28 ms·

Fighter pilot breaks down every button in an F-15 cockpit [video]

392 points by Giorgi 6y ago

netvarun 6y ago
The accompanying ArsTechnica article was posted yesterday[0] but didn’t get much traction. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690990
tomonocle 6y ago
The Omega Tau podcast often does similarly detailed examinations of planes (as well as almost anything and everything else): https://pca.st/episode/05c91470-2f6f-0135-52f9-452518e2d253 https://pca.st/episode/05c91470-2f6f-0135-52f9-452518e2d253)
- errantspark 6y ago
  That podcast is absolutely amazing. I love getting engrossed in it on long car drives.
snowwrestler 6y ago
Video walk-through of the front (pilot) seat of the SR-71: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9UwKQKE3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9UwKQKE3A
- freediver 6y ago
  "I watch this video once a week so if I'm ever in a situation where I need to fly an SR-71 I'll be prepared."
ecf 6y ago
I’m trying not to think about how many resources were wasted to design an aircraft that only saw a little over 100 combat encounters.
- snarf21 6y ago
  One could argue that is a measure of success. How many resources were wasted building tactical nukes during the cold war? In this sense, I'm glad they were wasted. Sometimes the threat is effective without execution.
- chiph 6y ago
  You've probably heard the term "Force Multiplier" via bad Hollywood movies. Well, a fighter-bomber is that in spades. You are able to project force into the 3rd dimension, flying above the enemy troops almost with impunity in order to kill them and destroy their infrastructure. So that they don't do it to you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_multiplication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_multiplication
- avalys 6y ago
  How much money have you wasted on home and auto insurance?
- zokier 6y ago
  Its all about deterrence and control of airspace. Enemies are not stupid, if they know that F-15s are in the air then they are very likely to stay the hell away. No combat encounter, but mission success and other assets protected. If the F-15s weren't there then the enemy aircraft would have been free to wreak havoc.
- larrywright 6y ago
  That’s only air combat (plane vs plane). These planes regularly engage in plane to ground combat. Dropping bombs, firing missiles. Also, not every engagement is a combat engagement. Example: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/22807/oregon-f-15s-scramble-to-seattle-to-intercept-possibly-stolen-q400-airliner https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/22807/oregon-f-15s-scr...
  - zokier 6y ago
    F-15C shown here is pretty much as purebred air superiority fighter as possible. They definitely do not regularly engage ground targets, unlike it's multirole cousins (F-16 and F-18) They did eventually (begrudgingly) develop separate strike variant (F-15E), but those aircraft are conversely dedicated to that role.
systemvoltage 6y ago
What a masterpiece of UX/UI. Holyshit. So many amazing details. Notice how the texture of the trim knob is different than other controls. When cost is no barrier, you can have mechanical switches, toggles, flip-off guards, various shapes and sizes of knobs, levers, color coding, hazard markings, etc. - all made from top notch materials and you bet, the haptics were totally engineered for best possible way to reduce ambiguity. Aesthetics take a back seat. Also, props to the narrator. She was to the point and well informed. I hope UI/UX designers (even for web design), industrial designers, architects, ergonomicists, HMI designers be inspired from this with one major take away - stop putting personal taste, aesthetics, decoration, marketing, etc. before functionality and pragmatism. Especially those working in vehicle interior design - people need to realize we drive a deadly 2-ton machine on our roads. Make no mistake, modern regression of UI in cars is because of bean counters - touchscreens are vastly cheaper than physical encoders/switches/toggles, especially automotive grade ones. [1] Can you imagine if you had to flip a toggle switch to turn bluetooth on in your car? I know you're smiling from just the thought of it. People make the case that UI needs to be simple for people to use at the expense of density, but remember - we already look at the world which is very messy and navigate it without a problem. Millions navigate through airports. People knew how to use Yellow Pages (extreme density) and telephone books. Making UI more understandable is orthogonal to information density. Unrelated: It is a shame that SpaceX's dragon crew cockpit design ditched all this in favor of a more sexier (arguable) looking sci-fi aesthetics. IMO it looks like a cheap movie set including the space suits. [1] https://www.mouser.com/ALPS/Electromechanical/Encoders/_/N-39xfc?P=1z13wb5 https://www.mouser.com/ALPS/Electromechanical/Encoders/_/N-3...
- starpilot 6y ago
  SpaceX said Dragon would probably be safer if it were fully automated, but they added more opportunities for human control to appease NASA/astronauts.
- trynewideas 6y ago
  > Also, props to the narrator. She was to the point and well informed. For context, in addition to her career as a fighter pilot and squadron commander, Col. Themely was commander of the 80th Flying Training Wing in 2017 and 2018, which encompassed the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program (ENJJPT),[1] "the world's only multi-nationally manned and managed flying training program chartered to produce combat pilots for NATO".[2] She retired in October 2018. [1] https://www.sheppard.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1566640/themely-takes-final-flight-with-80th-ftw/ https://www.sheppard.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/156... [2] https://www.sheppard.af.mil/Library/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/367537/euro-nato-joint-jet-pilot-training-program-enjjpt/ https://www.sheppard.af.mil/Library/Fact-Sheets/Display/Arti...
ceocoder 6y ago
That was awesome! Fighter planes are just so so cool as machines, being able to fly an F-22 would be a dream come true. Col. Themely did a spectacular job explaining all the subsystems and how they worth together. I found this quote by her[0] rather inspiring, What are you most important daily habits? My vice wing commander, command chief, and I all subscribe to the “2-10-5-7 philosophy”, which is two hours of alone time, 10 hours of work, five hours of family time, and seven hours of sleep That must require so much discipline - something to aspire to. [0] https://www.sheppard.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1465972/womens-history-month-highlight-col-andrea-themely/ https://www.sheppard.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/146...
- heleninboodler 6y ago
  I find I'm more of a 2-10-5-9 myself. Living on earth is difficult.
- pretendscholar 6y ago
  For me it would have to be 4-6-4-10
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  I do the same but have flipped family and work.
technothrasher 6y ago
Anybody who enjoyed this would likely enjoy the Fighter Jet Podcast by ex-Navy pilot Vincent Aiello. Each episode is an approximately 45 minute interview with a fighter jet pilot or other support crew, going step by step over pretty much any and every topic that relates. https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/ https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/
tome 6y ago
What does she mean about the VMAX? They're "technically forbidden" to use it, but it's understood that in a combat situation they may well need it to escape an aggressor?
- dpe82 6y ago
  A lot of fighters have "emergency power" controls that will push the engine past its normally rated power band for a short time at the cost of drastically shortening the life of the engine. I would guess that's what this is and why pilots are normally forbidden from using it.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    It's very interesting that engineers can compute this threshold to a 2% error.
    - SECProto 6y ago
      "Any fool can build a bridge that won’t fail, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that just barely won’t fail"
      - tialaramex 6y ago
        Bridge building video games suggest that in fact fools mostly build bridges that fail spectacularly and are astonished that things that can't work don't work.
  - evgen 6y ago
    As a more historical example of this, a lot of WWII fighters had a max power setting on the throttle that had a wire strung across it, but the pilot could break past the wire to go to 'War Emergency Power' and gain anywhere from 15-50%+ more horsepower from the engine. The use had to be logged and after a few hours of this the engine would need to get a complete tear-down and rebuild. It is basically a 'you are trading away this engine to save your life' setting, but sometimes that was a necessary thing to do.
ardy42 6y ago
The video says the displays are classified, but this link shows the PAD display showing some information: https://www.aviationtoday.com/2016/12/12/iee-to-upgrade-f-15-displays/ https://www.aviationtoday.com/2016/12/12/iee-to-upgrade-f-15... And this link looks like it shows some F-15 displays that a training simulator company makes": http://www.dotwizards.net/dt/index.php/simulated-flat-panel-displays/simulated-military-displays/f-15-simulated-displays.html http://www.dotwizards.net/dt/index.php/simulated-flat-panel-...
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  Those displays are duplicates of some of the flight systems (attitude, HSI, etc). One of the guys on my shift at my fire department, who is a retired AF Lt Col, who spent his career (and some post- in the Middle East doing training) in F-15Es says most likely they were blanked out because (as mentioned in the video) they were displaying motor (what they tend to call the engine) parameters (which might give away some performance characteristics) or weapon configuration.
- vhold 6y ago
  I'm guessing that the kinds of things the displays show are the fastest evolving aspect of the aircraft. New kinds of networked sensing in particular, both for detection and evasion.
thatwasunusual 6y ago
Well, she can ride my tail anytime! Great lecturing! Are there equivalent videos of tanks etc.?
- dang 6y ago
  That is gross. Please don't do it here.
sedatk 6y ago
If you like this kind of content, I strongly recommend DCS flight simulator. It's a brutally realistic flight simulator and you can play with every button in cockpit. Everything works. There are DLCs for F-15, F/A-18 etc.
- Buttons840 6y ago
  There's Also Falcon BMS for a more 90s experience, but it's just as deep if not moreso.
  - ckozlowski 6y ago
    Second this. The BMS community is top-notch. Even though I play DCS, it's amazing how long it's been maintained. The DCS Falcon still has a long way to go before it will be feature complete next to BMS.
- ckozlowski 6y ago
  Came here to say this as well. The "full-fidelity" planes like the ones you mentioned do this, or are on their way there. Sadly, the F-15 isn't one of those; you can fly it and operate the systems but it's not a full-clickable cockpit like the F/A-18C you mentioned, or the Harrier, A-10C, etc. Hopefully we'll get that in the future with RAZBAM's F-15E. The F/A-18C is getting quite fleshed out, and the F-16C will get there eventually. Someone mentioned Falcon BMS, and despite it's age, it is, as I understand, a fully feature complete sim of the Block 50/52 F-16C. If anyone wants to see an accessible guide on some of these planes and what all the buttons do, check out "Chuck's Guides" over on Mudspike. The guy puts incredable work into making these for the community, and they are invaluable. Interesting reading even if you don't play DCS. https://www.mudspike.com/chucks-guides-dcs/ https://www.mudspike.com/chucks-guides-dcs/
- AngryData 6y ago
  LOMAC, Lock On: Modern Air Combat, is great for the F-15. That plane is easier as fuck to fly and once you learn how to use the weapons system it is a beast. I found it easier than doing WWII planes because while there is more to learn for weapon systems, once you do it is simple and easy as pie.
doomrobo 6y ago
Very cool! I wonder if this model is the one the US sold to the Saudi Air Force to bomb Yemeni school buses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Saudi_Air_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Saudi_Air_Force https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-raytheon-yemen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-raytheon-ye...
tamaharbor 6y ago
“See all that stuff in there, Homer? That's why your robot never worked.“
gonzo41 6y ago
The real advantage is that the only choice is seating and heating adjustments. If VSCode or Eclipse had no options and everyone just did the same thing, think how fast we'd fly :)
rkagerer 6y ago
Is there a reason she pronounced turbine as "turbin"? Also I think she missed a few switches :-).
- tonyarkles 6y ago
  That seems to be a relatively common second way to pronounce it. I’ve watched a ton of aviation videos and I’d guess it’s 60/40 for tur-bine vs tur-bin
jiveturkey 6y ago
Tesla version: one single large display with various modal dialogs.
garfieldnate 6y ago
Are heat-seeking missiles going to be a thing of the past at some point? With all the advances in computer vision and object recognition, I would think that if you have the money to make a missile that you would also have the money to put a camera on it for recognizing what a target looks like. Or am I oversimplifying this?

392 points by Giorgi 6y ago

The accompanying ArsTechnica article was posted yesterday[0] but didn’t get much traction. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690990

tomonocle 6y ago

The Omega Tau podcast often does similarly detailed examinations of planes (as well as almost anything and everything else): https://pca.st/episode/05c91470-2f6f-0135-52f9-452518e2d253 https://pca.st/episode/05c91470-2f6f-0135-52f9-452518e2d253)

errantspark 6y ago
That podcast is absolutely amazing. I love getting engrossed in it on long car drives.

snowwrestler 6y ago

Video walk-through of the front (pilot) seat of the SR-71: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9UwKQKE3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9UwKQKE3A

freediver 6y ago
"I watch this video once a week so if I'm ever in a situation where I need to fly an SR-71 I'll be prepared."

ecf 6y ago

I’m trying not to think about how many resources were wasted to design an aircraft that only saw a little over 100 combat encounters.

snarf21 6y ago
One could argue that is a measure of success. How many resources were wasted building tactical nukes during the cold war? In this sense, I'm glad they were wasted. Sometimes the threat is effective without execution.
chiph 6y ago
You've probably heard the term "Force Multiplier" via bad Hollywood movies. Well, a fighter-bomber is that in spades. You are able to project force into the 3rd dimension, flying above the enemy troops almost with impunity in order to kill them and destroy their infrastructure. So that they don't do it to you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_multiplication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_multiplication
avalys 6y ago
How much money have you wasted on home and auto insurance?
zokier 6y ago
Its all about deterrence and control of airspace. Enemies are not stupid, if they know that F-15s are in the air then they are very likely to stay the hell away. No combat encounter, but mission success and other assets protected. If the F-15s weren't there then the enemy aircraft would have been free to wreak havoc.
larrywright 6y ago
That’s only air combat (plane vs plane). These planes regularly engage in plane to ground combat. Dropping bombs, firing missiles. Also, not every engagement is a combat engagement. Example: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/22807/oregon-f-15s-scramble-to-seattle-to-intercept-possibly-stolen-q400-airliner https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/22807/oregon-f-15s-scr...
- zokier 6y ago
  F-15C shown here is pretty much as purebred air superiority fighter as possible. They definitely do not regularly engage ground targets, unlike it's multirole cousins (F-16 and F-18) They did eventually (begrudgingly) develop separate strike variant (F-15E), but those aircraft are conversely dedicated to that role.

systemvoltage 6y ago

What a masterpiece of UX/UI. Holyshit. So many amazing details. Notice how the texture of the trim knob is different than other controls. When cost is no barrier, you can have mechanical switches, toggles, flip-off guards, various shapes and sizes of knobs, levers, color coding, hazard markings, etc. - all made from top notch materials and you bet, the haptics were totally engineered for best possible way to reduce ambiguity. Aesthetics take a back seat. Also, props to the narrator. She was to the point and well informed. I hope UI/UX designers (even for web design), industrial designers, architects, ergonomicists, HMI designers be inspired from this with one major take away - stop putting personal taste, aesthetics, decoration, marketing, etc. before functionality and pragmatism. Especially those working in vehicle interior design - people need to realize we drive a deadly 2-ton machine on our roads. Make no mistake, modern regression of UI in cars is because of bean counters - touchscreens are vastly cheaper than physical encoders/switches/toggles, especially automotive grade ones. [1] Can you imagine if you had to flip a toggle switch to turn bluetooth on in your car? I know you're smiling from just the thought of it. People make the case that UI needs to be simple for people to use at the expense of density, but remember - we already look at the world which is very messy and navigate it without a problem. Millions navigate through airports. People knew how to use Yellow Pages (extreme density) and telephone books. Making UI more understandable is orthogonal to information density. Unrelated: It is a shame that SpaceX's dragon crew cockpit design ditched all this in favor of a more sexier (arguable) looking sci-fi aesthetics. IMO it looks like a cheap movie set including the space suits. [1] https://www.mouser.com/ALPS/Electromechanical/Encoders/_/N-39xfc?P=1z13wb5 https://www.mouser.com/ALPS/Electromechanical/Encoders/_/N-3...

starpilot 6y ago
SpaceX said Dragon would probably be safer if it were fully automated, but they added more opportunities for human control to appease NASA/astronauts.
trynewideas 6y ago
> Also, props to the narrator. She was to the point and well informed. For context, in addition to her career as a fighter pilot and squadron commander, Col. Themely was commander of the 80th Flying Training Wing in 2017 and 2018, which encompassed the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program (ENJJPT),[1] "the world's only multi-nationally manned and managed flying training program chartered to produce combat pilots for NATO".[2] She retired in October 2018. [1] https://www.sheppard.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1566640/themely-takes-final-flight-with-80th-ftw/ https://www.sheppard.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/156... [2] https://www.sheppard.af.mil/Library/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/367537/euro-nato-joint-jet-pilot-training-program-enjjpt/ https://www.sheppard.af.mil/Library/Fact-Sheets/Display/Arti...

ceocoder 6y ago

That was awesome! Fighter planes are just so so cool as machines, being able to fly an F-22 would be a dream come true. Col. Themely did a spectacular job explaining all the subsystems and how they worth together. I found this quote by her[0] rather inspiring, What are you most important daily habits? My vice wing commander, command chief, and I all subscribe to the “2-10-5-7 philosophy”, which is two hours of alone time, 10 hours of work, five hours of family time, and seven hours of sleep That must require so much discipline - something to aspire to. [0] https://www.sheppard.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1465972/womens-history-month-highlight-col-andrea-themely/ https://www.sheppard.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/146...

heleninboodler 6y ago
I find I'm more of a 2-10-5-9 myself. Living on earth is difficult.
pretendscholar 6y ago
For me it would have to be 4-6-4-10
Waterluvian 6y ago
I do the same but have flipped family and work.

technothrasher 6y ago

Anybody who enjoyed this would likely enjoy the Fighter Jet Podcast by ex-Navy pilot Vincent Aiello. Each episode is an approximately 45 minute interview with a fighter jet pilot or other support crew, going step by step over pretty much any and every topic that relates. https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/ https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/

tome 6y ago

What does she mean about the VMAX? They're "technically forbidden" to use it, but it's understood that in a combat situation they may well need it to escape an aggressor?

dpe82 6y ago
A lot of fighters have "emergency power" controls that will push the engine past its normally rated power band for a short time at the cost of drastically shortening the life of the engine. I would guess that's what this is and why pilots are normally forbidden from using it.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  It's very interesting that engineers can compute this threshold to a 2% error.
  - SECProto 6y ago
    "Any fool can build a bridge that won’t fail, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that just barely won’t fail"
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      Bridge building video games suggest that in fact fools mostly build bridges that fail spectacularly and are astonished that things that can't work don't work.
- evgen 6y ago
  As a more historical example of this, a lot of WWII fighters had a max power setting on the throttle that had a wire strung across it, but the pilot could break past the wire to go to 'War Emergency Power' and gain anywhere from 15-50%+ more horsepower from the engine. The use had to be logged and after a few hours of this the engine would need to get a complete tear-down and rebuild. It is basically a 'you are trading away this engine to save your life' setting, but sometimes that was a necessary thing to do.

ardy42 6y ago

The video says the displays are classified, but this link shows the PAD display showing some information: https://www.aviationtoday.com/2016/12/12/iee-to-upgrade-f-15-displays/ https://www.aviationtoday.com/2016/12/12/iee-to-upgrade-f-15... And this link looks like it shows some F-15 displays that a training simulator company makes": http://www.dotwizards.net/dt/index.php/simulated-flat-panel-displays/simulated-military-displays/f-15-simulated-displays.html http://www.dotwizards.net/dt/index.php/simulated-flat-panel-...

FireBeyond 6y ago
Those displays are duplicates of some of the flight systems (attitude, HSI, etc). One of the guys on my shift at my fire department, who is a retired AF Lt Col, who spent his career (and some post- in the Middle East doing training) in F-15Es says most likely they were blanked out because (as mentioned in the video) they were displaying motor (what they tend to call the engine) parameters (which might give away some performance characteristics) or weapon configuration.
vhold 6y ago
I'm guessing that the kinds of things the displays show are the fastest evolving aspect of the aircraft. New kinds of networked sensing in particular, both for detection and evasion.

thatwasunusual 6y ago

Well, she can ride my tail anytime! Great lecturing! Are there equivalent videos of tanks etc.?

dang 6y ago
That is gross. Please don't do it here.

sedatk 6y ago

If you like this kind of content, I strongly recommend DCS flight simulator. It's a brutally realistic flight simulator and you can play with every button in cockpit. Everything works. There are DLCs for F-15, F/A-18 etc.

Buttons840 6y ago
There's Also Falcon BMS for a more 90s experience, but it's just as deep if not moreso.
- ckozlowski 6y ago
  Second this. The BMS community is top-notch. Even though I play DCS, it's amazing how long it's been maintained. The DCS Falcon still has a long way to go before it will be feature complete next to BMS.
ckozlowski 6y ago
Came here to say this as well. The "full-fidelity" planes like the ones you mentioned do this, or are on their way there. Sadly, the F-15 isn't one of those; you can fly it and operate the systems but it's not a full-clickable cockpit like the F/A-18C you mentioned, or the Harrier, A-10C, etc. Hopefully we'll get that in the future with RAZBAM's F-15E. The F/A-18C is getting quite fleshed out, and the F-16C will get there eventually. Someone mentioned Falcon BMS, and despite it's age, it is, as I understand, a fully feature complete sim of the Block 50/52 F-16C. If anyone wants to see an accessible guide on some of these planes and what all the buttons do, check out "Chuck's Guides" over on Mudspike. The guy puts incredable work into making these for the community, and they are invaluable. Interesting reading even if you don't play DCS. https://www.mudspike.com/chucks-guides-dcs/ https://www.mudspike.com/chucks-guides-dcs/
AngryData 6y ago
LOMAC, Lock On: Modern Air Combat, is great for the F-15. That plane is easier as fuck to fly and once you learn how to use the weapons system it is a beast. I found it easier than doing WWII planes because while there is more to learn for weapon systems, once you do it is simple and easy as pie.

doomrobo 6y ago

Very cool! I wonder if this model is the one the US sold to the Saudi Air Force to bomb Yemeni school buses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Saudi_Air_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Saudi_Air_Force https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-raytheon-yemen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-raytheon-ye...

tamaharbor 6y ago

“See all that stuff in there, Homer? That's why your robot never worked.“

gonzo41 6y ago

The real advantage is that the only choice is seating and heating adjustments. If VSCode or Eclipse had no options and everyone just did the same thing, think how fast we'd fly :)

rkagerer 6y ago

Is there a reason she pronounced turbine as "turbin"? Also I think she missed a few switches :-).

tonyarkles 6y ago
That seems to be a relatively common second way to pronounce it. I’ve watched a ton of aviation videos and I’d guess it’s 60/40 for tur-bine vs tur-bin

jiveturkey 6y ago

Tesla version: one single large display with various modal dialogs.

garfieldnate 6y ago

Are heat-seeking missiles going to be a thing of the past at some point? With all the advances in computer vision and object recognition, I would think that if you have the money to make a missile that you would also have the money to put a camera on it for recognizing what a target looks like. Or am I oversimplifying this?