Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

postandcourier.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 213 posts

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

#91

Post by maxglute »

pyrale wrote: post #68
maxglute wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If we follow your logic, they would still want the orders ; they would simply look for ways to avoid fulfilling them.

For a 1-2 years, maybe, as seen with JP, but for 10+ years? That's ~200+ airframes. LH already have TR3 backlogs, and TBH if you follow the LH TR / F35 SaaS drama (LH contract essentially held DoD hostage), I'm would not be surprised if DoD doesn't want to slap LH with less global orders so they can solely focus on US program.

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

#92

Post by dcow »

stevage wrote: post #48
avidiax wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm always surprised about this line of thinking. Surely an active duty pilot is going to keep his mouth shut, whereas as we see, as a retired one he's happy to talk to the papers.

On top of that, the person I want flying more of the same plane is one who’s experienced piloting it during major failure conditions. Instead they retire the experienced guy and put some other fresh hotshot in the seat.

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

#93

Post by blobbers »

ashoeafoot wrote: post #81
jandrewrogers wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What european companies built the F35? Especially what part of the software is from Europe ?

BAE systems is responsible for about 15% of production, things from rear fuselage etc.

Rolls-Royce builds the LiftSystem for the F-35B variant.

Martin-Baker builds the ejection seats for all F-35s.

Leonardo builds the wing sets.

Rheinmetall is planning to build fuselage for a large number.

Kongsberg developed the Joint Strike Missile meant to be carried inside the fuselage to maintain stealth profile while engaging targets at long ranges.

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

#94

Post by guappa »

wongarsu wrote: post #51
daemoens wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 not…

Well denmark is going ahead to buy F-35 from their enemy that wants to invade them.

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

#95

Post by guappa »

XorNot wrote: post #44
daemoens wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah this is both bad but also being heavily misreported: the US can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software effectively disables critical functionality which can effectively render a platform useless. Up till now, there was no demonstrated risk of this happening - but that's a broken trust which won't be repaired for generations, if ever.

> the US can't shutdown hardware remotely

And you know this because you've personally audited those planes?

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

#96

Post by maxglute »

lloeki wrote: post #83
maxglute wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC he had no visibility so he couldn't test controls with eyeballs, can only assume out-of-control-flight scenario. Backup instruments said he was below 6000ft above ground level, aka trust instrument = potential for single digit seconds from hitting ground, and supposedly the F35 manual states ejection is the only option under those conditions.

It started at 750ft > Observe, orient: Jet still in the clouds, about 750 feet above ground, still in his control, descending glide path, about 800 feet per minute Then brokenness again > About 30 seconds had passed. By then he might have been gliding halfway towards terrain. > He felt the nose of the aircraft tilt upward. He felt a falling sensation. Subtext is that this feels like stalling with only a few hundred f…

>6000ft above ground level

Context is I remember reading comment that F35 manual calls for ejection if out of control flight under 6000ft agl. If pilot was at 750ft, it reinforces how little time/margin pilot had to make call and that he probably did everything he can until last minute.

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

#97

Post by shawabawa3 »

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 700 feet off the ground and descending

That gives him a window of what? 1-3 seconds maybe? To "test" if controls were working

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

#98

Post by ggm »

mcv wrote: post #86
atmosx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common misconception - often echoed on this site - is that NATO allies and the U.S. operate on equal terms. They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen. Even today, with all this talk around NATO, there’s a massive U.S. military presence at NATO bases across Europe. These forces are, in effect, under U.S. control, stationed in countries like Germany and Italy. And if Germany…

> They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen. How do you imagine that will work? The US may have to lower the price more than they can afford to. Some countries have already cancelled their F-35 orders. You can't force someone to buy what they don't want.

The implications are that non financial or indirect financial leverage would be used to make you "want" to complete purchase.

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

#100

Post by Animats »

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…

The F-35, like most modern fighters, is highly unstable in pitch without active control. Yaw and roll have some aerodynamic stability depending on the plane's mode. VTOL mode is even less stable. In VTOL mode, no visual reference, failing flight instruments, with multiple fault indicators and what appeared to be a failed transition to conventional flight mode, it's hard to blame the pilot for punching out. The transition is one-button automatic, with automatic coordination of engine power and nozzle positions. It's possible to reverse the process at any point in the transition, although that didn't happen here.

The "Command report" is available here.[1] But at the point that relevant flight data recorder data ought to appear, it's censored. Power faults and crashes of one of the redundant flight computers are mentioned. No full timeline. The report mentions that the transition to conventional flight mode did happen after the pilot punched out. But there are no technical details as to whether it was slower than normal.

Not enough info to form an opinion.

[1] https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/61/Docs/FOIA/F-35%20Mis...

Post reply on HN