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A pilot is expected to follow procedure when that's called for but ultimately has full responsibility and can make any call they want. Procedure is never going
by YZF 2y ago
A pilot is expected to follow procedure when that's called for but ultimately has full responsibility and can make any call they want. Procedure is never going to cover the range of scenarios you can run against and there's no time to reach out to the chain of command when something goes wrong.
Ejecting could save you but send the plane crashing into a city, and that's just one of many scenarios.
If he was flying with instruments in bad weather and felt that he could not trust those instruments that seems like a good reason to eject since you can easily end up in the ground or a mountain. I don't know if switching modes like he did was standard procedure and if the resulting failure was unusual or not. Maybe he wasn't familiar enough with the airplane's systems. That said, there was a real failure that seems to have happened at the worst possible times.
At the end of the day, the bar is set really high for someone in this position.
- swiftcoder 2y ago> Maybe he wasn't familiar enough with the airplane's systems It seems that a highly qualified marine test pilot is unlikely to be unfamiliar with the airplane's systems
- dotancohen 2y agoHe has less than 50 hours in that type.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoUntil you get to actually fly it for real, you read the manuals a few times over, do countless hours in the simulator and so on. Those 50 hours can be misleading as to his experience with the aircraft.
- dotancohen 2y agoA stimulator comfortably positioned at FL000 is much more amenable to troubleshooting multiple electrical failures than a tin can balancing on computer-controlled thrust differentiating, 1900 feet in the air well below stall speed.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoYou are missing the point. Incidents do happen, but you just don't get to fly a fighter jet until you proved in a simulator that you are capable of flying it and troubleshooting it. What the simulator does is to see if you can be entrusted with the aircraft.
- dotancohen 2y agoYes, but decades of experience have shown that pilots are far braver and willing to risk their skin in a simulator than they are in the air. And for good reason.
- concerned_user 2y ago> I don't know if switching modes like he did was standard procedure and if the resulting failure was unusual or not. Pilot switched mode back to normal flight because it was the switch to landing mode is what caused his HUD and PFD to turn off in the first place.