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> I can’t imagine the frustration trying to use a touch screen to fly a fighter jet. A war plane is something you have to operate while it's burning, or while

> I can’t imagine the frustration trying to use a touch screen to fly a fighter jet. A war plane is something you have to operate while it's burning, or while you're bleeding on it, or while you can't see properly because it's full of smoke or someone just blinded you with a laser. The adoption of touch screens in this sort of cockpit seems misguided. Particularly for anything related to controlling comms or navigation.

Retric 6y ago
That’s really not how we design modern jet fighters. Air combat involves a huge number of tradeoffs and ejecting is now the correct response to a wide range of issues. For example, the F-35 so engine so engine failure is likely to result in a lost aircraft. It’s basically been decided that we are going to spend silly money keeping a small number of absolutely cutting edge aircraft flying rather than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. PS: To be clear it’s possible their making the correct choice. I personally doubt it, but I don’t have access to the kind of classified documents to justify things in one way or another. An effective labor weapon for example might render vastly cheaper drone fleets ineffective.
- jki275 6y ago
  No, the post above is exactly correct. Ejecting from an aircraft is an absolute last resort, and you stand a good chance of dying or being badly injured if you have to do it, and even if you survive the ejection, the parachute ride, and the landing, it's a better than even chance you're going to be captured and beaten, tortured, or killed on the ground. That's if you land on land of course -- if you land in the water you might just drown or never be found.
  - Retric 6y ago
    > it’s better than even chance you’re going to be captured and beaten, tortured, or killed on the ground. That’s simply not the reality of modern fighter jets. The vast majority of time is going to be spent flying over either open ocean or friendly territory. That’s been true even if you’re only looking at recent combat missions. Anyway, single engine aircraft are always going to be at higher risk for mechanical failure, yet that’s the chosen design. Just look through this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_military_aircraft_(2010–2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident.... In commercial aviation 4 crashes per year worldwide not that great, in military aviation 4 crashes a month worldwide is a very good month.
    - topspin 6y ago
      > That’s simply not the reality of modern fighter jets. Even Iraq managed to capture US and allied pilots. I think I'll forego the rest; you're reality and actual reality are a bit too divergent.
      - Retric 6y ago
        Again > it’s better than even chance you’re going to be captured and beaten, tortured, or killed on the ground Is demonstrably false. War is still an extremely unpleasant business, but the term acceptable losses applies even in peacetime. Every mission training or otherwise is rolling the dice that the aircraft will be lost. Yet, they still send pilots up knowing those risks in preparation for war. Aircraft designs really do involve similar tradeoffs and injured, dead, or captured pilots really are part of the equation.
        jki275 6y ago
        If you eject over enemy territory, you are very likely to be captured and tortured or/and killed. That's a fact. And nothing else you've posted argues against it. Of course people take risks, mitigate risks, and weigh those risks against the benefits from the missions. That doesn't change anything or falsify the statement I made.
        Retric 6y ago
        That’s really not what I was arguing about, if over the 50+ year lifespan of an aircraft it spends less than 10% of total flight time over enemy territory and ejecting over enemy territory has a 99% odds of capture. Then overall odds of ejecting resulting in capture is way less than 50%. Further, if mechanical failure is expected to bring down say 15% of aircraft, then the odds of mechanical failure over enemy territory is low vs actually being shot down. That said, actual odds are a little different as mechanical failure isn’t evenly distributed, and hours spent over disputed territory also risk capture etc. Still it’s clear that a low percentage of ejecting pilots are expected to be captured.
  - 7952 6y ago
    The situation can escalate very quickly in a fighter jet so that leaving the last resort to late could be fatal. Encouraging ejection may be a good idea when the pilots natural inclination is always to stay with the plane.
- wolverine876 6y ago
  > It’s basically been decided that we are going to spend silly money keeping a small number of absolutely cutting edge aircraft flying rather than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. What is the basis for saying that? From what I understand, the U.S. military is investing very heavily in unmanned aerial vehicles, including having F-35's control large numbers of them.
  - Retric 6y ago
    I meant in terms of opportunity costs. Spending hundreds of billions on F-35’s is money they can’t spend on something else.
- imtringued 6y ago
  It's the drone boogeyman again. They are cheap because I can buy them in a brick and mortar store. Surely the military can just buy tens of thousands of them. >It’s basically been decided that we are going to spend silly money keeping a small number of absolutely cutting edge aircraft flying rather than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. Well, you're missing the fact that there will be thousands of F-35s on earth (500 already built). Meanwhile there are less drones like MQ-9 Reaper (200 built) which are basically primarily to bully some ground troops than F-35s despite them only costing $40 million a pop. After all they are cheap. Because you see, the brick and mortar store sells them, so they must be cheap even when they are not. >than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. In a war less capability might mean the total loss of all aircraft. You only need a few F-35s and some anti air support on the ground and the drones will be shot down. Yes, you might be able to execute a saturation attack but once you lost your entire fleet how are you going to respond to the counterattack? Oh right, with your own 5th generation fighter that matches the F-35. Honestly, the biggest benefit of drones is that you can equip your infantry with loitering munitions and thereby reduce the need for conventional CAS provided by a conventional air force. This isn't a stupid lets build ten million drones swarm buzzword bingo to scare some people who barely know anything about the capability of military weapons. That's nonsensical. It's like plastering machine guns everywhere because "cheap". As if militaries only care about stockpiling weapons with no logic behind mission objectives.
  - taneq 6y ago
    > Meanwhile there are less drones like MQ-9 Reaper (200 built) [...] costing $40 million a pop. Prices like this for military equipment are deceptive. They're not $40mil a pop. They're the product of an $8 billion project. The build price is probably less than $100k... or at least it would be if a military contractor wasn't absolutely creaming it.
    - tim333 6y ago
      Glancing at the specs range 1,850 km, top speed: 482 km/h I don't think there are aircraft of any kind doing anything like that for $100k Something like a TBM 910 has comparable specs as a light aircraft and cost something like $4m.

Retric 6y ago

That’s really not how we design modern jet fighters. Air combat involves a huge number of tradeoffs and ejecting is now the correct response to a wide range of issues. For example, the F-35 so engine so engine failure is likely to result in a lost aircraft. It’s basically been decided that we are going to spend silly money keeping a small number of absolutely cutting edge aircraft flying rather than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. PS: To be clear it’s possible their making the correct choice. I personally doubt it, but I don’t have access to the kind of classified documents to justify things in one way or another. An effective labor weapon for example might render vastly cheaper drone fleets ineffective.

jki275 6y ago
No, the post above is exactly correct. Ejecting from an aircraft is an absolute last resort, and you stand a good chance of dying or being badly injured if you have to do it, and even if you survive the ejection, the parachute ride, and the landing, it's a better than even chance you're going to be captured and beaten, tortured, or killed on the ground. That's if you land on land of course -- if you land in the water you might just drown or never be found.
- Retric 6y ago
  > it’s better than even chance you’re going to be captured and beaten, tortured, or killed on the ground. That’s simply not the reality of modern fighter jets. The vast majority of time is going to be spent flying over either open ocean or friendly territory. That’s been true even if you’re only looking at recent combat missions. Anyway, single engine aircraft are always going to be at higher risk for mechanical failure, yet that’s the chosen design. Just look through this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_military_aircraft_(2010–2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident.... In commercial aviation 4 crashes per year worldwide not that great, in military aviation 4 crashes a month worldwide is a very good month.
  - topspin 6y ago
    > That’s simply not the reality of modern fighter jets. Even Iraq managed to capture US and allied pilots. I think I'll forego the rest; you're reality and actual reality are a bit too divergent.
    - Retric 6y ago
      Again > it’s better than even chance you’re going to be captured and beaten, tortured, or killed on the ground Is demonstrably false. War is still an extremely unpleasant business, but the term acceptable losses applies even in peacetime. Every mission training or otherwise is rolling the dice that the aircraft will be lost. Yet, they still send pilots up knowing those risks in preparation for war. Aircraft designs really do involve similar tradeoffs and injured, dead, or captured pilots really are part of the equation.
      - jki275 6y ago
        If you eject over enemy territory, you are very likely to be captured and tortured or/and killed. That's a fact. And nothing else you've posted argues against it. Of course people take risks, mitigate risks, and weigh those risks against the benefits from the missions. That doesn't change anything or falsify the statement I made.
        Retric 6y ago
        That’s really not what I was arguing about, if over the 50+ year lifespan of an aircraft it spends less than 10% of total flight time over enemy territory and ejecting over enemy territory has a 99% odds of capture. Then overall odds of ejecting resulting in capture is way less than 50%. Further, if mechanical failure is expected to bring down say 15% of aircraft, then the odds of mechanical failure over enemy territory is low vs actually being shot down. That said, actual odds are a little different as mechanical failure isn’t evenly distributed, and hours spent over disputed territory also risk capture etc. Still it’s clear that a low percentage of ejecting pilots are expected to be captured.
- 7952 6y ago
  The situation can escalate very quickly in a fighter jet so that leaving the last resort to late could be fatal. Encouraging ejection may be a good idea when the pilots natural inclination is always to stay with the plane.
wolverine876 6y ago
> It’s basically been decided that we are going to spend silly money keeping a small number of absolutely cutting edge aircraft flying rather than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. What is the basis for saying that? From what I understand, the U.S. military is investing very heavily in unmanned aerial vehicles, including having F-35's control large numbers of them.
- Retric 6y ago
  I meant in terms of opportunity costs. Spending hundreds of billions on F-35’s is money they can’t spend on something else.
imtringued 6y ago
It's the drone boogeyman again. They are cheap because I can buy them in a brick and mortar store. Surely the military can just buy tens of thousands of them. >It’s basically been decided that we are going to spend silly money keeping a small number of absolutely cutting edge aircraft flying rather than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. Well, you're missing the fact that there will be thousands of F-35s on earth (500 already built). Meanwhile there are less drones like MQ-9 Reaper (200 built) which are basically primarily to bully some ground troops than F-35s despite them only costing $40 million a pop. After all they are cheap. Because you see, the brick and mortar store sells them, so they must be cheap even when they are not. >than thousands if not tens of thousands of of likely more efficient but less capable possibly drone aircraft. In a war less capability might mean the total loss of all aircraft. You only need a few F-35s and some anti air support on the ground and the drones will be shot down. Yes, you might be able to execute a saturation attack but once you lost your entire fleet how are you going to respond to the counterattack? Oh right, with your own 5th generation fighter that matches the F-35. Honestly, the biggest benefit of drones is that you can equip your infantry with loitering munitions and thereby reduce the need for conventional CAS provided by a conventional air force. This isn't a stupid lets build ten million drones swarm buzzword bingo to scare some people who barely know anything about the capability of military weapons. That's nonsensical. It's like plastering machine guns everywhere because "cheap". As if militaries only care about stockpiling weapons with no logic behind mission objectives.
- taneq 6y ago
  > Meanwhile there are less drones like MQ-9 Reaper (200 built) [...] costing $40 million a pop. Prices like this for military equipment are deceptive. They're not $40mil a pop. They're the product of an $8 billion project. The build price is probably less than $100k... or at least it would be if a military contractor wasn't absolutely creaming it.
  - tim333 6y ago
    Glancing at the specs range 1,850 km, top speed: 482 km/h I don't think there are aircraft of any kind doing anything like that for $100k Something like a TBM 910 has comparable specs as a light aircraft and cost something like $4m.