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If you're familiar with USA military history, the Americans are (were) famous for not doing things by the book for the right reasons, and letting common sense p
by acyou 2y ago
If you're familiar with USA military history, the Americans are (were) famous for not doing things by the book for the right reasons, and letting common sense prevail, as well as incentivizing good outcomes.
“A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.”
“The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime is that war is chaos, and the Americans practice chaos on a daily basis.”
So heavily simplifying things and with 20/20 hindsight this pilot essentially didn't do the right thing, even if through no fault of their own, and apparently in the US Navy you don't get rewarded for doing the wrong thing. This is what keeping incentives aligned looks like.
- wiseowise 2y ago[dead]
- petre 2y agoHe did the right thing. He's alive and well, fired from his command instead of deceased like the other servicemen in the OV-22 and FA-18D.
- GaryNumanVevo 2y agoThe jet was fine, it kept flying for 64 miles. He probably ejected because there had been a recent osprey crash with causalities and he was scared.
- fragmede 2y ago64 miles sounds quite far, and I've gone quite fast on my motorcycle, but the top speed of the F-35B (that they tell us) is 1,200 mph. At that speed that's just over 3 minutes.
- ExoticPearTree 2y agoAccording to the report, the jet flew for at least 11 more minutes. No one flies fighter jets at max speed unless absolutely necessary.
- jyounker 2y agoBut it didn't land itself, unlike the cornfield bomber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber
- ayewo 2y agoFrom the article: > The jet had flown for 11 minutes and 21 seconds after Del Pizzo’s ejection, slowly climbing as high as 9,300 feet. After about 11 minutes, the report said, the jet banked down and started descending to its right, clipping the treetops of a forest along the way before crashing. The report said no one was injured by the crash, but it did damage several trees and crops. The $100 million jet was shredded into pieces and a total loss.
- xeonmc 2y agoTo shreds you say? Well how were the trees? To shreds you say?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago3 minutes is an eternity for something like a jet. If a car drove at highway speed for 3 minutes without crashing after the driver jumped out, you'd be impressed too.
- stavros 2y ago"The jet kept flying for 64 miles" and "the jet was fine" are WILDLY different things.
- close04 2y ago"The jet was not 100% fine" and "the jet was 100% unflyable" are WILDLY different things. The question to ask in this case is "would the pilot's presence in the cockpit have made a difference to the possible outcome?". In my reading of the article the jet could be controlled, and the pilot had access to the backup displays and communication systems. The plane flying such a long distance means the pilot reacted poorly under pressure and did the bare minimum as per the unclear procedures, before catering to his own safety. While not wrong according to the unclear procedure, you want more from someone commanding a squadron. The pilot could have stayed put at the very least to attempt to mitigate the impact (pun intended) of the eventual crash, if not to actually land the plane using the backup instruments before ejecting to safety. That plane crash could have easily been a tragedy.
- ARandomerDude 2y agoYes, for a Cessna or a 737. Not for a modern fighter.
- rightbyte 2y agoWhen an user reports buggy or glitchy behaviour I usually don't write it off as cowardice. I had the same problem in the auto industry. Some times the test drivers were accused of imagining things or sabotaging when the problem could not be recreated.
- close04 2y agoWhen your software crashes in a house it hopefully doesn't kill the whole family. Comparing the expectations from a pilot and squadron commander to a random user of a random software doesn't do any favors to the pilot and suggests you misunderstand the magnitude of the difference. Even in the follow-up anecdote from the auto industry, a car test driver has vastly different profile than this pilot. They inherently work with untested vehicles and software, where the manual was not yet written. This pilot just followed the broadest interpretation of an existing manual.
- cwillu 2y agoHe compared it to test drivers reporting faults in automotive software, not random software running on a pc.
- Vecr 2y agoThe map is not the territory. Unless you can convincingly explain how your map would have been better in the situation, and together with his apparent dislike of dying would still have had you stick with the aircraft, he shouldn't be blamed.
- cwillu 2y ago“Better to die than to look bad” is one of the more toxic sayings associated with military aviation.
- close04 2y agoNothing in the incident report suggests the pilot's life was at any point in imminent danger, with the backup instruments functioning, and the plane being flyable. He "technically" did well to eject only because the manual was too vague. But at the very least "I could have done more but technically didn't have to" is not what you're looking for in a squadron commander. Which is why he's still allowed to fly (he follows the manual) but not trusted with more than that (because those extras are not in the manual).
- conradfr 2y agoMaybe this pilot did not have the upmost faith in this aircraft.
- gambiting 2y agoMaybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I imagine the most straightforward explanation is the correct one - he ejected because he didn't feel safe flying this aircaft anymore. I cannot possibly imagine that any pilot would eject from an aircraft they felt comfortable flying, given that actually ejection is horrifically dangerous and is very likely to maim or kill you, with most pilots unable to return to active duty after ejecting. He wasn't sitting there going "well the plane is flying fine, but the manual says to eject so off I go I guess".
- bluGill 2y agoEjecting from a plane is dangerous. If you have control of the plane then you should be looking to do an emergency landing - there are typically acceptable landing places all over that can get you safely to the ground. I don't know how much control he really had, but it sounds like he had enough to land.
- bumby 2y ago
- rightbyte 2y agoThese sort of quotes are cute but not really usefull. Probably counterproductive. There is 0 people in the US Navy that did service in the 2WW. There has been multiple generations. There is no way there is that much of institutional inertia, if the quote was correct at the time. Punnishing failure disincentives a lot of things. It has drawbacks.
- whizzter 2y agoIt fits perfectly if you look at it from a "balls" standpoint, this pilot ejected for whatever by-the-book reason when his electronics were bad and yet the airplane continued for 11 minutes just on autopilot. How would you expect a pilot that gives up so "easily" to lead other men into a high risk-high reward operation when he gives up himself so easily? Yes, maybe he was at low altitude during the descent and found himself feeling in peril but the optics sure doesn't look good when it went on for 11 minutes.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago> It fits perfectly if you look at it from a "balls" standpoint, this pilot ejected for whatever by-the-book reason when his electronics were bad and yet the airplane continued for 11 minutes just on autopilot. > How would you expect a pilot that gives up so "easily" to lead other men into a high risk-high reward operation when he gives up himself so easily? If you use an ejection seat, there is also a given high probability that you will never be capable of flying a fighter jet afterwards, so it also takes quite some balls to make the decision to use it. Also, the pilot did not "give up", but decided that it is smarter to retreat and save lives instead of going to death. In a a high risk-high reward situation, I strongly prefer hyperrational risk calculators (in opposite to risk avoiders - the common person in society) over hypermasculine risk takers - but I'm a nerd. So, the only explanation that I have is that the military wants to bully around and show macho behavior.
- rightbyte 2y ago> So, the only explanation that I have is that the military wants to bully around and show macho behavior. Ye that goes without saying. With attrition trench warfare being in fashion again I expect this to get worse. Soldiers need to feel they are perpetrators, not victims. It 'takes balls' to wait out shell after shell for the one with your name on it. A conservative risk reward analysis would suggest bailing. People that don't understand the odds of waiting or fragging are preferrable.
- victorbjorklund 2y agoUS pilots havent really been engaged in a war against a peer since ww2. It might be true. But we probably shouldnt extrapolate from bombing terrorists in the desert to actually fighting against say China.
- sofixa 2y ago> US pilots havent really been engaged in a war against a peer since ww2 Maybe Korea, where there were Chinese and Russian-trained and sourced jets?
- HPsquared 2y agoStill, Korea was >70 years ago.
- cdot2 2y agoThe US air force fought significant enemy air forces in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and in the Balkans. Their doctrine has not remained untested since 1945.
- Prbeek 2y agoTake Vietnam for instance where the Soviets supplied the Vietcongs with AD systems and at times manned them The Americans lost over 10,000 aircrafts over a 10 year period which is an average of 3 per day. The US airforce cannot survive the attrition rate that a war with Russia or China would bring.
- elashri 2y agoFor completeness most of these losses were UAVs and Helicopters. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the...
- refurb 2y agoWhile 10,000 sounds like a lot, about 25% were accidents, and 75% in combat, so 7,500. That's 7,500 aircraft lost over 5.25 million sorties, or 14 lost per 1,000 sorties. The loss rate was 5 times higher in Korea and 25 times higher in WW2. And as the other comment mentioned, most were helicopters (5,600) and UAV's (1,000). Only 3,400 fixed wing, manned aircraft were lost.
- Hilift 2y agoThat quote was Russian observations on their securing valuable technical information, but lamenting on their inability to overcome their capability gap through spying due to changes in tactics of their "main adversary". In WW2, a major factor for the US Naval success in the Pacific was a change in attack doctrine. Aircraft would attack relentlessly from multiple directions, overwhelming the Japanese defenses. In the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, when Australian and US pilots mauled a Japanese supply convoy with Bristol Beaufighter aircraft. In the battle, aircraft fake a torpedo run, the ships changed course to align with the aircraft and minimize the attack surface, then they were strafed with the four 20 mm cannons. The air campaign in the Pacific was much more vicious and effective than Europe. One of the pilots quoted "They went in and hit this troop ship. What I saw looked like little sticks, maybe a foot long or something like that, or splinters flying up off the deck of ship; they'd fly all around ... and twist crazily in the air and fall out in the water. Then I realized what I was watching were human beings. I was watching hundreds of those Japanese just blown off the deck by those machine guns. They just splintered around the air like sticks in a whirlwind and they'd fall in the water." The Russians have difficulty adapting their tactics on the field. Reviewing the successes of the US battles must be quite different than throwing bodies at a front line.
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago[flagged]
- gambiting 2y agoWhy would such a person be anywhere near the front line?
- stainablesteel 2y agobecause their family has been doing it for generations and they keep winning
- chipdart 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AlwaysRock 2y agoBut the review found that the pilot did do the right thing and did follow the manual. The definition of, "out of control" seems to be to blame. He's even been cleared to fly again.
- bumby 2y agoIt's important to acknowledge he was part of a Test & Evaluation squadron. It's usually part of their jobs to push the flight envelope so that people can define procedures. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the pilot may have been too conservative in their eyes for that purpose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMX-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMX-1
- AlwaysRock 2y agoYup. He will get to request a role that is a better fit for him.
- InkCanon 2y agoThose quotes we're almost certainly made up jokes and not assessments of the US military. The first appears to come from an Internet image attributing it to "A Russian Document". The second has no known source and has been variously referred to both the US Navy and Air Force.
- zaphirplane 2y ago> The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime Is not fighting a near peer since WWII 80 years ago, really hate using rubbish to prove a point