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Red flag incident. Track is too wet to fly.Without stepping into your argument, it has been reported this happened in bad weather.
Have you seen this?
“He Just Lost It In The Weather” – Audio From F-35 Crash Response Emerges
Video of the crash site and radio calls made shortly after the F-35 pilot ejected add new color to this developing story.www.thedrive.com
Fair enough on the wingman losing sight of it in bad weather. But it still doesn't answer why the first pilot ejected out of a perfectly servicable aircraft while over a populated residential areaWithout stepping into your argument, it has been reported this happened in bad weather.
Have you seen this?
“He Just Lost It In The Weather” – Audio From F-35 Crash Response Emerges
Video of the crash site and radio calls made shortly after the F-35 pilot ejected add new color to this developing story.
Did the F-35B's auto-ejection seat eject the pilot without their input, but why would it continue to fly in that case as it's only supposed to do that in a completely unrecoverable situation? If the pilot initiated the ejection then again why was the aircraft able to fly itself?
It flew itself just fine without the pilot. Even the pics of the crash site show that it impacted at a very shallow angle and would probably have landed fine if it had an open area (gear up landing perhaps). Aerodynamically and mechanically it was perfectly serviceable.
It was on autopilot at the time of the ejection according to all of the articles, so the pilot wasn't really controlling it anyway, yet the pilot decided to eject over a populated residential area leaving the plane to fly itself
We don't know that for sure. There are various levels of automation. But perhaps some fault meant the autopilot couldn't be switched off or disabled, or the controls froze in the autopilot-commanded position, rendering the craft uncontrollable or unresponsive.It was on autopilot at the time of the ejection according to all of the articles, so the pilot wasn't really controlling it anyway, yet the pilot decided to eject over a populated residential area leaving the plane to fly itself
It was on autopilot at the time of the ejection according to all of the articles, so the pilot wasn't really controlling it anyway, yet the pilot decided to eject over a populated residential area leaving the plane to fly itself
babylonbee.com
Mmm. In the video, notice the darkening sky -- it's around dusk (not dawn), ie after sunset. The pilot ejected around 14h00. Local sunset was 19h33. We don't know how long the F-35 flew on unmanned in "zombie mode", but it couldn't have been for five and a half hours. For all sorts of obvious reasons.
Also, the pics of the crash site show flat fields and forest with no mountains nearby, hence my comment earlier about the shallow angle of impact as it cut through trees. There were no signs of an explosion either as in that TikTok video.
They would have had to have most of their instruments go down to duff it up that badly. My experience using Garmin glass cockpit displays is that the display tells you exactly what path to follow to line you up perfectly. I can only imagine that the F-35 has a way better system as well as redundant backup systems.
It is entirely a possibility but in the absence of anything except for the audio interpretation of the crash I posted it.
A HUD and glass cockpit aren't the same thing. A HUD gives you important information so you don't have to look down at the instruments, but the instruments are still there on the glass cockpit panel along with other important information. Unless this pilot was an absolute noob as @Dave suspects then they would have been well aware of the redundant systems and not relied only on the helmet HUD.
Yep and did you read about the incident? The pilot was in a flat spin in that incident which is every pilot's worst fear. The F-35 was flying stably over a residential area according to the reports. There was no sign of any issues when the F-35 pilot ejected.
