Here's one of my worst fears, lost brakes whilst taxiing. All for got out.
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
I took a good look at the video and had to ask myself why eject as it appeared the jet had come to a full stop. The only thing I could possibly figure is the throttle was somehow jammed. Obviously don't have all the facts but just looking at the video, it does give me pause as to why he decided to punch.
The B model has an auto-eject function in the event of lift-fan failure.
Source: an active duty Marine F-35B pilot.
Intellectual honesty is the most important character trait in human beings.
I took a good look at the video and had to ask myself why eject as it appeared the jet had come to a full stop. The only thing I could possibly figure is the throttle was somehow jammed. Obviously don't have all the facts but just looking at the video, it does give me pause as to why he decided to punch.
The B model has an auto-eject function in the event of lift-fan failure.
Source: an active duty Marine F-35B pilot.
There's the answer then. Time marches on. None of the airplanes I flew (or knew of) had an "auto eject" and speaking for myself, I don't think I'd like that.
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
Here's one of my worst fears, lost brakes whilst taxiing. All for got out.
They waited longer than I would have. If the nose wheel hit the scupper I was pulling the handle and we all briefed it that way. Upside down in the water with 56,000lbs of jet on top of you on the way down to 1000 fathoms is no way to go through life.
If something on the internet makes you angry the odds are you're being manipulated
In most planes and in most circumstances, I'd agree with you, Jorge. But in this beast, if you lost the fan in hover, you'd pitch nose down so fast you'd be inverted in a heartbeat - if you were high enough.
In this crash, the fan may have failed just due to sucking up dirt, but it DID pitch tail up at the very beginning, so if the fan failed then, why didn't the seat fire much earlier? And if it didn't fail right at touchdown, why the pitch? Curiouser and curiouser, eh?
Here's one of my worst fears, lost brakes whilst taxiing. All for got out.
They waited longer than I would have. If the nose wheel hit the scupper I was pulling the handle and we all briefed it that way. Upside down in the water with 56,000lbs of jet on top of you on the way down to 1000 fathoms is no way to go through life.
Agree. Technically they were out of the envelope, in fact, one of the front seaters played frisbee with the water. The plane floated for close to 30 minutes. Lots of HOT AIR inside those Vikings
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
In most planes and in most circumstances, I'd agree with you, Jorge. But in this beast, if you lost the fan in hover, you'd pitch nose down so fast you'd be inverted in a heartbeat - if you were high enough.
In this crash, the fan may have failed just due to sucking up dirt, but it DID pitch tail up at the very beginning, so if the fan failed then, why didn't the seat fire much earlier? And if it didn't fail right at touchdown, why the pitch? Curiouser and curiouser, eh?
Yep, if that auto eject gizmo works upon fan failure, it should have popped him out earlier. Now I'm really curious.
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
Threads like this prove that almost no topic won't have at least a few folks here who know their stuff.
Not to worry, we still need approval from the subject matter expert to validate....
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
Allegedly, the auto-eject function is inhibited by a weight on wheels switch… for whatever that’s worth.
What happens when you only have two wheels left? A WoW disable feature makes sense. Our own NATOPS didn't direct but clearly warned that ejection was recommended departing the prepared surface as it took very little angle of bank or nose down to out you out of the approved ejection envelope. I can see given the wild ride this guy had just been through that he thought stepping outside was the best answer especially if he couldn't tell if the ride had stopped.
I have several friends who survived ejecting, some with serious injury and disfigurement but alive, and unfortunately many more that didn't pull when they should have. I'll not second guess anyone pulling.
If something on the internet makes you angry the odds are you're being manipulated
In most planes and in most circumstances, I'd agree with you, Jorge. But in this beast, if you lost the fan in hover, you'd pitch nose down so fast you'd be inverted in a heartbeat - if you were high enough.
In this crash, the fan may have failed just due to sucking up dirt, but it DID pitch tail up at the very beginning, so if the fan failed then, why didn't the seat fire much earlier? And if it didn't fail right at touchdown, why the pitch? Curiouser and curiouser, eh?
Yep, if that auto eject gizmo works upon fan failure, it should have popped him out earlier. Now I'm really curious.
Maybe at the beginning was a failure mode they haven't accounted for or some sort of filtering to prevent 'premature ejection'? Did notice that it didn't eject him sideways into the fence. So either he waited until it was upright or the automatic system waited.
Here are some examples of a/c departing the runway, ejections, etc.
TA-4j with a 0/0 seat 1. ~ 1978. Landing on 19L, NAS Meridian. Dry first half of the r/w, wet on last 3000’ with left x/wind from thundershower. A/C left r/w in a drift and rolled all the way over at least once….both wingtips broken off, top of tail broken off, two gear sheared off and nose cone broken right in front of thr front seat rudder pedals. A/C came to rest inverted and crash crew had to chop both guys out with axes. Both guys had a couple of bruises but no other injuries.
2.~ 1991. Almost identical scenario. Same r/w, dry and then wet from thundershower and left X/W. A/C left the r/w pointed in the direction of travel. Just before leaving the r/w, the front seater initiated ejection. The A/C rolled down a slight embankment, remained upright and other that the burned area in and around the cockpit from the seats, the only damage was a slightly dented slat from bumping into a tree. The front seater survived and the rear seater who was just riding along on an ACM hop was killed due to a seat malfunction.
3. 1987. Student landing on r/w 26 late in the afternoon after a bombing hop out of NAF El Centro, Ca. Student missed the r/w off the right side. He rolled for about 1700’ in the Caliche befor he figured out something was wrong. No $hit Sherlock! 😳 He took it around and came back around for an arrested landing. No damage other than a couple of dents on the right flap from gravel being kicked up. His reason for landing off the r/w was, “the sun was in my eyes,” That was the student’s last hop in a Navy jet. See ya!
4. ~1978. Replacement pilot landing an F-4J at NAS Oceana on 32 right in pretty crummy weather. Broke out high and right on the approach. He made a play for the r/w, landed on the r/w but wasn’t lined up with the r/w. The a/c left the r/w on the left side, spun around a couple of times and came to rest upright, missing a couple of landing gear. No injuries to the crew but that a/c didn’t fly for a couple of years. The “nugget” got his call sign that day….His last name was Brown so after that incident, he was now “Farmer” Brown because he plowed up so much dirt. 😁
5. ~ 1980. F-14A with a similar mishap at NAS Oceana. Crummy weather, broke out lined up to the right, made a play for the r/w, landed on the r/w but wasn’t aligned with the r/w and ran off the opposite side. A/C remained upright and crew stayed with the aircraft with no damage to the airframe but it did destroy an engine which, IIRC was about 1 1/2 million bucks.
6. F-18 flown by very experienced O-5 with minimal time in the Hornet landed on wet r/w and a/c left the r/w, rolled over and came to rest inverted. Pilot suffocated because he was resting on his head and neck.
7. Date…late 1990s. T-45 departed the r/w due to not correcting properly for a crosswind. Aircraft left the runway at <70 kts and remained upright after a bit of a bumpy ride. Student pilot ejected safely after initiating ejection just after leaving the runway.
Soooo, what’s going to happen when an a/c has a problem on landing? Hard to say, but if a jet is pointed one way but actually traveling another, that’s when bad things can happen. But, if not at high speed and it’s pointed in the same direction it’s traveling they generally do ok. Just my thoughts on it
In general, the way most guys approach an excursion from the runway is if you’re going to eject, you want to do it before leaving the hard surface to ensure you have a good vertical ejection vector.
NRA Life,Endowment,Patron or Benefactor since '72.
Maybe at the beginning was a failure mode they haven't accounted for or some sort of filtering to prevent 'premature ejection'? Did notice that it didn't eject him sideways into the fence. So either he waited until it was upright or the automatic system waited.
Seats have gyros and vanes installed to immediately upright the seat before drogue chute deployment/man-seat separation. As to the WoW switch, that thing controls a LOT of systems so it makes sense it disables the "auto ejection" but still, glad we didn't have it.
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
Word on another aviation board from a LM production test pilot.
Pilot did initiate the ejection (military pilot). The jet suffered two simultaneous engine control failures. The first caused the hover test to be aborted and he choose to land and the 2nd ran the engine to mil power and caused the bounce and pitch over. Left with no way to get out of mil power other than shut down and wasn't sure it would so he punched out.
Makes sense to this ASO.
If something on the internet makes you angry the odds are you're being manipulated
A WoW disable feature makes sense. Our own NATOPS didn't direct but clearly warned that ejection was recommended departing the prepared surface as it took very little angle of bank or nose down to out you out of the approved ejection envelope. I can see given the wild ride this guy had just been through that he thought stepping outside was the best answer especially if he couldn't tell if the ride had stopped. 
