4 ms·

911 call shows circumstances of F-35 ejection

37 points by js2 3y ago

t0mas88 3y ago
They talk about it as some kind of feature to save pilots, but what they're describing is just how a normal fly by wire system works. If you are in straight and level flight and don't provide any inputs, it will remain in straight and level flight. That doesn't just apply to the F-35, it's the same for a regular A320 family passenger jet and has been for more than 30 years.
- euroderf 3y ago
  But if the pilot has ejected, shouldn't it go into a circular holding pattern?
  - Arrath 3y ago
    Why not a loop, to allow the pilot to re-enter the craft after taking out their pursuer? /s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto
  - BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
    I’m envisioning a team of software engineers and a product manager balking at the idea that they would need to implement a feature meant to save the airframe after the pilot ejects. “Who’s gonna need that? If the pilot ejects the thing is a lost cause and it’s just gonna crash anyways. Besides, do you know how hard that would be to implement? We don’t have the time. Anything that happens with the autopilot after ejection is out of scope.”
  - t0mas88 3y ago
    The flight control system isn't aware of the ejection nor any navigation settings. It's not an autopilot, only a stability system that remains perfectly stable if nobody provides inputs. On autopilot it would be different. If the right mode is enabled it will keep flying the programmed route until the end of that route. Then at the end of the route it will either continue straight ahead on the last heading or enter a holding pattern at that position. Depends on what was programmed in the navigation database. But in the end it doesn't really matter after an ejection, it will run out of fuel and crash.
    - iancmceachern 3y ago
      It's within the realm of possibility to have it self land after an incident. They certainly can't now, but we have the technology if we wanted. Logically, I think the main thing is there is typically a reason a pilot is ejecting. As the saying goes, a pilot does not eject from a good airplane. The assumption there being if the plane could be landed, it would have been landed by its pilot. If the pilot ejected, it's because they're was something gravely wrong, and therefore is not of great value to put a lot of effort into doing fancy tricks in a about to crash airplane.
- pxeger1 3y ago
  Surely having a hole in the roof because of the ejection changes the aerodynamics significantly. I don't really know anything about how planes work, but wouldn't that change its trajectory if the controls are all left the same?
  - lm28469 3y ago
    It's smart enough to compensate for it. Otherwise it wouldn't work with wind or air of different temperature/density "if the controls are all left the same" Just like a car with speed limiter can maintain speed when you go from flat to incline, provided the engine is good enough
  - dingaling 3y ago
    Even prior to FBW, aircraft which had been vacated by their pilots contentedly cruised on with a big hole in the roof. A Hunter was abandoned by its RAF pilot in the 1960s and proceeded to land itself on the runway, whilst a MiG-23 and a Harrier flew without their drivers until fuel exhaustion in the 1980s.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    That's the whole point of fly by wire. In an old school plane yes, the pilot would have to compensate for this because the pilot is in the feedback loop. In fly by wire systems there is an IMU with gyros, accelerometers and magnetometers. The plane servos itself to a heading and velocity, and the pilot provides imput that changes the target position in space, and then the plane decides how to hey to the target position.
coolhand2120 3y ago
Why is nobody asking why the pilot ejected from a serviceable aircraft? How is it a safety feature to have a massive fighter jet fly off without a pilot in a random direction? Did they not consider “what if the pilot ejected”? It all seems very strange.
- t0mas88 3y ago
  There was a malfunction according to most reports. There are many possible failures where the jet could fly but ejection was still the best choice. For example total loss of fight instruments in IMC (no / low visibility). It could then fly straight if you're lucky, but given that you have no way to crosscheck and may be about to crash, ejection is the right choice.
bmitc 3y ago
I have been and remain so very confused about all this. Why did the pilot eject? Why was he flying in the first place? Why wasn't the flight being tracked before the ejection? Why wasn't it tracked after? Not a single detection system caught an effectively unknown, after ejection, fighter jet flying at low altitude just blasting through U.S. airspace? This is all weird and there seems to be a lot of excuses like "system behaved as intended" (paraphrase). What U.S. security system behaved as intended that we didn't have a clue about a fighter jet traveling through our air space and couldn't find it until a day later, presumably because someone on the ground saw the crash or wreckage. What if some random person took a bunch of photos of the classified systems and uploaded them somewhere, unaware or not?
- inferiorhuman 3y ago
  It's a stealth aircraft designed to be difficult-to-impossible to track.
  - reisse 3y ago
    It should have a transponder and be identifiable (at least for ATC and TCAS) while flying in domestic airspace and not in a combat mission. What if it accidentally collided with a civil airliner?
    - inferiorhuman 3y ago
      I couldn't say how common it is, but military aircraft definitely fly in American airspace without transponders. A few months ago I hear/saw some Osprey fly overhead. They were not visible on ADS-B Exchange (which does not block military transponders). What if it accidentally collided with a civil airliner? Not much. I can't think of anything more recent than Hughes Airwest 706 (and that predates mode s transponders by a few decades), and all that came out of that was a promise to communicate with civilian ATC.
    - ibejoeb 3y ago
      Some reports claim that there was more than one aircraft. If they were flying in formation, generally only the lead runs a transponder.
sschueller 3y ago
My question is still, can this aircraft decide on its own to eject the pilot? For example if it thinks it is going to crash and the pilot is unconscious (or it thinks that). Like one of those attention detectors in a car.
- rurounijones 3y ago
  Protocol 3: Protect The Pilot.
  - Doxin 3y ago
    For some context, this is a Titanfall reference. Part of the story in Titanfall 2 is a pilot getting ejected by a mech against the pilots wishes. I'll refrain from saying more as to avoid spoiling too much.
freitasm 3y ago
Most interesting is how life is so different from fiction. I mean, the premise for The Night Agent (Netflix) was a dedicated line monitored 24/7 just to help agents. In real life, a downed pilot needs to call 911 and go through all the misunderstandings in that call to access an ambulance and other services. Shouldn't the pilot have a dedicate number to call in case of an emergency?
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  I would imagine the pilot, like many of us, had the "dedicated emergency number for downed agents" safely stored in a cell phone (i.e. not memorized). Medical shock [from ejection/error] could exacerbate any attempts at recall.

37 points by js2 3y ago

They talk about it as some kind of feature to save pilots, but what they're describing is just how a normal fly by wire system works. If you are in straight and level flight and don't provide any inputs, it will remain in straight and level flight. That doesn't just apply to the F-35, it's the same for a regular A320 family passenger jet and has been for more than 30 years.

euroderf 3y ago
But if the pilot has ejected, shouldn't it go into a circular holding pattern?
- Arrath 3y ago
  Why not a loop, to allow the pilot to re-enter the craft after taking out their pursuer? /s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto
- BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
  I’m envisioning a team of software engineers and a product manager balking at the idea that they would need to implement a feature meant to save the airframe after the pilot ejects. “Who’s gonna need that? If the pilot ejects the thing is a lost cause and it’s just gonna crash anyways. Besides, do you know how hard that would be to implement? We don’t have the time. Anything that happens with the autopilot after ejection is out of scope.”
- t0mas88 3y ago
  The flight control system isn't aware of the ejection nor any navigation settings. It's not an autopilot, only a stability system that remains perfectly stable if nobody provides inputs. On autopilot it would be different. If the right mode is enabled it will keep flying the programmed route until the end of that route. Then at the end of the route it will either continue straight ahead on the last heading or enter a holding pattern at that position. Depends on what was programmed in the navigation database. But in the end it doesn't really matter after an ejection, it will run out of fuel and crash.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    It's within the realm of possibility to have it self land after an incident. They certainly can't now, but we have the technology if we wanted. Logically, I think the main thing is there is typically a reason a pilot is ejecting. As the saying goes, a pilot does not eject from a good airplane. The assumption there being if the plane could be landed, it would have been landed by its pilot. If the pilot ejected, it's because they're was something gravely wrong, and therefore is not of great value to put a lot of effort into doing fancy tricks in a about to crash airplane.
pxeger1 3y ago
Surely having a hole in the roof because of the ejection changes the aerodynamics significantly. I don't really know anything about how planes work, but wouldn't that change its trajectory if the controls are all left the same?
- lm28469 3y ago
  It's smart enough to compensate for it. Otherwise it wouldn't work with wind or air of different temperature/density "if the controls are all left the same" Just like a car with speed limiter can maintain speed when you go from flat to incline, provided the engine is good enough
- dingaling 3y ago
  Even prior to FBW, aircraft which had been vacated by their pilots contentedly cruised on with a big hole in the roof. A Hunter was abandoned by its RAF pilot in the 1960s and proceeded to land itself on the runway, whilst a MiG-23 and a Harrier flew without their drivers until fuel exhaustion in the 1980s.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  That's the whole point of fly by wire. In an old school plane yes, the pilot would have to compensate for this because the pilot is in the feedback loop. In fly by wire systems there is an IMU with gyros, accelerometers and magnetometers. The plane servos itself to a heading and velocity, and the pilot provides imput that changes the target position in space, and then the plane decides how to hey to the target position.

coolhand2120 3y ago

Why is nobody asking why the pilot ejected from a serviceable aircraft? How is it a safety feature to have a massive fighter jet fly off without a pilot in a random direction? Did they not consider “what if the pilot ejected”? It all seems very strange.

t0mas88 3y ago
There was a malfunction according to most reports. There are many possible failures where the jet could fly but ejection was still the best choice. For example total loss of fight instruments in IMC (no / low visibility). It could then fly straight if you're lucky, but given that you have no way to crosscheck and may be about to crash, ejection is the right choice.

bmitc 3y ago

I have been and remain so very confused about all this. Why did the pilot eject? Why was he flying in the first place? Why wasn't the flight being tracked before the ejection? Why wasn't it tracked after? Not a single detection system caught an effectively unknown, after ejection, fighter jet flying at low altitude just blasting through U.S. airspace? This is all weird and there seems to be a lot of excuses like "system behaved as intended" (paraphrase). What U.S. security system behaved as intended that we didn't have a clue about a fighter jet traveling through our air space and couldn't find it until a day later, presumably because someone on the ground saw the crash or wreckage. What if some random person took a bunch of photos of the classified systems and uploaded them somewhere, unaware or not?

inferiorhuman 3y ago
It's a stealth aircraft designed to be difficult-to-impossible to track.
- reisse 3y ago
  It should have a transponder and be identifiable (at least for ATC and TCAS) while flying in domestic airspace and not in a combat mission. What if it accidentally collided with a civil airliner?
  - inferiorhuman 3y ago
    I couldn't say how common it is, but military aircraft definitely fly in American airspace without transponders. A few months ago I hear/saw some Osprey fly overhead. They were not visible on ADS-B Exchange (which does not block military transponders). What if it accidentally collided with a civil airliner? Not much. I can't think of anything more recent than Hughes Airwest 706 (and that predates mode s transponders by a few decades), and all that came out of that was a promise to communicate with civilian ATC.
  - ibejoeb 3y ago
    Some reports claim that there was more than one aircraft. If they were flying in formation, generally only the lead runs a transponder.

sschueller 3y ago

My question is still, can this aircraft decide on its own to eject the pilot? For example if it thinks it is going to crash and the pilot is unconscious (or it thinks that). Like one of those attention detectors in a car.

rurounijones 3y ago
Protocol 3: Protect The Pilot.
- Doxin 3y ago
  For some context, this is a Titanfall reference. Part of the story in Titanfall 2 is a pilot getting ejected by a mech against the pilots wishes. I'll refrain from saying more as to avoid spoiling too much.

freitasm 3y ago

Most interesting is how life is so different from fiction. I mean, the premise for The Night Agent (Netflix) was a dedicated line monitored 24/7 just to help agents. In real life, a downed pilot needs to call 911 and go through all the misunderstandings in that call to access an ambulance and other services. Shouldn't the pilot have a dedicate number to call in case of an emergency?

ProllyInfamous 3y ago
I would imagine the pilot, like many of us, had the "dedicated emergency number for downed agents" safely stored in a cell phone (i.e. not memorized). Medical shock [from ejection/error] could exacerbate any attempts at recall.