc wrote: post #5

Yeah I mean bailing on a plane that keeps going for 10+ more minutes was never going to be a good look

The problem here is that when you make the call to get out, you don't know that. There's no shortage of "planes that can no longer maintain flight" according to all sorts of standards continuing to do so - a few that come to mind were a B-36 that had several engines fail and several others unable to make full rated power, was unable to hold altitude, and so the crew bailed out. The plane somehow managed another 200 m…

Just trim it out. Everything is a wing if you are fast enough.

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

#74

Post by mmooss »

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.

At least one concept of it is that officers (and NCOs and maybe others) are expected to succeed when the 'book' is insufficient. Following the manual is not nearly enough.

Warfare is chaos; unexpected things happen; the manual is one input but people are expected to take initiative and overcome problems with or without it. It's not extra credit, it's a baseline expectation for the job. Also, this person is a colonel, not a second lieutenant.

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

#77

Post by mmooss »

Has this become a politicized, viral, ideology thing? I keep seeing this story pop up in several places, but it doesn't seem like its impact merits the attention.

I'm not trolling and please don't bring the politics and ideology here. I am asking factually. (I'm here because I prefer to avoid those things and as a result can be ignorant of them.)

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

#78

Post by jjk166 »

wrs wrote: post #19
jerlam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure you want the stealthy $80 million dollar plane packed full of restricted electronics and bombs to land at an insecure airport full of civilians. Also: in air refueling and carriers mean the plane may not be anywhere near a safe airport.

Better to have it shred itself in some random cornfield or big box mall parking lot? I guess that is a sort of built-in self-destruct mechanism…

Generally, yes. Better to destroy dozens of aircraft than let an adversary discover a vulnerability that compromises all of them. Of course the ideal would be to not have a problem in the first place, but by the point you're considering having a pilot eject that's out the window.

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

#79

Post by taurath »

mmooss wrote: post #77

Has this become a politicized, viral, ideology thing? I keep seeing this story pop up in several places, but it doesn't seem like its impact merits the attention. I'm not trolling and please don't bring the politics and ideology here. I am asking factually. (I'm here because I prefer to avoid those things and as a result can be ignorant of them.)

One could imagine an unpiloted F-35 flying 65 miles in a random direction before crashing itself is probably more of a safety issue than an issue of idiology

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

#80

Post by ChumpGPT »

mmooss wrote: post #77

Has this become a politicized, viral, ideology thing? I keep seeing this story pop up in several places, but it doesn't seem like its impact merits the attention. I'm not trolling and please don't bring the politics and ideology here. I am asking factually. (I'm here because I prefer to avoid those things and as a result can be ignorant of them.)

The plane could have crashed into a populated center, taken out a neighborhood, etc. I imagine the pilot's priority is to stay with the aircraft and not bail at the first sign of trouble or until they can no longer control it and are sure it will crash in an unpopulated area.
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