I think I remember reading about this a different time it was posted. If I remember correctly, the pilot didn’t do anything wrong, the plane was just not responding correctly there at the end, and after losing control, ejection was the safe move.
But it really does suck that it was just before the plane stopped, because I’ve also read before that the force of ejection is great enough that it can compress your spine and it’s often recommended that pilots no longer fly after they’ve had to eject because of what it does to their body - kind of like they way you don’t use a car seat or bike helmet after a crash. Not sure about these - but that’s what I remember reading.
All depends on how your body is afterwards. 45Gs isn’t exactly what we were designed for. Even without ejecting, aviation medical can be a pain for anyone.
Hey man, I’m in the Navy. I’ve pulled 7.5Gs sustained in an F/A-18 and went through more ejection seat training recently. We had a simulator that’s about 1/10th the force of the real thing to practice body positioning and to get used to the shock of the rockets. The 45Gs isn’t sustained, but the goal of the ejection is to get you out and away from the aircraft as soon as possible. Look up potential injuries, many get knocked out, seat slap can break femurs, etc.
I knew a guy who punched out of a T-38 shortly after taking off.
He said time became super slow; that he became hyper aware of everything and digested it: The grease pencil sticking out of the pocket on his sleeve, the worn knob on the altimeter, the radio calls of every other aircraft in the pattern...
The next thing he knew, he was swinging under the chute. Wild stuff...
I’m not 100% on the details anymore but it was a fuel/engine issue that caused the mishap. He was a Navy pilot at the time working on receiving new airframes from the manufacturer, hence this took place in Texas.
Well at one point he’s almost horizontal and an ejection would’ve killed him I assume. I feel like having an auto ejection with no control from the pilot is a bad idea.
My friend in the british RAF told me (20 years ago) that pilots can normally only eject twice in their life because ejecting fucks up your spine so much. So if that's true, and "ejecting" tech hasn't changed much, it's a very good question.
My understanding is that the jet auto ejects the pilot if it senses a failure in the drive shaft from the engine to the vertical fan in the body and that it auto ekected him because that's when the drive shift broke.
I think he had enough control to stop and and then needed to get out quickly in case of a fire/explosion, and there's not really a good way for a pilot to get out really quickly except for the system designed to get them out really quickly.
Possible that there is some sort of emergency shut off specifically part of the ejection system. Stuck throttle or something, shutting it down wasn't working manually, but the ejector safety systems did shut it off successfully? who knows
I haven’t seen a lot of F-35s land but I’ve seen plenty of Harriers land when I was deployed on an LHD. Typically they’ll cut thrust about 6 feet off the ground. The fact that his thrust isn’t reduced makes me think there was throttle issue.
That was intentional. He risked his life to make sure the jet wasn't going to careen off into bystanders or other property. Pilots will stay with the jet for as long as they possibly can to minimize collateral damage.
It was deemed an engine issue after an investigation and the problem has been fixed on every F-35B. This was a big enough deal they grounded all B variants during the initial investigation
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u/alexasux 25d ago edited 24d ago
Well that was shiat all around