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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

#71

Post by instagib »

They had one short sentence in there that he still had a tiny alternate primary flight display. Still had control surfaces. He knew he was descending and his authorized air space. Pull up, look at the pfd, do some resets, follow helmet malfunction protocols.

There was very little about a devils advocate side to the story.

I could imagine others joking about ejecting for minor warnings or trolling him. Especially in the marines.

Do a FOIA on all ejections because his is just one. He had a good 27 year career and ended as a colonel with retirement benefits.

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

#72

Post by blatantly »

whatever1 wrote: post #63

I mean if the air force is so uncomfortable with soldiers surviving while the $150M gadget bursts into flames, why do they even request for an ejection function in the aircrafts?

Cynical take would be it is a free soldier behind enemy lines.

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

#73

Post by jandrewrogers »

avidiax wrote: post #8
YZF wrote: post #2

I feel like we had a discussion of this crash in the past. Would be nice to find those threads. Feels like we're missing a piece of the puzzle in this story. Maybe something else happened over that year? Politics? The story starts as you'd expect. Accidents happen. Support. Returning to duty. What went wrong?

My feeling is that the F-35 is "too big to fail". They needed to blame the pilot, and certainly didn't need anyone familiar with the defects of the plane in a prominent command or as a general. So they fire the guy, and promote someone else that can be relied on to say that the F-35 has no more defects than any other plane had at this point in the program, and we can trust the US military industrial complex to delive…

The F-35 was designed for export. The F-22 wasn’t and I suspect the F-47 is not either. There are different objectives at work here.

The F-35 is technically capable but even that is subject to export controls despite being purpose-built for export. A lot of European companies have a large stake in the success of the F-35 in its various versions because they are building it for European customers.

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

#74

Post by IshKebab »

gtsop wrote: post #42
_cs2017_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But for better or worse, the actual outcome does matter" -- curious what you mean by that?

He means that he prefers for that poor lad to have died trying to save a piece of metal. Simple stuff, there is no going around it. For some people money is above human life.

Money is above human life at some point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

But in this situation it sounds like the plane was highly likely to crash anyway so the estimated value you would save by potentially sacrificing him is low. Also I think the calculation is probably quite different in this situation compared to e.g. paying for safety measures in advance.

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

#75

Post by blatantly »

kelnos wrote: post #50
bradgranath wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much, much less than a minute. Usually less than ten seconds. Planes most commonly crash during takeoff and landing (why they turn on the seatbelt sign below 10000ft). The FAA tries to make sure that approach lanes are mostly clear, but they can't plan for every scenario. In this case the pilot knew that last time he checked, he was less than a thousand feet off the ground and descending in a plane that was out…

He's supposed to spend the next 5 seconds actually testing the flight controls to see what's working and what isn't. He's supposed to look at the backup instruments to see what his status is. He's supposed to try the backup radio to see if someone outside can help him figure out his status. Instead, he switched the flight mode from STOL to forward flight, misinterpreted the result of that as his engine spooling down,…

There was also some talk of feeling like he was falling but of course with no vision you will have no idea what way you are going based on you senses.

Don't these planes have the basic instruments as a backup to the helmet display?

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

#76

Post by pjmlp »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23
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.

> only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed Sure. My point is it does become small enough to fail if its effective price to taxpayers doubles due to allies cancelling orders. > remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets Source?

https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor...

One of many.

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

#77

Post by pjmlp »

kelnos wrote: post #21
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.

> the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. Could you provide some references to this? A quick search only turned up denials that such a kill switch exists.

https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor...

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

#78

Post by pjmlp »

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.

Tomato tomato, they disabled features the allies relied on, so in practice it is a kind of kill switch.

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

#79

Post by blobbers »

instagib wrote: post #71

They had one short sentence in there that he still had a tiny alternate primary flight display. Still had control surfaces. He knew he was descending and his authorized air space. Pull up, look at the pfd, do some resets, follow helmet malfunction protocols. There was very little about a devils advocate side to the story. I could imagine others joking about ejecting for minor warnings or trolling him. Especially in t…

I think this was just a story, less an investigation. It's basically his view, the lack of closure, and the result.

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

#80

Post by blatantly »

computerex wrote: post #64
spoonjim wrote: post #14

It's not a bad practice to automatically dismiss any pilot who ejects from a plane (other than test pilots) except in cases which are wholly obvious equipment failures. It will ensure that for these planes which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the pilot doesn't eject unless, yes, they really fucking need to eject. Will this mean you accidentally fire some great pilots? Yes. But given the cost of these airplanes…

In other words to you human lives are worth less than F-35s.

Yes. There is a finite $ value on a human life from a government point of view.

For your loved ones it is infinite.

But for a government with X funds and Y lives to save, there has to be a price.

If someone ejects on every little problem, you spend billions more on that and billions less on some other life saving initiatives.

Putting aside the bad ejection survival stats.

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