911 call shows circumstances of F-35 ejection | Hacker News Reader

911 call shows circumstances of F-35 ejection

apnews.com

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They talk about it as some kind of feature to save pilots, but what they're describing is just how a normal fly by wire system works. If you are in straight and level flight and don't provide any inputs, it will remain in straight and level flight.

That doesn't just apply to the F-35, it's the same for a regular A320 family passenger jet and has been for more than 30 years.

But if the pilot has ejected, shouldn't it go into a circular holding pattern?

Why not a loop, to allow the pilot to re-enter the craft after taking out their pursuer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-wFI9vTqto

I’m envisioning a team of software engineers and a product manager balking at the idea that they would need to implement a feature meant to save the airframe after the pilot ejects.

“Who’s gonna need that? If the pilot ejects the thing is a lost cause and it’s just gonna crash anyways.

Besides, do you know how hard that would be to implement? We don’t have the time. Anything that happens with the autopilot after ejection is out of scope.”

The flight control system isn't aware of the ejection nor any navigation settings. It's not an autopilot, only a stability system that remains perfectly stable if nobody provides inputs.

On autopilot it would be different. If the right mode is enabled it will keep flying the programmed route until the end of that route. Then at the end of the route it will either continue straight ahead on the last heading or enter a holding pattern at that position. Depends on what was programmed in the navigation database.

But in the end it doesn't really matter after an ejection, it will run out of fuel and crash.

It's within the realm of possibility to have it self land after an incident. They certainly can't now, but we have the technology if we wanted.

Logically, I think the main thing is there is typically a reason a pilot is ejecting. As the saying goes, a pilot does not eject from a good airplane. The assumption there being if the plane could be landed, it would have been landed by its pilot. If the pilot ejected, it's because they're was something gravely wrong, and therefore is not of great value to put a lot of effort into doing fancy tricks in a about to crash airplane.

Surely having a hole in the roof because of the ejection changes the aerodynamics significantly. I don't really know anything about how planes work, but wouldn't that change its trajectory if the controls are all left the same?

It's smart enough to compensate for it. Otherwise it wouldn't work with wind or air of different temperature/density "if the controls are all left the same"

Just like a car with speed limiter can maintain speed when you go from flat to incline, provided the engine is good enough

Even prior to FBW, aircraft which had been vacated by their pilots contentedly cruised on with a big hole in the roof. A Hunter was abandoned by its RAF pilot in the 1960s and proceeded to land itself on the runway, whilst a MiG-23 and a Harrier flew without their drivers until fuel exhaustion in the 1980s.

That's the whole point of fly by wire.

In an old school plane yes, the pilot would have to compensate for this because the pilot is in the feedback loop.

In fly by wire systems there is an IMU with gyros, accelerometers and magnetometers. The plane servos itself to a heading and velocity, and the pilot provides imput that changes the target position in space, and then the plane decides how to hey to the target position.

I have been and remain so very confused about all this. Why did the pilot eject? Why was he flying in the first place? Why wasn't the flight being tracked before the ejection? Why wasn't it tracked after? Not a single detection system caught an effectively unknown, after ejection, fighter jet flying at low altitude just blasting through U.S. airspace?

This is all weird and there seems to be a lot of excuses like "system behaved as intended" (paraphrase). What U.S. security system behaved as intended that we didn't have a clue about a fighter jet traveling through our air space and couldn't find it until a day later, presumably because someone on the ground saw the crash or wreckage. What if some random person took a bunch of photos of the classified systems and uploaded them somewhere, unaware or not?

It's a stealth aircraft designed to be difficult-to-impossible to track.

It should have a transponder and be identifiable (at least for ATC and TCAS) while flying in domestic airspace and not in a combat mission. What if it accidentally collided with a civil airliner?

I couldn't say how common it is, but military aircraft definitely fly in American airspace without transponders. A few months ago I hear/saw some Osprey fly overhead. They were not visible on ADS-B Exchange (which does not block military transponders).

  What if it accidentally collided with a civil airliner?

Not much. I can't think of anything more recent than Hughes Airwest 706 (and that predates mode s transponders by a few decades), and all that came out of that was a promise to communicate with civilian ATC.

Some reports claim that there was more than one aircraft. If they were flying in formation, generally only the lead runs a transponder.

> It should have a transponder

Maybe they were sick of being tracked by Google

Yes, I know what the F-35 is. So you feel comfortable now that it's been actively demonstrated that the U.S. can't detect such a jet in its airspace? Even its own jet it knew about?! It sounds like they had to basically wait until some farmer called it in after it crashed in their field.

Also, the F-35 is stealth only to some bands of radar (I would assume given certain windows of altitude), is not invisible, and is not silent.

I mean, your average air traffic control radar won't exactly be on par with that fielded by AWACs, Patriot batteries or Aegis systems.

Can't or won't admit to it? There's plenty of reason to play dumb even if only to sell a few more.

Why is that a problem? Hiding has always been easier than detecting in the real world.

People are too used to computers which make detection easy. But before computers, a king would have to physically send tax collectors to gather money and soldiers to guard the borders.

Being able to spot all enemies sneaking in was never practical, and still isn’t. The US government wishes it was that effective.

> So you feel comfortable now that it's been actively demonstrated that the U.S. can't detect such a jet in its airspace? Even its own jet it knew about?!

It's a stealth aircraft specifically designed to thwart radar systems. During an ejection, it is specifically designed to zeroize its sensitive data. It only broadcasts limited-range IFF. In an operational environment like hostile airspace, this is the behavior you would want, and our pilots train in battle-like conditions where possible.

This is standard, expected behavior. I'm not sure why you wouldn't feel comfortable knowing that we have radar-defeating tech, because pretty much everyone does at this point...

... Okay, I'll be specific. I don't see why you'd be MORE UNCOMFORTABLE than you already are. Stealth tech has outpaced radar tech at range. It sounds like the conditions weren't favorable for detection, either.

Edit: Just realized this. Boy if you're worried about us not being able to detect where an aircraft is when the operators have left, I've got some real bad news for you about nuclear submarines...

>During an ejection, it is specifically designed to zeroize its sensitive data.

How do you know that?

Aside from being able to read the article, I've worked with the kind of crypto used by the USAF. Maybe not the f-35 specifically, but protections like this are both blatantly obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a moment, and generally requiredd.

So you assumed it. Got it.

I read the article. It does not say what you claimed.

> “Upon pilot ejection, the aircraft is designed to erase (or ‘zeroize’) all secure communication.”

So much for that reading comprehension.

> So you assumed it.

I worked loading crypto on aircraft. Stop running your mouth.

There is no way the F-35 was flying without radar reflectors and likely even ADSB on.

That said however if there was a major systems failure you loose tracking and even if you have a pretty good idea where the aircraft was it’s still not that easy to find in a wooden area.

> Why did the pilot eject?

Probably an equipment failure that put him into an unrecoverable situation. This could be any number of things, many of them not the fault of the pilot, such as engine failure from a bird strike.

> Why was he flying in the first place?

Pilots need hundreds of hours on their airplanes annually. Air force pilots aren't just flying missions. If you want to get good F-35 pilots you need pilots flying the F-35.

> Why wasn't the flight being tracked before the ejection? Why wasn't it tracked after?

It likely was. Loss of contact could be related to the equipment failure. The pilot mentioned he abandoned the aircraft at 2000ft. This is a very low altitude, in a mountainous region of the United States. Loss of contact could also be related to that. If the jet was on fire due to equipment failure, avionics could have been damaged to the point of inoperability before the air frame failed, and it could glide for some time possibly.

> This is all weird and there seems to be a lot of excuses like "system behaved as intended" (paraphrase).

A lot of the F-35 is still classified. If you're expecting a solid answer I think you'll be disappointed.

> What if some random person took a bunch of photos of the classified systems and uploaded them somewhere, unaware or not?

Oopsie.

Most interesting is how life is so different from fiction.

I mean, the premise for The Night Agent (Netflix) was a dedicated line monitored 24/7 just to help agents.

In real life, a downed pilot needs to call 911 and go through all the misunderstandings in that call to access an ambulance and other services.

Shouldn't the pilot have a dedicate number to call in case of an emergency?

I would imagine the pilot, like many of us, had the "dedicated emergency number for downed agents" safely stored in a cell phone (i.e. not memorized). Medical shock [from ejection/error] could exacerbate any attempts at recall.

My question is still, can this aircraft decide on its own to eject the pilot?

For example if it thinks it is going to crash and the pilot is unconscious (or it thinks that). Like one of those attention detectors in a car.

Protocol 3: Protect The Pilot.

For some context, this is a Titanfall reference. Part of the story in Titanfall 2 is a pilot getting ejected by a mech against the pilots wishes. I'll refrain from saying more as to avoid spoiling too much.

Why is nobody asking why the pilot ejected from a serviceable aircraft? How is it a safety feature to have a massive fighter jet fly off without a pilot in a random direction? Did they not consider “what if the pilot ejected”? It all seems very strange.

There was a malfunction according to most reports. There are many possible failures where the jet could fly but ejection was still the best choice.

For example total loss of fight instruments in IMC (no / low visibility). It could then fly straight if you're lucky, but given that you have no way to crosscheck and may be about to crash, ejection is the right choice.

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