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Two EA-18 fighter jets collide at Mountain Home airshow, pilots ejected safely
- gausswho 6mo agoWhat an odd collision. The way they remain in tandem after contact is uncanny, almost as though they were not under direct control.
- chalupa-supreme 6mo agoThey probably went into a stall (loss of lift) after collision. So they would have lost all control. Their controls would probably feel all mushy and unresponsive at that point.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Waterluvian 6mo agoI don’t know anything about anything but it feels kind of amazing that all four ejected with good looking parachutes given the orientation of the conglomerated plane.
- binary132 6mo agoI had the same thought, but those cockpit modules are really designed to maximize the odds of safe ejection, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they consider the possibility of failure and escape as part of the stunt design. Still, it’s amazing everything worked out, especially at that low of an altitude.
- dbcurtis 6mo agoDo we know if the pilots are OK? Yes, ejection can save your life, but even in a best-case scenario the forces on the human body are incredibly ugly. I know a former combat-rated RAF pilot that had to eject from a Harrier because of a low-altitude bird strike. After 6 months in the infirmary, he emerged 2cm shorter, combat rating gone forever.
- jcgrillo 6mo agoArms and legs can take a serious beating too. Airplane cockpits are pretty tight spaces, and to be explosively shot out of one with little notice is.. yikes.
- userbinator 6mo agoThe pilots themselves initiated their ejections.
- jcgrillo 6mo agoAdmittedly I have nowhere near the flight hours, training, or expertise of these pilots, but having flown airplanes myself I can totally imagine in an off-nominal situation (which I have been in before) conscious focus is fully on flying the airplane even if your rote lizard brain is procedurally going through the motions of pulling the ejection handles or otherwise responding to the emergency. My instructor's words--he was a helicopter pilot (Hueys and Chinooks) in the Vietnam war with some 20k hrs logged in complex aircraft, jets, etc. since so I know for certain he knew wtf he was talking about--going through my head "do not ever stop flying the airplane". In this case, my conscious focus would be to stomp one of those rudder pedals as hard as I could to try to recover from the spin, even if I was also simultaneously yelling "eject" or whatever you're told to into the intercom and pulling the handles. But I haven't ever been trained to eject from an aircraft, or maybe my instinctive predilections would select me out of the training regimen these pilots go through.. who knows
- dghlsakjg 6mo agoAlso, these are aircraft with two crew. Either can initiate the ejection sequence, at which point both crew will be ejected regardless of who initiated if I’m not mistaken. I’ve never trained to eject, but I have trained in situations with parachutes, and the advice is to deploy early. If the thought crosses your mind, the answer is yes.
- 6mo ago
- stephen_g 6mo agoYeah it's pretty incredible, the way they came together the plane on top came pretty close to blocking the canopy of the bottom one, if it had gone a bit differently those pilots could have had nowhere to go but into the bottom of the other aircraft!
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Levitating 6mo agoI think these ejection seats work in more or less any orientation. I am more surprised that they didn't immediately blow up or lose control after colliding. Or even that the crew took that long to eject.
- dboreham 6mo agoThe aircraft appear to have become "stuck" to each other perhaps due to aerodynamic forces similar to how a piece of paper gets stuck to a car windshield (probably something to do with one of the Bernoullis). There wasn't much of an impact to cause a destructive event such as compressor stall. Perhaps the pilots were waiting to see if the aircraft would become un-stuck, or to get clear airspace into which they could eject?
- stingraycharles 6mo agoThat’s my read as well, but I’m looking forward for an official analysis as things often aren’t as they appear.
- Rover222 6mo agoI actually looks like the vertical stabilizer of the lower plane got lodged into the fuselage of the other.
- dylan604 6mo agoThe ejection seat is going to do its thing regardless of orientation, but if that orientation is pointed at the ground you better hope you have enough altitude. There was one plane where the ejection seats ejected down and away from the plane that was known for low altitude missions. These seats were affectionately known as lawn darts.
- rob74 6mo agoI think that plane is the Lockheed Starfighter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#Ejection_seat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#Eje...). Fortunately they were eventually replaced with upward-firing ejection seats. And the "lawn dart" moniker refers to the airplane itself - probably because of the absurdly short wings, which are also placed pretty far back.
- somenameforme 6mo agoSomething that seems interesting to me is that they all ejected at nearly the identical time. I'm curious if those systems are automated in case of scenarios like an unconscious pilot. If so, there may be automated clearance/angle systems, but that's speculation on top of speculation.
- rationalist 6mo agoI'm guessing they coordinated by voice so that they didn't hit each other (again). If one ejects, then the plane rolls, the next person to eject could launch into someone else.
- stymaar 6mo agoIt stuck me as well. My uninformed guess is that it took both pilots roughly the same amount of time to run through their OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop and conclude their plane was not recoverable and eject. And for both crew members of the same plane ejecting at the same time, I think the ejection of the second personnel is automated should the first one eject. (Not familiar with the F-18 fighter at all but I know it's like that in other fighters with two crew members).
- actionfromafar 6mo agoOff topic but ... "What is the Boyd Theory? To many it is simply the OODA loop depicting the human behavioral cycle of decision-making. To others it is a description of command and control. To true believers, it is a profound theory of warfare." -- Some other Military Dude
- Rp8yXmdmr 6mo agoIt looks like there is a switch with "both"/solo"/"forward" option and the "both" option automates that tiny delay between both ejections. On the other hand ejections from both planes at same time is just pilots reaction speed.
- martheen 6mo ago
- jquery 6mo ago75% of out-of-envelope ejections are fatal. A spinning aircraft that just started making out with another plane is definitely OOE. Those 4 pilots are incredibly lucky, assuming they all survived (looks like it?)
- vablings 6mo agoThanks to the great engineering at martin baker, if you check out the instagram page they have a running count of how many pilots have been saved by the seats. Was interesting to see a +4 today for a rolling total of 7820
- avalys 6mo agoThese are pretty expensive and specialized electronic warfare planes that are identical to a regular F18 in aerodynamic performance. Sucks to lose two of them for an airshow display. Isn’t that what the Blue Angels are for?
- barbazoo 6mo agoWhat is the real purpose of airshows anyway? It always seems like very elevated risk for very little reward but I might just be missing what the reward is.
- DonHopkins 6mo agoThe first rule of Flight Club is: you do not talk about Flight Club.
- npunt 6mo agoPublic relations for mil spending
- petcat 6mo agoAlso, air shows and flybys are awesome.
- stirfish 6mo agoFlybys are awesome depending where you are. F-18s in Idaho? Pretty cool. F-18s in Pakistan? Probably stressful.
- Atotalnoob 6mo agoIf combat zone flybys are anything like they are in the movie “warfare”, (excellent war movie, btw) stressful seems like an understatement. Awe inspiring and absolutely terrifying
- dudul 6mo ago
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- amelius 6mo agoI wonder how you can make the decision to eject in such a short timespan.
- MrMember 6mo agoThey train for it. When people who have ejected talk about it they basically say it's automatic. Things go south they pull the handle on instinct.
- dudul 6mo agoAt this point you barely "make the decision". They train and train and train to the point where it's automatic as soon as they know there's no way to avoid the crash.
- newsclues 6mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
- ridgeguy 6mo agoOne has to be trained to do it, the untrained tendency is to wait too long. There's a USAF film on Youtube titled "Ejection Decision" that discusses this and shows how little time there is to make that choice.
- kube-system 6mo agoif(oh shit) { pull(); } is the only way
- pierrec 6mo ago[dead]
- dnnddidiej 6mo agoSo fast they shit their pants as the chutes were deployed.
- arwhatever 6mo agoThat maneuver they were attempting looks WILD. Would have been amazing to have pulled of. Or, perhaps to have regularly pulled off until today. I'm guessing that must be some sort of vectored thrust trickery.
- bigyabai 6mo agoI don't think anything after the second jet's merge was deliberate. NASA's HARV is the only F/A-18 with a thrust vectoring exhaust designed for it, and it's doubtful that similar kit would go on an EW jet. What's shown in the video appears to be some form of slipstreaming by the chase craft that causes them both to lose pitch authority, pulling up into a stall state and then a yaw tailslide.
- angled 6mo agoCue the development of a limpet drone that would be enough to take down one of these birds in a non-destructive way… although perhaps these ones in particular would be uniquely positioned to deal with such adversaries.
- rogerrogerr 6mo agoThey weren’t attempting anything, just repositioning for the next pass. They were flying away from the audience. They lost track of each other.
- dboreham 6mo agoThe video, apart from the apparent loss of situation awareness by the following pilot, seems to show the leader making an aggressive left turn basically into the path of the other aircraft. I'm four hundred miles or so from the location but we've had some weird weather here today, and I've heard it was even more weird in Idaho. Reports of high wind speeds and gusts. I wondered if the lead aircraft had been hit by some sort of atmospheric event that pushed it into the path of the other when it happened to be too close to correct.
- Steve44 6mo ago
- Groxx 6mo agoIs there much of a way to recover from that kind of glomping? Kinda seems like the aerodynamics might hold them together (as the noses are somewhat pointed together), or with enough speed rip them apart chaotically since they're a bit skewed (which could be worse than ejecting early). It seems pretty obvious that ejecting is the right choice either way, but it makes me wonder if there's any alternative in this kind of scenario.
- rootusrootus 6mo agoDepending on how much damage was incurred during contact, since they were already flying predominantly the same direction & speed, at a higher altitude they might have uncoupled and regained controlled flight. Examples of more grievously damaged airplanes have landed in the past. I don't think they had any real hope if they stayed joined, tho.
- alistairSH 6mo agoWhile there absolutely are examples of massively damaged aircraft landing safely, they make the news because it's ridiculously rare for that happen.
- Merad 6mo agoBasically all modern fighters since the 1980s are aerodynamically unstable and require a computer to fly. A collision like this is almost certainly going to do major damage to the airframe (screwing up its aerodynamics) and maybe flight controls as well. I suspect the plane will be well outside the parameters that the flight controls software can deal with, making stable flight impossible.
- Thaxll 6mo agoOnce again, thanks Martin-Baker, 4 lives saved.
- zabzonk 6mo agoAnd 4 new members of the Tie Club: https://martin-baker.com/tie-club/ https://martin-baker.com/tie-club/
- yubblegum 6mo agoMy god that tv website is chockful of javascript from all over. If you wish to avoid it: https://nitter.net/search?f=tweets&q=mountain+home+air https://nitter.net/search?f=tweets&q=mountain+home+air
- cadmeup 6mo ago[dead]
- ProAm 6mo agoI cant wait to pay for that with my tax dollars.
- testfoobar 6mo agoTax dollars really don't pay for things in the US Federal Government. Deficit spending leading to an ever rising debt is the source of continued spending. When Debt/GDP grows, we're spending ever more money that we don't have. Total Debt: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN Total Debt/GDP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
- m348e912 6mo agoYou're not wrong, but exorbitant deficit spending has its own dire consequences. (eventually) Not that I am telling you anything you don't already know.
- zzleeper 6mo agoWhat if we just inflate away the debt? Sure, ppl will hate dealing with very high inflation for a few years, and pensioners and whoever buys those trillions of debt will get screwed, but besides that we should be ok? /s
- dnnddidiej 6mo agoThen why have tax at all? Answer to that is indeed this is tax expenditure. Although rounding error compared to the war.
- ak217 6mo agoWhat are Growlers doing performing aerobatic maneuvers at air shows? They have tens of millions in specialized extra equipment on board. Seems like a poor use of taxpayer money. Send regular F-18s, not the rare expensive ones that look the same.
- david_shi 6mo agoWhen you have exorbitant privilege you tend to use it.
- epistasis 6mo agoA better term might be "abuse" rather than "use." Some people do, some people don't, and it says a lot about their character.
- __loam 6mo agoUS military airshows make a point to use combat ready aircraft. F-22s flew over SF during fleet week.
- dnautics 6mo agothe pilots need to fly <N> hours to keep their pilot rating anyways. So aside from the slightly elevated risk to the civilian observers, and the occasional risk due to maneuvers (I think they doing something particularly showy in this case?), the extra cost to the taxpayer do this is ~nil.
- SV_BubbleTime 6mo agoThere are two expensive holes in the ground that do not support your supposition.
- defrost 6mo agoOnly if there's a significant difference in risk between training flight and air show flight. Otherwise there's always a near constant ever present risk of uncontrolled unintended landings with expensive repair and replacement costs.
- Riany 6mo agoThat's good that all pilots ejected safely. But what if it fails? Still, losing two specialized aircraft during an airshow feels like very expensive, I doubt if it's really worth it to risks these pilots life on it
- jandrewrogers 6mo agoThe US has over 10,000 military aircraft in service and thousands of spares sitting in storage. The US is quite arguably the only military that can casually absorb losses like these. This specific aircraft is being phased out over the next several years. Assuming these still had some miles left on the airframe, they likely would have been put in cold storage a few years from now.
- arkaedan 6mo agoDo you have a source for the Growler being phased out? I was under the impression that they still have a long operating life ahead.
- jandrewrogers 6mo agoThe 5th generation platforms can do the same mission with a lower risk profile using their built-in systems. The US Navy doesn't have enough of those so the F-18 Growlers are sticking around to fill the capability gap until the 6th generation platforms drop in the early 2030s to replace the remaining 4th generation gear. That has been reported in a number of places and makes a lot of sense. The current order backlog for F-35s runs to almost 2030 despite production capacity upgrades. It is the same reason there are still many normal F-18s flying in the Navy even though the F-35 has existed for years. The 6th generation platforms appear to be an upgrade super-cycle, replacing all of the remaining 4th generation platforms. The 5th generation platforms were in some respects prototypes of what they really wanted to build. The US Air Force has been making many moves in a similar direction. For example, the procurement numbers for the B-21 (a 6th generation platform) is larger than the number of airframes for any existing bomber and there are serious discussions to scale the production beyond the number of all existing bombers. There is a lot of signal suggesting that the US military is moving to a pure 6th generation spine for its air capability over the next 5-10 years.
- booleanbetrayal 6mo agoSince the negative PR effects of exploding planes undermine the intended positive promotional aspects of conducting air shows, we should probably just halt and save money, right?
- momo26 6mo agokudos to the Martin-Baker seats and the pilots' training, ejecting at that low altitude after a collision is incredibly hazardous. Using high-value electronic warfare assets for aerobatics seems like an unnecessary risk when regular Hornets could do the exact same job for the crowd.
- venzaspa 6mo agoAlways enjoy looking through the Martin-Baker site for their database of successful ejections. They've saved a lot of lives!
- mertleee 6mo ago[dead]
- tintor 6mo agoFour people ejected. What is the purpose of the second person in such plane, at the air show?
- justinator 6mo agoFlight time for the electronic warfare officer?
- rogerrogerr 6mo agoThey're 2-crew airplanes. If you're used to flying with a backseater, it's probably safer to continue doing that.
- mschuster91 6mo ago> What is the purpose of the second person in such plane, at the air show? Pilot Flying, Pilot Monitoring (and dealing with radio and coordination). It's hard to see single-pilot operations outside of General Aviation aka people flying for fun or for dusting crops - and enough incidents happen in GA, especially in cropdusting, that it might make sense to mandate two-pilot operations there, but good luck trying to get that passed, people are already complaining as it is that aviation is too expensive and in fact are moving towards getting commercial aviation to single-pilot operations.
- defrost 6mo agoAs I understand it "dusting crops" is commercial aerial work and thus outside of General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other purposes ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_aviation Crop dusting, small frame fire suppression, and small frame geophysical surveying are often single pilot- and geophys surveys can drape entire countries at 80m ground clearance and 200m line spacing (plus transverse lines) so they can really rack up the hours and line kilometres.
- alistairSH 6mo ago
- cadmeup 6mo ago[dead]
- peteforde 6mo agoIt's crazy to me that Americans feel like they can't afford socialized healthcare, but performing tricks in $70M jets is something that must proceed at all costs.
- nacozarina 6mo agolol Americans did not invent kleptocracy, just having their turn in the barrel.
- mschuster91 6mo agoThis is one of the pseudo-"arguments" I absolutely hate to read. The problem with America's healthcare is not the military, foreign aid or wars. It simply is not. The problem is the insane amount of waste in the US healthcare system. Y'all already spend much, much more per capita on healthcare than everyone else on earth by a wide margin [1], but get markedly lower returns in life expectancy [2]. Y'all need to cut the waste and middlemen out of your healthcare system, take that money and invest it into prevention (especially: fight against obesity - the US has a serious problem there costing a lot of money and causing a lot of suffering [3]), and you would get far better returns. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States
- samiv 6mo agoAmericans will never be able to "solve" obesity at a national level in their free liberal "business first" world. After all obesity is a consequence of the biggest industry of all, the fast food industry. And a lot of profits are predicated on sick fat people from fitness to dieting to health care and pharmacy. There are very little profits to these giants if the population was slim and healthy.
- kakacik 6mo ago
- anshumankmr 6mo agoThat was a gnarly stunt. Glad the pilots survived.
- dude250711 6mo agoIsn't making planes fly really close to each other an entirely optional activity?
- consumer451 6mo agoFormer USAF aviator Juan Browne, a leading voice of aviation sanity posted a video on this, and he is pissed off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcS40s6aVeo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcS40s6aVeo