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Yeah I mean bailing on a plane that keeps going for 10+ more minutes was never going to be a good look

by Havoc 2y ago

defrost 2y ago
Not in hindsight, no. What sucks for the pilot is he followed procedure and at the time had no way of knowing whether the craft would remain stable or totally brick and spiral any second (rendering a procedural ejection even more dangerous).
- jasonlotito 2y ago
  > VMX-1 is in charge of assessing the Corps’ aircraft and helping develop and refine tactics, techniques and procedures to fly them in combat successfully. > What sucks for the pilot is he followed procedure He was the commander. He defines those procedures.
  - Syonyk 2y ago
    In other words, he was a rather experienced pilot in that airframe and knew it better than most pilots should. And still decided that the successful outcome of the flight was in doubt based on the condition of the airframe and systems failures, in the middle of the situation. He survived. Working as intended, as far as I'm concerned.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - xnyan 2y ago
      From the article: > Over the next 25 years, Del Pizzo became an experienced combat pilot with more than 2,800 hours in the cockpit, 32 hours of which were in the F-35B. It's the other way around, he has relatively little experience in this particular airframe.
  - dialup_sounds 2y ago
    The crash happened in September of 2023. He was made commander of VMX-1 in June of 2024.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    The time-line was roughly… Offered command of VMX-1 Months pass Crash plane Months pass Take command of VMX-1 Months pass Loses command of VMX-1
wbl 2y ago
Flat spins can get resolved by the CG adjustment from ejection: the famous cornfield bomber.
- Syonyk 2y ago
  It's far more likely to have been the "equal and opposite" reaction to the ejection seat departing shoving the nose down that solved the spin. Shifting the CG aft won't improve your chances of departing from a flat spin. Various airframe designs have corner cases that they can't escape normally - delta wings are a bit prone to a flat spin, and you can get a T-tailed configuration into a "deep stall" where the disrupted airflow from the wings is blanketing the tail such that you cannot get the nose down with aerodynamic controls. The correct action is to avoid entering such conditions. A rocket blasting off from the nose, meanwhile, is not subject to the same constraints, and will force the nose down enough that the plane can obviously, in at least a few conditions, recover controlled flight.
Syonyk 2y ago
The problem here is that when you make the call to get out, you don't know that. There's no shortage of "planes that can no longer maintain flight" according to all sorts of standards continuing to do so - a few that come to mind were a B-36 that had several engines fail and several others unable to make full rated power, was unable to hold altitude, and so the crew bailed out. The plane somehow managed another 200 miles before crashing. There was that F-15 that lost a wing from a midair collision, and the pilot landed safely - because neither the pilot nor the instructor could tell exactly what was missing, and the escaping fuel vapor hid the extent of the damage from other planes in the flight. After landing with one wing, even the manufacturer didn't believe that the plane could fly in that condition. You have to make what is, often, a split second decision based on incomplete information, and after the Air Force lost a wave of pilots trying to save aircraft that could not be saved, the training switched around to "When in doubt, eject." Anyway, it's pretty easy to quarterback it from after the fact, but a highly trained pilot decided, based on everything he knew, that the plane couldn't be saved, ejected, and survived. Yes, there are consequences to that action, but if he stayed with it and was wrong, there would be far more terminal consequences.
- ahoka 2y ago
  Just trim it out. Everything is a wing if you are fast enough.
  - Syonyk 2y ago
    Thrust to weight solves most known problems! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJe_j_RQCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJe_j_RQCQ
- laverya 2y ago
  Don't forget the Cornfield Bomber! The pilot ejected from this F-106 (a single-seat, single-engine all-weather interceptor) after passing through 15,000 feet in a flat spin - and the plane promptly exited the flat spin and proceeded to a soft landing in a farmer's field. And it was truly a soft landing - the plane's engine was still running after coming to a stop, and the aircraft was returned to service! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber

Yeah I mean bailing on a plane that keeps going for 10+ more minutes was never going to be a good look

by Havoc 2y ago

Yeah I mean bailing on a plane that keeps going for 10+ more minutes was never going to be a good look

Not in hindsight, no. What sucks for the pilot is he followed procedure and at the time had no way of knowing whether the craft would remain stable or totally brick and spiral any second (rendering a procedural ejection even more dangerous).

jasonlotito 2y ago
> VMX-1 is in charge of assessing the Corps’ aircraft and helping develop and refine tactics, techniques and procedures to fly them in combat successfully. > What sucks for the pilot is he followed procedure He was the commander. He defines those procedures.
- Syonyk 2y ago
  In other words, he was a rather experienced pilot in that airframe and knew it better than most pilots should. And still decided that the successful outcome of the flight was in doubt based on the condition of the airframe and systems failures, in the middle of the situation. He survived. Working as intended, as far as I'm concerned.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - xnyan 2y ago
    From the article: > Over the next 25 years, Del Pizzo became an experienced combat pilot with more than 2,800 hours in the cockpit, 32 hours of which were in the F-35B. It's the other way around, he has relatively little experience in this particular airframe.
- dialup_sounds 2y ago
  The crash happened in September of 2023. He was made commander of VMX-1 in June of 2024.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  The time-line was roughly… Offered command of VMX-1 Months pass Crash plane Months pass Take command of VMX-1 Months pass Loses command of VMX-1

wbl 2y ago

Flat spins can get resolved by the CG adjustment from ejection: the famous cornfield bomber.

Syonyk 2y ago
It's far more likely to have been the "equal and opposite" reaction to the ejection seat departing shoving the nose down that solved the spin. Shifting the CG aft won't improve your chances of departing from a flat spin. Various airframe designs have corner cases that they can't escape normally - delta wings are a bit prone to a flat spin, and you can get a T-tailed configuration into a "deep stall" where the disrupted airflow from the wings is blanketing the tail such that you cannot get the nose down with aerodynamic controls. The correct action is to avoid entering such conditions. A rocket blasting off from the nose, meanwhile, is not subject to the same constraints, and will force the nose down enough that the plane can obviously, in at least a few conditions, recover controlled flight.

Syonyk 2y ago

The problem here is that when you make the call to get out, you don't know that. There's no shortage of "planes that can no longer maintain flight" according to all sorts of standards continuing to do so - a few that come to mind were a B-36 that had several engines fail and several others unable to make full rated power, was unable to hold altitude, and so the crew bailed out. The plane somehow managed another 200 miles before crashing. There was that F-15 that lost a wing from a midair collision, and the pilot landed safely - because neither the pilot nor the instructor could tell exactly what was missing, and the escaping fuel vapor hid the extent of the damage from other planes in the flight. After landing with one wing, even the manufacturer didn't believe that the plane could fly in that condition. You have to make what is, often, a split second decision based on incomplete information, and after the Air Force lost a wave of pilots trying to save aircraft that could not be saved, the training switched around to "When in doubt, eject." Anyway, it's pretty easy to quarterback it from after the fact, but a highly trained pilot decided, based on everything he knew, that the plane couldn't be saved, ejected, and survived. Yes, there are consequences to that action, but if he stayed with it and was wrong, there would be far more terminal consequences.

ahoka 2y ago
Just trim it out. Everything is a wing if you are fast enough.
- Syonyk 2y ago
  Thrust to weight solves most known problems! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJe_j_RQCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJe_j_RQCQ
laverya 2y ago
Don't forget the Cornfield Bomber! The pilot ejected from this F-106 (a single-seat, single-engine all-weather interceptor) after passing through 15,000 feet in a flat spin - and the plane promptly exited the flat spin and proceeded to a soft landing in a farmer's field. And it was truly a soft landing - the plane's engine was still running after coming to a stop, and the aircraft was returned to service! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber