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Sacked Marine Pilot Whose F-35B Flew Without Him After Ejecting Gives His Side

37 points by nradov 2y ago

howard941 2y ago
IMC plus having to look down at backup instruments will totally screw up your vestibular senses. Punching out seems the right move.
- b_davis_ 2y ago
  pilots are trained to handle this.
  - howard941 2y ago
    in rain, transitioning to vertical landing, with the helmet and primary systems power cycling and likely alarms going off? I'll defer to you because I'm not qualified in the F-35
foxyv 2y ago
Anyone who has flown in instrument meteorological conditions knows how terrifying it is when everything is working perfectly. Imagine driving down the interstate with a tub of yogurt over your windshield. Having all your instruments stop working during a STOL landing is absolutely a condition to pull your BRC parachute or ejection seat. In IMC without instruments you have no idea what direction is up or down. For all you know, without instruments, you are spiraling towards the earth and you will die at any instant or about to crash into a pre-school. It feels exactly the same as level flight until you crash. This is what killed JFK Jr.
- leoh 2y ago
  What is STOL, BRC, IMC?
  - foxyv 2y ago
    Sorry I mixed up BRC with BRS. STOL = Short Take Off Or Landing (Usually involving downward thrust) BRS = Brand of parachutes for light aircraft like this https://youtu.be/jz9NoMPrH-I?t=2220 https://youtu.be/jz9NoMPrH-I?t=2220 https://brsaerospace.com/ https://brsaerospace.com/ IMC = Instrument meteorological conditions (Fog/Clouds prevent you from seeing anything)
NoahZuniga 2y ago
Presumably the air force decided to blame and subsequently fire Del Pizzo because that would make for better PR. This makes me wonder why they didn't give Del Pizzo some money and an NDA.
- Jtsummers 2y ago
  Marines, USAF couldn't have fired him since he wasn't under their command. But yes, it was probably viewed better to blame the pilot than the equipment that failed multiple times in under a minute by the powers that be in this case. They have to sell them, and they sell them to politicians not to other pilots.
partomniscient 2y ago
I can't tell from here, but the fact his version of the story got 'overruled' even though he was there makes me think it had just as much to do with image/future sales. They are trying to sell F-35's to an international market. Any equipment rather than pilot error is a major drawback to potential future sales, thus I think but can't tell, the guy was the sacrifical goat. The decision making process he went through in those 1-2 minutes with what looked like a cascade failure with no available fallback to visual confirmation due to the whether must have been an extremely intense stressful experience.
nickdothutton 2y ago
Was surprised to learn there is no kind of even rudimentary manual backup instrumentation. Just 4 dials in a small binnacle might have helped. Seems like a design flaw.
MaKey 2y ago
I feel for the pilot who has been made a scapegoat. There was no way for him to know in which state his aircraft was in. Officially the heavy rain has been ruled out as the cause of the incident. However, it's an interesting coincidence that just 5 minutes after entering it the cascade of faults began.
K0balt 2y ago
So, I guess a phone holder should be standard equipment on F35s, so that you can have an artificial horizon , altimeter, gps speed, and terrain projection when the main system inevitably glitches out. I’d recommend one of the ones with built in wireless charging, they are pretty handy. It’s unconscionable that the aircraft lacks a mechanical gyro, compass, altimeter, ball, and airspeed indicator. With just those simple mechanical instruments and a wristwatch you can fly any aircraft that still has flight control and power in nearly any conditions. Mostly, they can be replicated by your smartphone. Makes me want to make phone app called “backup F35 instruments” “made specially for F35 pilots to keep handy for those potentially career ending awkward moments.” As a bonus I could add WAZE style UAP reporting with adorable alien emojis to drive engagement, and banner ads at the bottom since the number of F35 pilots is too low for a subscription model at their salaries. I could throw the UAP data in a free Amazon bucket, since I don’t expect much traffic. I’d imagine the ad space for F35 pilots could be pretty pricey if it was pitched to the right verticals (legal and life insurance, maybe?), and since the app should only take a weekend to throw together a few hundred bucks a month would probably be worth it.
- kylehotchkiss 2y ago
  Which currently available app do you recommend for this purpose
  - K0balt 2y ago
    Probably ForeFlight synthetic vision, if I’m being serious. But considering the pay scale of military pilots, A-EFIS would probably be better at €60. They even have a free version that punishes you for being poor by only showing black and white lol. But for my app, I’d copy the styling and instrument tics from the F35 instruments to make the transition less stressful. The last thing you’ll want to be doing is relearning your backup instruments every time the airplane BSODs. I love the idea of a free black and white version though, keep the strip ads in color, just to keep it annoying. Subscribe to put the screen in color lol.
- b_davis_ 2y ago
  the F35 has standby instruments that work on DC batteries. it also has a radio that is also powered by a battery supply. probably an hour of operation without aircraft power. no way it passed airworthiness without backup flight instruments and comm. every military aircraft for the past 50 years has this. (oh, and the standby instrument package probably cost a couple of hundred thousand. certified for flight, of course)

37 points by nradov 2y ago

IMC plus having to look down at backup instruments will totally screw up your vestibular senses. Punching out seems the right move.

b_davis_ 2y ago
pilots are trained to handle this.
- howard941 2y ago
  in rain, transitioning to vertical landing, with the helmet and primary systems power cycling and likely alarms going off? I'll defer to you because I'm not qualified in the F-35

foxyv 2y ago

Anyone who has flown in instrument meteorological conditions knows how terrifying it is when everything is working perfectly. Imagine driving down the interstate with a tub of yogurt over your windshield. Having all your instruments stop working during a STOL landing is absolutely a condition to pull your BRC parachute or ejection seat. In IMC without instruments you have no idea what direction is up or down. For all you know, without instruments, you are spiraling towards the earth and you will die at any instant or about to crash into a pre-school. It feels exactly the same as level flight until you crash. This is what killed JFK Jr.

leoh 2y ago
What is STOL, BRC, IMC?
- foxyv 2y ago
  Sorry I mixed up BRC with BRS. STOL = Short Take Off Or Landing (Usually involving downward thrust) BRS = Brand of parachutes for light aircraft like this https://youtu.be/jz9NoMPrH-I?t=2220 https://youtu.be/jz9NoMPrH-I?t=2220 https://brsaerospace.com/ https://brsaerospace.com/ IMC = Instrument meteorological conditions (Fog/Clouds prevent you from seeing anything)

NoahZuniga 2y ago

Presumably the air force decided to blame and subsequently fire Del Pizzo because that would make for better PR. This makes me wonder why they didn't give Del Pizzo some money and an NDA.

Jtsummers 2y ago
Marines, USAF couldn't have fired him since he wasn't under their command. But yes, it was probably viewed better to blame the pilot than the equipment that failed multiple times in under a minute by the powers that be in this case. They have to sell them, and they sell them to politicians not to other pilots.

partomniscient 2y ago

I can't tell from here, but the fact his version of the story got 'overruled' even though he was there makes me think it had just as much to do with image/future sales. They are trying to sell F-35's to an international market. Any equipment rather than pilot error is a major drawback to potential future sales, thus I think but can't tell, the guy was the sacrifical goat. The decision making process he went through in those 1-2 minutes with what looked like a cascade failure with no available fallback to visual confirmation due to the whether must have been an extremely intense stressful experience.

nickdothutton 2y ago

Was surprised to learn there is no kind of even rudimentary manual backup instrumentation. Just 4 dials in a small binnacle might have helped. Seems like a design flaw.

MaKey 2y ago

I feel for the pilot who has been made a scapegoat. There was no way for him to know in which state his aircraft was in. Officially the heavy rain has been ruled out as the cause of the incident. However, it's an interesting coincidence that just 5 minutes after entering it the cascade of faults began.

K0balt 2y ago

So, I guess a phone holder should be standard equipment on F35s, so that you can have an artificial horizon , altimeter, gps speed, and terrain projection when the main system inevitably glitches out. I’d recommend one of the ones with built in wireless charging, they are pretty handy. It’s unconscionable that the aircraft lacks a mechanical gyro, compass, altimeter, ball, and airspeed indicator. With just those simple mechanical instruments and a wristwatch you can fly any aircraft that still has flight control and power in nearly any conditions. Mostly, they can be replicated by your smartphone. Makes me want to make phone app called “backup F35 instruments” “made specially for F35 pilots to keep handy for those potentially career ending awkward moments.” As a bonus I could add WAZE style UAP reporting with adorable alien emojis to drive engagement, and banner ads at the bottom since the number of F35 pilots is too low for a subscription model at their salaries. I could throw the UAP data in a free Amazon bucket, since I don’t expect much traffic. I’d imagine the ad space for F35 pilots could be pretty pricey if it was pitched to the right verticals (legal and life insurance, maybe?), and since the app should only take a weekend to throw together a few hundred bucks a month would probably be worth it.

kylehotchkiss 2y ago
Which currently available app do you recommend for this purpose
- K0balt 2y ago
  Probably ForeFlight synthetic vision, if I’m being serious. But considering the pay scale of military pilots, A-EFIS would probably be better at €60. They even have a free version that punishes you for being poor by only showing black and white lol. But for my app, I’d copy the styling and instrument tics from the F35 instruments to make the transition less stressful. The last thing you’ll want to be doing is relearning your backup instruments every time the airplane BSODs. I love the idea of a free black and white version though, keep the strip ads in color, just to keep it annoying. Subscribe to put the screen in color lol.
b_davis_ 2y ago
the F35 has standby instruments that work on DC batteries. it also has a radio that is also powered by a battery supply. probably an hour of operation without aircraft power. no way it passed airworthiness without backup flight instruments and comm. every military aircraft for the past 50 years has this. (oh, and the standby instrument package probably cost a couple of hundred thousand. certified for flight, of course)