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Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

What Scoundreller meant is that if most of the controls are lost, then the few controls remaining could still be used to intentionally destroy the plane as much as possible. For example, the elevator (to control the pitch) might be the last working control, and it could be used to intentionally nosedive the plane after ejection.

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I got that and I was trying to answer in the least sarcastic way I could. I’ll try again.

Autopilot isn’t an all knowing AI that is better at dealing with emergency than a pilot. In the region of flight that involves a pilot ejection, especially in a plane like the F-35, the “autopilot” that would be created that could successfully scout a target area that was safe to crash in, eject the pilot, then somehow move the plane to that area with the canopy off the plane and the degradation of control that would involve, plus the million issues that could have caused the ejection in the first place… it’s not plausible to create this and still have a pilot. You’re talking about a system that is a better aviator, with more SA and more detail about aircraft systems than the human at the stick.

So, first, I don’t think we’re there with AI that is better than the pilot in this region of flight, second, to make that would be so expensive as to be ridiculous, for the incredibly rare event that a military plane needs to eject over a populated area yet also has a safe area like a body of water to crash into. Third, making that system would negate the need for a pilot in the first place so again, what’s the point?

I get the thought, but it’s silly.

to add

4 - if you had control with some badass AI why not land the plane safely for a recovery... the example in both the OP and the GP are planes lost in the country they are from not in enemy territory. The planes are not cheap... why would you purposefully wreck it in in a safe location.

EXACTLY

Actually my example assumed being in enemy territory. Nosedive the airplane for maximum destruction, to prevent the enemy from recovering anything useful from the crash site.

What do you think they’ll get? China already hacked in and grabbed the full design docs for the F-35. They have a stealth clone of it.

> Autopilot isn’t an all knowing AI that is better at dealing with emergency than a pilot.

b...bu... but all the twitter influencers told me... /s

I was not thinking of some highly advanced AI, just something ultra simple like: after ejection, attempt to pitch the plane to nosedive as vertically as possible. The intent being to to crash the airplane as badly as possible to prevent the enemy from recovering anything useful from the crash site.

Sounds like a good way to destroy your own runway, barracks near the runway, etc.

Modern ejection systems are zero-zero systems designed to allow ejection at zero speed and zero altitude which means that the aircraft may not have enough energy to successfuly destroy sensitive components across the full ejection envelope.

Why not rig it with explosives around the sensitive components and avoid the messy endeavor of trying to orient the plane for maximum destruction after ejection when that is likely to be unreliable at best?

Because then you would have introduce a brand new safety-critical system that also happens to be the most dangerous on the aircraft.

I don't think that solves anything. With critical secret pieces of hardware you will still want confirmation that they were destroyed or recover them. So even if the plane can attempt to self-destruct as much as possible, the military is still going to want to confirm the result.

The skin and coatings of these planes is secret. How do you self destruct the skin?

Anyway, it’s moot. The people with the resources to actually make this stuff already hacked in and stole it. They compromised a whole CA just to get the F-35 design docs.

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