Well, the missing jet has been located… or at least, the wreckage has been found. And fortunately, the pilot is safe and uninjured. But there are still a few things that are strange about this incident, and 1,000-hour, instrument-rated, military wanna-be pilot Bill Whittle has some questions about one thing in particular that doesn’t seem to add up.
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30 replies on “So About That F-35…”
Final reports stated the plane was 80 miles north of the base, not a couple hundred miles. The rest of this discussion seemed on track, even in hindsight.
There is precedent to this which dates from 1970. The aircraft was an F-106A and the pilot’s ejection wound up flying until finally landing (gear up, of course) in a rancher’s field near Big Sandy, MT. The plane had entered a flat spin and after the canopy parted ways with the aircraft during the ejection, the airflow and center of gravity was altered enough that it stopped the flat spin and then continued to fly. Here is a link to the story”
https://www.historynet.com/f-106-the-cornfield-bomber/
This of course, is pure speculation on my part, but I recall a news report on the progress of autonomous vehicle research, which was some time ago. That report detailed an experiment which removed control of the vehicle from the driver. Scary because they managed to make it happen.
In an era where electronics drives much of our industry, it is important to remember the weakness of both software & hardware. Even if this instance was not a hack, what if it were possible for the operational software to go “stupid”? I know connections on military equipment are filtered against transient impulses, but what if various multi-lead chips weren’t adequately soldered, which in turn inhibited pilot input? The equipment is supposed to go through temperature variation & vibration testing, but sometimes defects still get through.
I agree, the circumstances are odd & there is a need to get to the bottom of the incident.
The US Navy insisted that the USS Fitzgerald and the USS McCain were not hacked at all but they also replaced all the sail by wire software and hardware worldwide in both navy and civilian ships and installed hydraulic back up steering on all of them. When the Pentagon says it impossible to hack get an off line back up. All you need is one Chinese chip.
One option is that the attitude indicator reading and altimeter may have been badly wrong. Both are fully digital in the plane. There is no analog backups. He thought he was in an uncontrollable dive and could not pull out so he ejected thinking the plane would hit the ground but once out of the plane he realizes that its flying straight and level and he is much higher than the altimeter said. He sees the plane fly off.
Very early in flying history frozen attitude and altimeters were a thing with both aircraft and airships with this result. The F 35 may get dangling dice or a back up analog attitude indicator of to one side.
In the 1980 or 1990’s the F18’s had a glitch where they would switch from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere. While flying over Sydney it would tell the pilot he was near Japan. A friend was asked to find this fault. He was a highly qualified university mathematician, probability I think. He ordered all the aircraft, on the navy 75th anniversary, to fly in formation from an airbase to Sydney, do a flyby, and then fly back doing all the paperwork in the processes. The pilots missed the big party and were not happy but one of the planes flipped. The glitch was triggering a chip setting that reset the planes latitude to Seattle.
I was an avionics tech in Marine helicopters 50 years ago, but one possible reason for an unneeded ejection could be a sensor or software problem that caused a critical message on the master caution panel that was actually a bogus problem.
In twin rotor head choppers a “chip detector” message would indicate the transmission shaft between the two rotor heads was failing. This would cause auto rotation to fail and the craft would fly like a brick.
This pilot may have thought his craft was about to experience catastrophic failure. Semper Fi!
Thank you for being the first person who has understood that it’s not surprising that low-observable aircraft are low-observable.
So, the F-35B has a feature that the A (Air Force) and C (Navy) don’t – forced ejection. That pilot may have been just as surprised at his ejection as the rest of us.
As for whether or not his life was in danger where he landed… have you BEEN to North Charleston? If he’s inside the Mark Clark or on Ashley Phosphate, he’s in big trouble.
And, as for how far the aircraft can fly with a fire or malfunction in the cockpit… that’s just physics. Once he’s gone, it’s a glider which will… well, glide.
Why didn’t the pilot turn the plane Around and have it head out to sea?
The cloud of secrecy suggests to me that the pilot may be a member of some politically correct specially “protected” group.
Meh, maybe but there’s a lot of other reasons why the details would be kept secret too. Like for instance a flaw or failure in the aircraft that could be exploited by our enemies. Among other things. As a Naval Officer I’m sure you’re aware of that.
Just one small quibble. Scott, the F35 is not a quiet aircraft. Living near Hill AFB in Utah, I can attest to the extreme loudness of these jets as they fly overhead while on maneuvers. A constant reminder that these are the sounds of freedom.
My take on this is that they are so otherwise stealthy that they are long over the target before sound reaches the ground or whatever other targets. Go USA!
How big was the back yard so the property owner or neighbors didn’t notice an extra jet for a day?
Have we actually seen the wreckage? I think it flew off to someone nefarious. Then “something” crashed, but we could not see the wreckage. I think it is off somewhere and they faked the crash. It is probably in China.
Yeah, they found what’s left of the plane, which was basically just a large debris field. I’ve seen pictures of it and it’s exactly what you’d expect it to be.
That doesn’t mean that some vital component wasn’t removed for sale to our enemies and the crash is the means to mask that but … That’s stretching things a lot, you really have to reach for a conclusion like that.
Like a doctor friend of mine used to say … “Look for horses not zebras.”
A.I. in the control system just “decided” that it was better able to perform the mission and chose to exit the human pilot!?!?
Their is no doubt in my mind the Corps is well aware of the reason for this aircraft loss. We may never know enough of the details to ascertain the actual cause here as a private citizen. Gradually, it will leak out over time but today, having the aircraft fly hundreds of miles unmanned tells me something highly unusual occurred for the pilot ejection process to trigger when the aircraft was obviously safe to continue to fly hundreds of additional miles. I therefore, don’t view this as a pilot safety issue.
I heard this “through the grapevine” so I cannot verify its accuracy but my understanding is that the plane ejected the pilot automatically, with little or no warning, of its own volition without the pilot himself intending to eject.
This, again I cannot verify the accuracy of the information, would explain all the questions Bill, Scott and Steve are asking.
If this is true, then this is the malfunction Bill is trying to understand.
Honestly I hope it’s not true because if it is it means that plane can pop its pilot out of the cockpit randomly. That in itself is disastrous enough. Worse is if that fault exists and our enemies figure out how to exploit that failure they can eject our pilots during combat operations. Which means that the F-35 for all it’s positive features is useless as an air superiority fighter. In that case, this needs to be fixed with a manual, hardwired, un-computerized switch that absolutely MUST be activated by the pilot before the ejection sequence can complete.
One more time, I don’t know if this information is accurate. But if it is it would explain a lot of the questions surrounding this event.
Well, even if it is not true, the alleged plethora of software problems I keep reading about the F-35 are of great concern. That said, it is likely that your “grapevine” news would be a consequence of so many flaws.
Makes sense to me. If true, involuntary ejection of the pilot is a consequence of software flaws then that is very concerning indeed.
It is a plausible solution if this is not already a hardwired device. Which is what I thought all fighters had so that it couldn’t be done accidentally.
Easy enough for someone who has flown the plane to confirm.
Also, if this was the case, the fleet should still be grounded until they can fix it.
Any word from on the vine as to how long the grounding was?
All I know is what I said in my original comment above. The grounding of the entire complement of F-35 fighters would likely not be something made public until after the fact and the repairs applied. We’d probably only hear about it on the news after the most urgent cases are triaged and fixed. If our enemies knew all our fighters were going to be grounded for a period of time that would not be a good thing. Probably not real great for the market we sell that stuff to our allies either.
It’s not something I would ask the “grapevine” about … If nothing else it’s a damn good way to get that vine to dry up and blow away. I assume being as I’ve heard as much as I have that information isn’t classified, yet. People with security clearances generally take that sort of thing very, very seriously.
I don’t know anyone who flies that plane to ask for details about the ejection system either, sorry.
It wouldn’t surprise me if some Poindexter thought automatic ejection in the case of the pilot being rendered insensible or unresponsive was a good idea. It also wouldn’t surprise me knowing what little I do about computer coding but having decades of experience with crappy software if something like that just decided arbitrarily to spit out a pilot all on its own.
I’m just speculating here but whatever sensors and such that would make the determination the pilot was out of action could conceivably glitch and mis-report the pilot’s condition. Even if he’s flipping switches, yanking the joystick and stamping the pedals like a crazed monkey.
Flying by wire is one thing, flying by software is a whole ‘nother critter. I don’t trust software. I use it a lot and that’s why I don’t trust it. I don’t trust it enough to bet someone’s life on it, that’s for sure.
The Poindexter theory is plausable. If such a system were installed it would most likely go off if say the fly by wire systems failed to report that everthings working every once in a while. Also the engineer who worked on the damn thing may not have been a pilot. Same goes for his boss, his bosses boss and, all the lofty levels to which a bubbely turd can float.
I believe there was a fatal ejection on a carrier in the 1950-60 when the technology was new. I’m not sure how the pilot died.
The Babylon Bee spoofs about the lost fighter jet were really funny. Marines going through the forest pressing their key fobs and hoping to hear the jet “ping” in response was inspired.
What’s not funny is a fighter jet flying away unmanned and without any idea where it was going, knowing it was going to crash. Please, please let this be answered with something reasonably truthful and explainable.
The answer, if one is given, will be a prevarication.
No doubt!
Did anyone see that UFO full of grey goons attempt to hijack the plane?
Her name is really Fat Patricia. 😉
The pilot should’ve left some Apple AirTags in the cockpit to facilitate discovery of the aircraft.
I wonder if the military will implement some sort of GPS tracker installation in our fighter aircraft, to avoid this kind of boondoggle in the future.
I hope not.