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F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

• mytailorisrich 1y ago
  The F-35 is unstable by design and requires constant adjustments by the computer system to fly. So it is actually impossible to "just" turn the computer off and fly manually.
  • oldpersonintx2 1y ago
    been the case since the F16, which was the first to have such a characteristic
  • ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
    This is true for basically every fighter jet and stealth aircraft
    • mytailorisrich 1y ago
      "Modern" jet fighters, yes. I believe it started to be "hard" to fly manually with the F-16 and now it is completely impossible, but feel free to correct me.
      • stoltzmann 1y ago
        F-16 was the first inherently unstable jet fighter, and the first one that featured a full fly-by-wire system with no backup. If you want a jet that is completely impossible to fly without a computer, F-16 is already one of them - there is nothing special with the F-35 about that.
        • mytailorisrich 1y ago
          Only on HN do people argue about an initial comment that they find nothing incorrect about, until they can find a little thing to be able to write "ahah you're wrong!"
          • ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
            I didn’t think you were wrong, just providing context for non-aviation people.
  • deleted 1y ago
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• sschueller 1y ago
  Switzerland, if they want something they can fly for air policing is forced to buy the F35 at what every price the US feels fit (even though the contract with Lockheed states a fixed price, naive politicians and consultants found out the hard way). Of course the CHF to USD conversion is fix at a shit rate from many years ago and from what I understand there is no way around that because the SNB did the conversion back then already. We have no alternative we can get before 2035. They are talking about extending the F/A-18 but since we would be the only ones still using them we would have to pay for that too at who know what price. The public approved 6 billion and now it looks like it will be way more, excluding skyrocketing maintenance which is not included and a patriot missile system that when it is finally delivered will cost who knows how many billions. The whole thing is an absolute shit show here and that's ignoring the technical issues this thing has...
  • dr-detroit 1y ago
    [dead]
  • orwin 1y ago
    With such a terrain, I would guess that agility and the ability to land on highway of in fields without burning all avionics and electronics would have been rated higher than stealth, but it wasn't. Still, the Swiss were offered a fairly low price, and promised low operating costs, and that's the main reason they didn't choose the Eurofighter (which isn't a multi-purpose jet but an interceptor)
    • stripe_away 1y ago
      JAS 39 Gripen can land on roads. Might have been a better choice.
      • nradov 1y ago
        Every modern tactical aircraft including the F-35A can land on roads. This isn't a capability unique to the Gripen. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3895003/us-air-force-f-35s-make-historic-first-on-highway-in-finland/ https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3895003/us-a...
• efitz 1y ago
  F-35 is a boondoggle. $200M for one fighter plane is insane. If the USA ever had to go to war with this weapon, a huge number of them would be offline at any given time, and every single airframe loss would cause a huge dent in overall combat power. I don’t understand why our military and political leaders keep trying to buy ridiculously overpriced Swiss Army knife weapons (lots of flexibility but great at nothing) instead of mass producing combat knives (only good for one thing but great at it and lots of them).
  • josefresco 1y ago
    The Air Force's F-35A variant has an "average" flyaway cost of $82.5 million for the jet's 15th, 16th and 17th production lots. https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10/newest-f-35-f-15ex-contracts-are-set-but-how-much-do-they-cost-exclusive/ https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10/newest-f-35-f-15ex-contr... The F-35 base model is around $80 million, rising to the highest known price of $109 million per unit for the F-35B vertical takeoff and landing variant. And then there's this: "The flyaway cost for the F-15EX Eagle II is approximately $90 million for each aircraft in the program’s second production lot, about $7.5 million more than the newest price for an F-35A"
    • adastra22 1y ago
      F-35 is both the cheapest and most effective vehicle we have access to.
  • scottLobster 1y ago
    You sure about that? You should look at the F-35's performance in Israeli hands in their recent strikes on Iran.
    • haberman 1y ago
      For me, that was a moment when I realized that the received wisdom about military things can be just completely wrong. I had considered myself to be reasonably informed about the F-35, and how "everyone knows" it's a boondoggle. I think this started with a long-form article I read in 2013, "How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane": https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-alli... Here is the HN discussion at the time, full of confident assertions that the F-35 is useless: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6211029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6211029 Fast forward to this year, when Israel's F-35s operated over Iran with total impunity. Not a single plane lost AFAIK.
• Giorgi 1y ago
  Article reads like they are still blaming pilot, like what else he/she was supposed to do?!
  • kotaKat 1y ago
    > It said if the conference call participants had referenced the 2024 maintenance newsletter, “they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go” that eventually led to the conditions that caused the crash, the report said. I guess the engineers on the call didn’t get the memo about those pesky TPS reports.
  • upofadown 1y ago
    Always blame the user... No downside if you are wrong. The people who actually run complex systems have no political power. If you get away with it then you might be able to avoid expensive changes.
• yellow_lead 1y ago
  > Five engineers participated in the call, including a senior software engineer, a flight safety engineer and three specialists in landing gear systems, the report said. I can't imagine the stress of being on this call as an engineer. It's like a production outage but the consequences are life and death. Of course, the pilot probably felt more stressed.
  • el_benhameen 1y ago
    That initial “oh shit” feeling must have been so much worse than for us regular boring engineers. Google’s not gonna save you on that one.
    • rfoo 1y ago
      For a whim I read this as "us regular boeing engineers" and it was really funny.
      • chasil 1y ago
        Except they were from Lockheed Martin.
  • refactor_master 1y ago
    “I vibe coded that part, but all the tests passed”
    • Rendello 1y ago
      How do you think they wrote the tests? ;)
      • nobleach 1y ago
        Seeing tests written by Claude/Gemini really frustrate me sometimes. They'll go to great lengths to make tests pass. Somtimes even just testing console/stdout logging. On the other hand, when I've written failing tests and told the tools to write implementations to make the tests pass, I've had some really good results. Sadly that's the part I enjoy the most so I really don't want to delegate that to a tool.
• panki27 1y ago
  Not your average end user call for support...
  • Finnucane 1y ago
    "please hold, your call is very important to us."
• cyclecount 1y ago
  These planes are huge pieces of shit. No country should be spending money buying these from the US / Lockheed Martin.
  • M3L0NM4N 1y ago
    What should they be buying instead? The other available multi-role fighters that would all get blown to pieces by an F-35 before they knew what hit them?
  • Yokolos 1y ago
    They're really not. You're basing this on misinformation and propaganda. The only reason why nobody should be buying them is because the US has become an untrustworthy partner. Otherwise, there is no credible evidence of any kind that I've seen showing the F-35 is anything other than a great fighter jet.
    • harshreality 1y ago
      Its stealth is good. Its EW and Avionics are probably good... now, after a decade of production, and with Block 4 around the corner. As planes, they were terrible when introduced a decade ago, and mediocre now. Too much functionality was promised too soon without adequate project management. Instead of modularity being the design philosophy for the NGAD, and shoehorned into the F-35 during production, it should've been the design philosophy for the F-35A/C from the start. Too many compromises were made to make the three variants share a similar design despite radically different missions. The F-35B should never have existed. The parts commonality numbers say it all. Initially projected to be 70%, but when it neared production the actual commonality figure was 25%. I haven't seen that broken down, but I bet the F-35B is a large part of that.
• nialv7 1y ago
  Is it just me or the title made it seemed like the conference call was the cause of the crash?
• ChicagoBoy11 1y ago
  Very different scenario, but flying my puddle jumper one of the first times after getting my license, once I took off from an airport in Connecticut and was about to cross a large body of water, my exhaust temperatures spiked really, really high, essentially indicating the engine was seconds from melting. But it didn't. So of course I felt it was a sensor issue (especially since it sounded/felt great), but luckily with the equipment on board I managed a call to the flight school, who put me in touch with the mechanic. I circled above an airport as he pulled up the maintenance logs, we discussed what I was seeing, he noted that there had been a report of a sensor issue that had been squawked, so we concluded I should feel safe to fly straight home. At the time it felt insanely cool to be able to be doing that WHILE flying the plane. While an unfortunate outcome for this particular pilot, as an elite pilot, part of me thinks when this cropped up part of him was like: "ahh right, this is why I'm top dog"
  • reactordev 1y ago
    This kind of stuff happens all the time. Especially if you ignore a controller instruction. They'll have a number for you. But really there's a ton of small, unmanned airfields (some in peoples backyards!) that have a number you can call to operate things like the runway papi lights. Call to order a burger to go. Or just call to talk to Fred, the owner, to see how his day was. As long as you can safely operate the aircraft, in the pattern, there's nothing stopping you from using your cell or your radio or starlink to contact ground. Just always make sure you're in communication with any air traffic controllers operating in that space.
    • quest88 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • reactordev 1y ago
        I take it you never flew VFR over Nebraska corn… Yes, papi lights are operated by radio. However, not everyone has fancy radios and only has handhelds, their Nokia phone, or their right arm wave… It’s not all class C+ out there. I will point out that PAPI lights as part of a PCL system are operated using mic clicks on CTAF radio. These systems are expensive and sometimes you’re landing in a grass field and just need the runway lights so you don’t run into the trees. You can click your mic as many times as you want, you’ll still be in the dark. The only way is to call Phil…
• shrubble 1y ago
  If a third of the hydraulic fluid was water, it was like that meme video of the woman who added washer fluid to the car’s oil - no way was that going to work properly.
  • estearum 1y ago
    I'm surprised no one is mentioning this, and the fact the article says this is the second of such incidents... I don't know if this is what actually happened, but it would appear to be a very effective method of sabotage... Simply putting some water in the hydraulic fluid container destined for an F35 is an extremely high risk-adjusted ROI for any saboteurs.
    • fransje26 1y ago
      > very effective method of sabotage. No need for sabotage on the F-35. It's perfectly capable of destroying itself without any third-party interference.
      • mrguyorama 1y ago
        The F35 is deployed at scale and has fairly normal accident rates for a new, maintenance heavy plane. You just don't hear about every single F16 that crashes.
    • a_mechanic 1y ago
      For counterbalance to this point, it is very common for water to get into hydraulic fluid. Moisture from air condenses in containers when they transition from hot to cold environments.
      • estearum 1y ago
        Username checks out! That’s interesting. Can this effect pretty easily achieve the reported 30% water content?
        • 1y ago
• jWhick 1y ago
  I'm wondering why these days, when my washing machine has an internet connection, they can't take over control of a plane remotely. I guess it could be considered a security vulnerability, however i'm quite sure it could be done securely. Like let the pilot eject and you try to land a plane with remote control
  • MBCook 1y ago
    The article said the plane had become uncontrollable and that’s why the pilot had to eject. So even if remote control was possible I’m not sure it would’ve done any good. Of course I also don’t know why the plane would be allowed to think that it’s in ground mode when it’s 100s of feet or more in the air. Or why the hydraulic fluid was 1/3 water.
  • deleted 1y ago
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  • hypeatei 1y ago
    That would require even more R&D to maybe be useful in a rare situation. Like you mentioned, the vulnerability surface would increase. The last you thing you'd want is a remote control vuln being discovered in your $200M jet during a conflict. That and I'm not sure what an ejection actually means for the planes internals i.e. is it even guaranteed the electronic components won't be damaged?
  • Aurornis 1y ago
    Going from “I can check my washing machine remotely” to “it should be easy to remotely control fighter jets without any security risks” is quite a leap. Anyway it’s missing the point. If the pilot can’t adequately control the airplane then a remote operator isn’t going to have a better experience.
    • jWhick 1y ago
      I mean, a remote operator could either try to land it in life risking situation, salvaging some of that $200M, or do kamikaze style on a target, both feel quite useful for war situations.
• scrlk 1y ago
  "I ejected from my F35 and all I got was this lousy tie" https://martin-baker.com/tie-club/ https://martin-baker.com/tie-club/
  • munchlax 1y ago
    The scroll snap on that page is awful. Why the heck would anyone want that
• svieira 1y ago
  > But those attempts failed to recenter the nose wheel and resulted in both the left and right main landing gears freezing up and not being able to extend fully to attempt an actual landing. > At that point, the F-35’s sensors indicated it was on the ground and the jet’s computer systems transitioned to “automated ground-operation mode,” the report said. And there wasn't a way to override that? I get that "manual mode" may not be a thing for a SaaS product that isn't critical, but there not being an immediate way to turn off the "drive mode" is quite surprising.
  • deleted 1y ago
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  • gchadwick 1y ago
    Potentially it happened so quickly the pilot had no way to respond before they lost control of the aircraft and had to hit the eject? Still you'd hope transitions between major operation modes could have some manual confirmation. Is there some essential reason the aircraft has to automatically transition to 'automated ground operation mode' when it thinks landing is complete? Could you not just expect the pilot to punch a button to do it instead?
    • SteveNuts 1y ago
      For airliners, it's critical for the aircraft to know when it's on the ground because it kicks on autobrakes, and unlocks the thrust reversers for landing. I'm very curious what the reasons would be for a military aircraft
      • gchadwick 1y ago
        If either of those accidentally triggered in the air would anything catostrophic happen? Auto breaks I guess have no effect in the air as they break the wheels? Thrust reverse unlock sounds like it allows thrust reversers but the pilot would still have to manually activate them? Someone else was talking about a WoW (weight on wheels) sensor that locks the landing gear down with no manual override but again doesn't sound like a catastrophic thing to accidentally trigger in air (indeed this particular aircraft had a landing gear that was stuck so a faulty WoW sensor wouldn't have made the problem worse). This particular mode switch thing sounds like it does something to the flight control that immediately causes catastrophe if turns out you're still in the air.
• MerrimanInd 1y ago
  And shockingly one of the engineers on the call still complained to their coworker later that day "that meeting could have been an email". /s
• pengaru 1y ago
  > The report notes Lockheed Martin had issued guidance on the problem the F-35’s > sensors had in extreme cold weather in a maintenance newsletter in April 2024, > about nine months before the crash. The problem could make it “difficult for > the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft,” the guidance said. > > The temperature at the time of the crash was -1 degree Fahrenheit, the report > said. Isn't it pretty much always at least that cold at the altitudes these things operate at? It's unclear from the article if -1F qualifies as "extreme cold weather" but unless I'm mistaken you're going to encounter extreme cold temps up there - it's not some exceptional condition.
• jakubmazanec 1y ago
  > if the conference call participants had referenced the 2024 maintenance newsletter, “they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go” that eventually led to the conditions that caused the crash So nobody remembered to search for and read all available documentation? Useful lesson for every software engineer.
• exabrial 1y ago
  I was trying to figure out how hydraulic fluid freezes... later mentioned: 1/3 water in the lines. Yikes.
• mclau157 1y ago
  Pilot sustained a compression fracture of the thoracic spine and superficial abrasions to the neck and face as a result of the mishap
• softwaredoug 1y ago
  Maybe the US gov't should own 10% of these companies (though I'd prefer if it was done through statute, not whims of the Orange Man)
• loloquwowndueo 1y ago
  “Attempts to fix the landing gear caused the fighter jet to think it was on the ground, ultimately leading to the crash.” Why isn’t there a way to override this and tell the plane “no we are not on the fucking ground, keep flying goddamnit”?
• ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  > The temperature at the time of the crash was -1 degree Fahrenheit, the report said. That's ground temperature (also balmy, for Alaska). It starts getting colder, pretty quickly, once you're in the air. Hope they figure this out quickly, before someone ends up dead.
  • mr90210 1y ago
    Dude, that’s a killing machine, someone will always end up dead.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
      Good point.
• gukov 1y ago
  Isn’t F-35 capable of VTOL? Couldn’t they just land on the belly? Or the malfunctioning landing gears disabled VTOL?
  • fransje26 1y ago
    The F-35B is the VTOL variant. The Air Force doesn't fly the F-35B, they fly the F-35A.
  • Elmern 1y ago
    IIRC USAF does not use the F-35B, which to my knowledge, is the only VTOL capable F-35 variant.
  • the__alchemist 1y ago
    Not this variant. I have no idea how VTOLs would work in this scenario, but I suspect it could be recovered safely in that config. Non-VTOL fighter landings with improper gear configurations have various guidelines (As discussed in the report here) in their checklists, depending on which gear are down. They range from landing normalish, landing while applying counter-forces etc, to approach-end-resentment, to ejection.
  • deleted 1y ago
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  • Sharlin 1y ago
    No. F-35A is conventional take-off and landing. F-35B is STOVL. F-35C is CATOBAR (catapult take-off, arrestor landing).
    • rswail 1y ago
      Army, Marines, Navy?
      • Sharlin 1y ago
        Air Force. The Army doesn't operate the F-35.
• DrNosferatu 1y ago
  Note to Portuguese Air Force Procurement Department: -> No US equipment anymore. I’m partial to the Gripen, actually. PS: Yes, I know about the engines - but this is straightforward. (ask me why, if you’re interested)
  • DrNosferatu 1y ago
    [flagged]
• tempodox 1y ago
  Apart from the water in the hydraulic system this reads as though there is such a thing as too much automation. The plane being uncontrollable because you cannot convince it it’s not on the ground while it’s actually in the air can only lead to catastrophic results. I’d call that a design bug.
  • NelsonMinar 1y ago
    That was the part that leapt out to me in the article. A touch-and-go caused the plane software to become uncontrollable? I know fly by wire is a necessity for this kind of aircraft but the damn thing better work right.
• potato3732842 1y ago
  Everyone in these comments making quips about software is missing the elephant in the room, where the heck did that water in the hydraulic system come from? Pretty much any hydraulic fluid for outdoor use will suck up a lot of water so as to prevent situations like this so this clearly isn't a teaspoon or even cups of condensation problem.
  • foxyv 1y ago
    Hydraulic fluid is very hydroscopic. It will happily suck the moisture out of the air if it is exposed long enough. This is why you don't use half empty bottles of brake fluid. I suspect that the fluid was left in opened containers for too long before being installed in the jet, allowing it to load up on water.
    • potato3732842 1y ago
      You are massively mixing things up. Water boils/evaporates off from oil based fluids in normal operation. Hydraulic fluid additives don't suck up water like brake fluid, they just mix with it if present, and they can't mix with all that much. If these first two things weren't true it would have huge implications for the design of all sorts of things. If hydraulic fluid could mix with a lot of water we wouldn't be reading this story. I assume these jets use skydrol. I'm only casually familiar with it but unaware of it having special water related properties that differ from normal petroleum products. Glycols are a different story.
      • foxyv 1y ago
        They use MIL-PRD-83282. It can become contaminated with water, either from the air or condensation. Typically it is tested before being placed in an aircraft and it can be purified if particle or water content is too high. https://www.pall.com/content/dam/pall/aerospace-defense/literature-library/non-gated/white-paper/mil-prf-83282.pdf https://www.pall.com/content/dam/pall/aerospace-defense/lite...
• exabrial 1y ago
  "Hello IT. Have you tried restarting?"
• dfox 1y ago
  The article is somewhat sensationalistic. If you read the actual report you will find out that: The pilot was not part of the conference call! What froze was not hydraulic fluid for actuators (in some hydraulic line), but hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers. The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words and reads as the investigators blaming the people directly involved, which is essentially a complete opposite of what conclusions of the report say.
  • deleted 1y ago
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  • LeifCarrotson 1y ago
    If you want to read the actual report, it's not linked from the CNN article, but it's available here: https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report.pdf?ver=z-QJglR9Qm7slupMlo6zeA%3D%3D https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report.... Edit: While CNN says the air force blamed the crash on ice in the hydraulic lines, it's obvious that ice can't be legally culpable. The report actually says: > Additionally, the [Accident Investigation Board] president found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that crew decision making including those on the in-flight conference call, lack of oversight for the Hazardous materials program, and lack of adherence to maintenance procedures for hydraulic servicing were substantially contributing factors. They note further down that "The 355th FGS hazardous materials program (HAZMAT) program suffered from insufficient manning and frequent supervision changes at times relevant to the mishap." Basically, they had a barrel of hydraulic oil that sat outside and no one took care of it. Also interesting is the 6 February 2025 incident, where another aircraft, barely a week after the one that crashed, had the same issue. They tested it inside a heated hangar, then outside in the 15F cold where they reproduced the weight-on-wheels sensor malfunctions, then brought it back in and drained the hydraulic fluid...there's a TON of water in those lines! I'm more familiar with industrial hydraulics in factories and earth-moving equipment, not with aviation...but we have water separators because a few drops of water can be enough to mess with the servo valves when you're near caviation limits. "...approximately one third of the fluid retrieved from the [landing gear] was water" is NOT RIGHT. Also, I chuckled on reading "...the barrel tested with more than 1024 parts per million (ppm) particulates, which is more than double the allowable limit for particulates in hydraulic fluid... It is important to note that the test does not accurately measure contaminates above 1024ppm, so the contamination was potentially far greater than 1024ppm" Gives strong "3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible" vibes!
• colechristensen 1y ago
  For one of the aircraft mentioned in Skunk Works Lockheed insisted on doing the maintenance themselves because the military maintenance folks were making mistakes causing aircraft failures. This incident is a data point in the "right to repair" where Congress is trying to force defense contractors to make all of their equipment entirely maintained by DoD workers, apparently they make mistakes though because in this case it is the stupid failure of a significant portion of the hydraulic fluid being water (which is a problem you could cause in your car but don't because you're not foolish and you put in the correct fluid and don't just fill your radiator up with water)
• csours 1y ago
  > An inspection of the aircraft’s wreckage found that about one-third of the fluid in the hydraulic systems in both the nose and right main landing gears was water, when there should have been none.
• daft_pink 1y ago
  Just want to point out that $200 million is an accounting cost not an actual cost, when this jet crashes, it can be replaced for $90 million and doesn’t require amortization of the program cost or maintenance costs, etc.
  • 1oooqooq 1y ago
    and ignore all the environment damage etc. just like spacex
• blitzar 1y ago
  Nothing from my end.
• bagels 1y ago
  "difficult for the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft" sounds like quite an understatement.
• jokoon 1y ago
  how many F35 crashed because of technical problems? that's at least 4 now?
• sebgan 1y ago
  Journalistic integrity (or not) arguments aside, that this happened with such an expensive piece of equipment is disappointing. Reminds me of Deal of the Century; “you ever heard of rain??!”
• matcha-video 1y ago
  Same problem that got Obadiah Stane
• _grilled_cheese 1y ago
  From the report: "After the second touch-and-go, all valid Weight on Wheels (WoW) sensors indicated the MA was on the ground, and the MA transitioned to the “on ground” flight control law (i.e., automated ground-operation mode causing the MA to operate as though it was on the ground when flying). However, because it was actually airborne, the MA was uncontrollable." On projects that I've worked on we used the WOW switches as a backup and primarily used air speed to determine if the plane was on the ground or not. I'm surprised that the plane was able to enter "on ground" control law while it was still flying based only on the status of the WOW switches. It seems to me like there should be some additional checks before entering a state that makes the aircraft "uncontrollable".
• charlie90 1y ago
  rewrite it in rust
• banku_brougham 1y ago
  Every time I see a fighter jet I can't help imagining a stream of $100 bills being sucked through the inlets and blasted out the afterburners.
• soorya3 1y ago
  Just a thought (I am no airline expert), If it costed 200 million to build the plane that was destroyed because landing gear can not be deployed then maybe it's time to think about building a catcher similar to spacex booster catch. This would probably need different plane design like vertical landing and horizontal landing gears.
  • forgotTheLast 1y ago
    You're describing the F-35B/C
• mv4 1y ago
  Re: "Attempts to fix the landing gear caused the fighter jet to think it was on the ground, ultimately leading to the crash." Sounds like bad design.
• M95D 1y ago
  If this is triggered by a bit of bad weather, what would happen in a actual war conditions? Would they expect the planes to be better maintained then? Oh, just scrap it and build some more A-10s. And take some lessons in reliability, redundant systems, good engineering.
• greatgib 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • deleted 1y ago
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  • beezle 1y ago
    The Vermont Air Guard has flown a contingent of 20 F-35s since 2020 without (so far) incident. https://www.158fw.ang.af.mil/ https://www.158fw.ang.af.mil/
  • tokai 1y ago
    Not when the Danish Airforce use F35s.
    • nicce 1y ago
      Or Finland…
      • Temporary_31337 1y ago
        US can (effectively) shut down F35s remote.y
        • rokkamokka 1y ago
          A scary proposition considering what the US is rapidly becoming
          • greenavocado 1y ago
            Purchasing F35s is paying tribute to the empire so it doesn't come down on you harder with tariffs and compliance burdens. It's not meant to actually be useful.
            • owebmaster 1y ago
• preisschild 1y ago
  But why was there water in the hydraulic system in the first place?
  • yobbo 1y ago
    It could be condensation in expansion tanks, or it could be rain into open containers on the ground, or someone could have mistakenly poured cooling liquid (or something else) into the containers, or into the hydraulic system itself, or ...
  • BoredPositron 1y ago
    "Must be the water."
    • braza 1y ago
      Ferrari F1 internal meme?[1] [1] - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nCoxNLdUSaE https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nCoxNLdUSaE
      • lifestyleguru 1y ago
        I don't get the joke. Did he pee himself, or the pit stop crew member is being useless?
        • groundcontr01 1y ago
          The latter
  • 4gotunameagain 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • MobiusHorizons 1y ago
      Cold War era planes also had a lot of problems. The YouTube channel “not a pound for air to ground” has some great content about planes from that era, and reliability was sometimes absurdly poor.
• MaxPock 1y ago
  Who eats the loss under such circumstances? Government or Lockheed Martin or are these 200 million dollar jets insured ?
  • gdbsjjdn 1y ago
    Don't worry, the US military will recoup the loss by extorting some more natural resources from Ukraine and building some sea-side condos in Gaza.
  • nelox 1y ago
    Self-insured. The government absorbs losses itself instead of purchasing commercial insurance.
  • zrail 1y ago
    Ultimately the US taxpayers will eat the loss in either case. If the government tried to charge it back to Lockheed Martin they'd just raise the price on subsequent programs to compensate. The government does insure weapons of war. Who would write the policy?
    • zrail 1y ago
      late edit: "does _not_ insure weapons of war"
    • bedane 1y ago
      is insurance for military equipment a thing? I had no idea. If you have very deep pockets like a nation has, why not simply replace the lost hardware and never insure/pay premiums(which would be calculated to net a profit to the insurer)?
      • zrail 1y ago
        ugh I meant "does _not_" that's what I get for posting while eating breakfast.
    • varispeed 1y ago
• m000 1y ago
  This is wild. You can't get away from these zoom calls even as an F-35 pilot.
  • tigerBL00D 1y ago
    Am I the only one thinking that it's time for something like an R2D2? Presumably it could get into some crammed spaces and thaw things out of needed. I'm sure it's a stupid idea, BTW, but a fun one )
    • FatalLogic 1y ago
      It's a fun idea. Though it would have to be a really small R2-D2 that could work from the inside. The fictional R2-D2 had a big advantage of being in vacuum so it could work from the outside, without disturbing the airflow, and without having its work disturbed by the airflow. Envisage what happens at 900km/h in atmosphere, if R2-D2 tries to lift up an exterior wing panel to troubleshoot a blocked line?
    • marcosdumay 1y ago
      Well... aircraft maintenance doesn't work like that. Even car maintenance doesn't work like that anymore. There's almost nothing you can do just by crawling around and messing with the parts there.
  • whatsupdog 1y ago
    I think the call was only 10 minutes long. For 40 minutes the pilot was just waiting for the next available representative.
    • slipperydippery 1y ago
      40 minutes realizing they need to update Zoom, updating Zoom, then trying to figure out why their mic isn't working.
    • notjustanymike 1y ago
      First he had to wait for the other engineers to update product on their Jira tickets.
• voidUpdate 1y ago
  > "they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go" Is that not what the pilot did anyway? Or is a "controlled ejection" different from what they did?
  • the_real_cher 1y ago
    I had the exact same thought.
  • fabian2k 1y ago
    The article mentioned that the aircraft become uncontrollable once it thought it was on the ground and switched control modes. And then the pilot ejected. I assume a controlled ejection would have been during controlled flight at a time and location specifically chosen. This ejection was necessary because the plane was uncontrollable in the end.
    • voidUpdate 1y ago
      Ah, I see, ejection in a controlled situation instead of "oh no, time to go now"
  • lentil_soup 1y ago
    If I understood correctly, the ejection came after the second touch and go made the plane go into landed mode which made it impossible to fly anymore
• freefaler 1y ago
  So as a pilot you can't override the software to stop it from "thinking that the plane is on the ground" mode? Something similar happened recently with A320 when it didn't want to land on an airfield during emergency unless it was flown in a special mode. But F-35 doesn't have that?
  • netsharc 1y ago
    > unless it was flown in a special mode. What fresh hell is that... reboot, jam F8 just as the "Airbus" logo shows up, and then select "Boot in safe mode"?
    • xattt 1y ago
      Fly-by-wire aircraft have changeable “flight laws” that correspond to different levels of computer intervention to mitigate situations incompatible with controlled flight. Think of it as various stability control modes in a modern car. Likely the aircraft needed to be put in the least restrictive flight law mode as a workaround.
      • lazide 1y ago
        ‘Incompatible with controlled flight’ is my new ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’. Notably, most drones have similar levels of control. Everything has to go through the IMU of course (nobody is manually going to be managing 4 separate motor controllers at once), but depending on the modes, the type of control is wildly different. ‘Consumer’/‘idiot’ mode - you tell it which direction to go, and how high/low you want it, and it’ll do that safely. Usually with some sort of object detection/avoidance, auto GPS input, so you won’t accidentally wander into something or hit something. Goal is stable, level flight. ‘Sport’ mode - go fast, usually disables all but the most simple collision avoidance. Sometimes even that. Still provides stable, level flight, but you can easily crash it. Usually goes 2-3x faster than ‘idiot’ mode. ‘Attitude’ or ‘acrobatic’ mode - you’re directly commanding the target 3D pitch/yaw, and aggregate power output. No provision is given to automatically maintaining level flight (won’t auto level), generally no regard is given to airframe integrity, collision avoidance, or engine life, and boy is it fun. It’s really common to crash in this mode, because people are also doing flips, acrobatic maneuvers, running courses, etc. Drones in even ‘sport’ mode can’t do flips because it’s fundamentally at odds with auto maintaining level flight, etc.
• gherkinnn 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • etempleton 1y ago
    The F35 program had a ton of issues and was expensive, but so was the B2 program. Sometimes something good comes out of a difficult process. They have made a lot of F35s now and exported many of them with many many more on order. At this point I think it is fair to say the F35 is a successful platform.
  • UltraSane 1y ago
    Ask Iran how much of a shit show the F35 is.
    • gnaman 1y ago
      Iran has been crippled with sanctions limiting their ability to develop/buy any kind of fighter aircraft. Shooting from the air in Iran equals fighting a bot in an FPS game. They don't shoot back
  • eptcyka 1y ago
    Rafale and Gripen don't hold a candle to the F35's capabilities, they're just a different class of aircraft. Not to say any one of the three is bad, but the EU currently just does not have it in them to have a viable competitor.
  • luma 1y ago
    That is a patently absurd take, ask Iran how much of a shitshow it is to be on the receiving end of planes your AA can't see.
    • gherkinnn 1y ago
      The B2 is what did the damage in Iran. F22 and F35 were reportedly sent to protect the bombers. I don't see how that detracts from the point that the F35 has been fraught with problems and operating it is dependent on an unreliably ally.
• Molitor5901 1y ago
  Considering they relieved a pilot of command for ejecting when his F-35 become unresponsive, now they make them sit on conference calls. That pilot is very brave, I think others would have ejected by now. Making them fly around up there is ridiculous.
  • 5f3cfa1a 1y ago
    Ejecting from an airplane is no joke: 18g of force leaves 20-30% with spinal fractures, and ejection seats have an 8% mortality rate[1] It seems to me that continuing flight with inoperative/damaged landing gear while you discuss alternatives with engineers is the safest option. Burn fuel, make a plan, let people on the ground mobilize to help, and eject when you've tried what you can and it truly becomes the safest option. [1]: https://sites.nd.edu/biomechanics-in-the-wild/2021/04/06/top-gun-trauma-the-effects-of-ejecting-from-a-fighter-jet-on-the-spine/ https://sites.nd.edu/biomechanics-in-the-wild/2021/04/06/top...
    • crote 1y ago
      It makes you wonder if it would be possible for ejection seats to have a safer bailout mode. Sure, the "compress your spine" mode is definitely appropriate during a wartime situation where someone has shot your wings off, but is it really required when a mechanical failure leaves you unable to land yet in a more-or-less stable flight at a reasonably low speed? Perhaps a 6g ejection might be more appropriate in those cases?
      • HPsquared 1y ago
        Maybe they want it to be a bit injurious so people only do it as a last resort.
      • the__alchemist 1y ago
        I wonder about that. Maybe the added complexity is a con? I.e. the default would still be full force, but a controlled ejection mode could be gentler, but still capable of clearing the aircraft reliably in straight/level flight.
• meindnoch 1y ago
  On most meetings, I wish I was sitting in an ejection seat.
  • jWhick 1y ago
    yeah like fuck this shit i'm ejecting