3 ms·

That's all well and good, except the next pilot facing a potential loss of aircraft will probably hesitate (worrying about getting shafted), and keep trying to

That's all well and good, except the next pilot facing a potential loss of aircraft will probably hesitate (worrying about getting shafted), and keep trying to recover the craft until it is too late. Then you have a crashed plane, and a dead pilot. People make better decisions when there is precident for a no-fault management style.

hindsightbias 2y ago
Back in the day, a carrier deployment w/o the loss of an aircraft was considered subpar because it was taken as evidence of not pushing the boundaries enough. Or so I was told by a USN pilot.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
No, because he was not fired for ejecting from an unsafe aircraft, which is what you're claiming would be the situation where the pilot would hesitate. He was fired because the General didn't feel he'd shown the judgement and skill commiserate with his station. The cardinal rule for an in-flight emergency is that if the plane is flying, you're OK in that moment, there's no need to panic. He was fired because as a test pilot, he panicked after the HUD malfunctioned, and ejected from an aircraft with an hour's worth of fuel that was not losing altitude or experiencing any mechanical failures, and did not make even an attempt to verify his primary instruments against the backup secondaries, or to use a functioning backup radio. He could have used the backup radio to contact the tower to verify his altitude, speed, heading, rate of climb, etc and then get vectored back to reunite with his wingman ,and followed his wingman in for a landing.
- Teever 2y ago
  kinda makes you wonder about his opinion on the overall reliability of the F-35 if he made that call.
  - elcritch 2y ago
    From what I read that seems plausible given the pilot was a seasoned test pilot; so it seems odd he was just being panicky. Imagine just being struck by lightning, loosing main displays, and being at 1200 feet. All on top of flying in a plane with a reputation for electronic failures. I'd be concerned too that the plane was about to freak out. 1200 ft isn't far.
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      2000 hours isn't all that seasoned, and he had less than 50 hours in that type. He was accomplished all right, but not what one would call seasoned. In fact, the root of the word "seasoned" means "prepared" and he clearly was not prepared for the events leading to this incident. That through no fault of his own, hence he was not formally disciplined. The Marines expect someone of his position to perform above and beyond their training. He didn't, so he lost that position with no formal discipline.
      - Teever 2y ago
        Why are people in other threads saying that he was some sort of expert or that he lost an expert position because of this?
  - datavirtue 2y ago
    This.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > No, because he was not fired for ejecting from an unsafe aircraft, which is what you're claiming would be the situation where the pilot would hesitate. That's not quite right. The pilot doesn't have an outside oracle who tells them the truth if their aircraft is beyond saving. They have to make that decision under stressful circumstances and having only partial information about the world. Making that decision, to declare their own previously safe aircraft no longer salvageable in their own head is where the hesitation might happen. I'm not saying that this was a bad call. The General has much much more information than I do. It is entirely possible that this was so egregious a case, and the plane was so obviously flyable that firing the pilot was the correct decision. I don't know. What I'm saying is that you can't just say "oh they won't hesitate, because their plane will be unsafe". Because the hesitation (if it happens) happens before they decide that their aircraft is unsafe. Instead they will spend possibly valuable seconds thinking through if they truly have tried everything. If they are perhaps mistaken. If they maybe will lose their jobs because there was something they haven't seen clearly enough, but in the cold harsh light of an investigation will mean that they made a mistake. Pilots are already heavily biassed against ejections. It is embarrassing, even if it was justified. It is a deviation from the routine. It is potentially deadly, potentially ruinous to their ability to continue flying on health grounds. This might be one more factor now which will bias them against ejecting. I hope the General made the right call.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  > commiserate with his station I do, but perhaps this was meant to be "commensurate".
s1artibartfast 2y ago
That might make sense if you valued the life of a pilot more than an F-35, or even a large number of F-35s, but at the end of the day, that simply isn't true. Sometimes you will save the jet, sometimes you will lose both. Military policy is not "better safe than sorry". There is some number of jets, perhaps less than 1, where it is better to have a dead pilot than an unnecessarily crashed plane.
- know-how 2y ago
  [dead]
walrushunter 2y ago
Precisely, the next pilot will not bail out so quickly, saving a $100M plane. Encouraging pilots to exhaust all options before they eject is the entire point.

hindsightbias 2y ago

Back in the day, a carrier deployment w/o the loss of an aircraft was considered subpar because it was taken as evidence of not pushing the boundaries enough. Or so I was told by a USN pilot.

KennyBlanken 2y ago

No, because he was not fired for ejecting from an unsafe aircraft, which is what you're claiming would be the situation where the pilot would hesitate. He was fired because the General didn't feel he'd shown the judgement and skill commiserate with his station. The cardinal rule for an in-flight emergency is that if the plane is flying, you're OK in that moment, there's no need to panic. He was fired because as a test pilot, he panicked after the HUD malfunctioned, and ejected from an aircraft with an hour's worth of fuel that was not losing altitude or experiencing any mechanical failures, and did not make even an attempt to verify his primary instruments against the backup secondaries, or to use a functioning backup radio. He could have used the backup radio to contact the tower to verify his altitude, speed, heading, rate of climb, etc and then get vectored back to reunite with his wingman ,and followed his wingman in for a landing.

Teever 2y ago
kinda makes you wonder about his opinion on the overall reliability of the F-35 if he made that call.
- elcritch 2y ago
  From what I read that seems plausible given the pilot was a seasoned test pilot; so it seems odd he was just being panicky. Imagine just being struck by lightning, loosing main displays, and being at 1200 feet. All on top of flying in a plane with a reputation for electronic failures. I'd be concerned too that the plane was about to freak out. 1200 ft isn't far.
  - dotancohen 2y ago
    2000 hours isn't all that seasoned, and he had less than 50 hours in that type. He was accomplished all right, but not what one would call seasoned. In fact, the root of the word "seasoned" means "prepared" and he clearly was not prepared for the events leading to this incident. That through no fault of his own, hence he was not formally disciplined. The Marines expect someone of his position to perform above and beyond their training. He didn't, so he lost that position with no formal discipline.
    - Teever 2y ago
      Why are people in other threads saying that he was some sort of expert or that he lost an expert position because of this?
- datavirtue 2y ago
  This.
krisoft 2y ago
> No, because he was not fired for ejecting from an unsafe aircraft, which is what you're claiming would be the situation where the pilot would hesitate. That's not quite right. The pilot doesn't have an outside oracle who tells them the truth if their aircraft is beyond saving. They have to make that decision under stressful circumstances and having only partial information about the world. Making that decision, to declare their own previously safe aircraft no longer salvageable in their own head is where the hesitation might happen. I'm not saying that this was a bad call. The General has much much more information than I do. It is entirely possible that this was so egregious a case, and the plane was so obviously flyable that firing the pilot was the correct decision. I don't know. What I'm saying is that you can't just say "oh they won't hesitate, because their plane will be unsafe". Because the hesitation (if it happens) happens before they decide that their aircraft is unsafe. Instead they will spend possibly valuable seconds thinking through if they truly have tried everything. If they are perhaps mistaken. If they maybe will lose their jobs because there was something they haven't seen clearly enough, but in the cold harsh light of an investigation will mean that they made a mistake. Pilots are already heavily biassed against ejections. It is embarrassing, even if it was justified. It is a deviation from the routine. It is potentially deadly, potentially ruinous to their ability to continue flying on health grounds. This might be one more factor now which will bias them against ejecting. I hope the General made the right call.
Y_Y 2y ago
> commiserate with his station I do, but perhaps this was meant to be "commensurate".

s1artibartfast 2y ago

That might make sense if you valued the life of a pilot more than an F-35, or even a large number of F-35s, but at the end of the day, that simply isn't true. Sometimes you will save the jet, sometimes you will lose both. Military policy is not "better safe than sorry". There is some number of jets, perhaps less than 1, where it is better to have a dead pilot than an unnecessarily crashed plane.

know-how 2y ago
[dead]

walrushunter 2y ago

Precisely, the next pilot will not bail out so quickly, saving a $100M plane. Encouraging pilots to exhaust all options before they eject is the entire point.