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The book said that ejecting is the correct action when the plane is “unresponsive to the pilot’s commands“. This simple, straight forward statement turns out to
by db48x 2y ago
The book said that ejecting is the correct action when the plane is “unresponsive to the pilot’s commands“. This simple, straight forward statement turns out to be more ambiguous than they intended. Do you eject if the radio doesn’t change channel? No, that would be silly, even though the plane didn’t respond to your command to change the channel. The plane is still flyable without the radio! Common sense says that you should just land and get the radio fixed. There’s even a whole procedure that pilots have to memorize about how to land at an airport safely even if you have no radio.
In this case the pilot changed from mode 4 (SVTOL for landing) to mode 1 (normal flight) when the ILS system went offline. But because the HUD blinked on and off several times, he didn’t realize that the plane was actually transitioning back to mode 1. He didn’t wait long enough for it to finish, and without his HUD he thought that the plane was unresponsive, so he ejected. But the plane was still flyable, even if it had actually been stuck in mode 4! You probably can’t dogfight in mode 4, but you can certainly fly to your alternate airport and land.
So instead of penalizing him for following his training to the letter, they changed the manual to state that ejecting is the correct course of action if the plane is unresponsive to the pilot’s “pitch, roll, or yaw commands” specifically.
- imglorp 2y agoFully agree but as usual it was more complicated than this even. Losing controls and instruments in IMC conditions could mean you're straight and level with many minutes to troubleshoot and try things off book, or maybe another attitude like a graveyard spiral towards the deck with seconds to decide. We might not have all the details to armchair fly it.
- db48x 2y agoHe didn’t lose the controls _or_ the instruments. He lost his HUD and the primary flight display. But the standby instrument display was still working correctly, and the fly–by–wire system was still accepting input and acting on it correctly. Sure, if those things had failed then ejecting would have been fine. But he didn’t even check them to see if they were still working or not, he just bailed out of a flyable plane.
- GoblinSlayer 2y agoI wonder how many planes they will lose if they trained the pilots to fly without HUD.
- jyounker 2y agoI'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I've seen too many software systems that failed in undetectable ways, and the user was disbelieved. The damn thing is fly-by-wire and if the instruments are failing for unknown reasons, then I could easily believe that the controls started glitching too, and that this isn't reflected anywhere.
- walrushunter 2y agoInteresting because I'm willing to give the US Marine Corp, which conducted a comprehensive investigation before firing him, the benefit of the doubt.
- jyounker 2y agoYou're free to do that, but I'm not sure that this is the best thing in the world. Of the people who I know who were in the US military, generally the more highly placed they were, the less faith they had in the command structure.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> instead of penalizing him He wasn’t disciplined. But he was penalised. Which strikes me as the right balance given the facts. There are two kinds of jobs: those where the person’s employment is more important than their work, and those where it isn’t. This is the latter. He’s still getting paid. But he should not have this responsibility. It you’re making excuses after losing a plane when you shouldn’t have, because you were following bad instructions, you should not have an operational command.
- db48x 2y agoThat’s a good way of putting it.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 2y agoI think this comment helps to contextualize the decision in a balanced fashion. If you just read the article probably you come to the conclusion that he should not have been relieved. This helps explain why he was relieved
- bawolff 2y agoI disagree, penalising people for making mistakes where procedures are bad tends to cover up root causes and causes more problems in the long term. After all, its not like flying planes is a new phenomenom. Why were the procedures still bad after all this time?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> its not like flying planes is a new phenomenom. Why were the procedures still bad after all this time? It’s a new plane! Also, a pilot blaming procedure for a bad call is ass covering. That’s not appropriate for a mission critical role.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- NitpickLawyer 2y ago
- grahamj 2y agoHopefully thrust as well
- acjohnson55 2y agoI'm not a pilot, but a plane can be landed without propulsion.
- suid 2y agoNot these fighter planes. They literally need both the propulsion and an active flight computer to fly stably. Without the flight computer, they are uncontrollable. Think balancing a pencil on your finger - if your finger is immobilized or loses control, that pencil will fall almost immediately. The plane's controls are much more complex and unforgiving. And without propulsion, they are just flying rocks. No gliding.
- nradov 2y agoNo. As long as it has electrical power and the flight controls are working it can remain stable and glide even with a complete engine failure. Of course the glide ratio is fairly low but it's totally possible for a skilled pilot to make a dead stick landing provided there's a suitable site nearby with acceptable weather conditions.
- Aeolun 2y agoIs that true for those fighter planes? From a cursory investigation it seems like they’re not very flyable at low speeds without being in vtol mode.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoEvery plane has what is called a stall speed, which if you go below it it loses its ability to stay in the air. Above that, even 1kt above, the plane will still fly. Also, to make sure you can fly the longest possible distance to have time to troubleshoot any issues, planes also have what is called best glide speed. If you maintain that, you’re golden. There are a lot of factors that come into play when you lose the engine, but unless there is a serious issue, you still have control over the flight surfaces.
- 2-3-7-43-1807 2y agoa plane doesn't change a channel of a radio. a plane has a radio which changes its channels. the plane is what flies.