Seems really weird. Like the throttle didn't work and maybe the pilot knows (speculating here) that ejecting cuts the engine? Because if the aircraft didn't settle right when it did he would have been at risk of being sucked into the engine via his parachute. And being run over. Or both.
A twitter comment says the F-35 can automatically eject the pilot on its own, as well. Not sure if true.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Vulcan on December 15, 2022, 07:32:39 PM
Maybe the plane was disgusted with his landing.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Oldman731 on December 15, 2022, 08:40:09 PM
Interesting how the journalist wrote "the pilot was ejected." Not "the pilot ejected". Could be nothin, but it makes it sound like he didn't do it himself.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: 100Coogn on December 15, 2022, 09:51:49 PM
Interesting how the journalist wrote "the pilot was ejected." Not "the pilot ejected". Could be nothin, but it makes it sound like he didn't do it himself.
Yeah, I heard somebody report on the news today that there was some type of fail-safe that would automatically eject the pilot. :O I wouldn't hold a whole lot of faith on that one though.
Coogan
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Rocco on December 15, 2022, 10:43:07 PM
F-35B has an auto ejection seat that triggers during a specific engine failure in hover mode. Guess it can pitch down so fast the pilot can't react in time to punch out. Kinda sounds like what happened.
It's interesting the pilot didn't eject until the second the aircraft was wings level. My guess is either the pilot or the auto eject was waiting until favourable ejection envelope.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Maverick on December 16, 2022, 10:24:38 AM
It's interesting the pilot didn't eject until the second the aircraft was wings level. My guess is either the pilot or the auto eject was waiting until favourable ejection envelope.
Watching the video yesterday that was my thought as well. I figured the onboard computer held the ejection until a survivable situation existed. I assumed it was pilot initiated but computer delayed.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Puma44 on December 16, 2022, 05:55:40 PM
It's interesting the pilot didn't eject until the second the aircraft was wings level. My guess is either the pilot or the auto eject was waiting until favourable ejection envelope.
0 (altitude) / 0 (airspeed) ejection seats have been around for quite some time, with later ones with advanced gyro stabilization systems that get the escape vector going in a safe direction, so the pilot can eject in steep angles of bank and survive. It’ll be interesting to see how this one is analyzed and presented after the fact. I was feeling the need to reach for the handles when the nose pitched down and broke the nose gear off. Additionally, it appears the descent rate was a tad high. But, again, when the accident investigation report comes out, a lot of curious questions should be answered.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: fuzeman on December 17, 2022, 09:19:17 AM
Who’s going to look into it? Air Force of course but will the NTSB be involved?
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: BoilerDown on December 17, 2022, 09:57:13 AM
Who’s going to look into it? Air Force of course but will the NTSB be involved?
From the link I posted earlier:
Quote
At the Pentagon, a spokesman said that the aircraft was being flown at the time of the crash by a U.S. government pilot, although it had not been transferred to the military yet by manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
So if it wasn't in the military's hands yet, I'd guess NTSB.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Puma44 on December 17, 2022, 10:00:11 AM
Who’s going to look into it? Air Force of course but will the NTSB be involved?
Each branch of the military has an accident investigation team. Possibly Navy for this one? All depends on who has operational control at the time of a crash.
On a military installation and no fatalities. Most likely, no NTSB involvement.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: -gg- on December 19, 2022, 08:34:05 AM
It's possible that the pilot became disabled from a vax injury. Maybe as he was landing he slumped forward on the controls and spun in.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Tig on December 19, 2022, 09:23:58 AM
Please tell me this is sarcasm. :noid He made corrective inputs as best he could, and besides, the 35 has a side fly by wire stick like the F-16. It would have gone forward harder if he had "slumped forward on the controls." That looks very much like a lift fan failure, the nose just dropped, it didn't accelerate forward.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: MiloMorai on December 19, 2022, 11:31:17 AM
Please tell me this is sarcasm. :noid He made corrective inputs as best he could, and besides, the 35 has a side fly by wire stick like the F-16. It would have gone forward harder if he had "slumped forward on the controls." That looks very much like a lift fan failure, the nose just dropped, it didn't accelerate forward.
No just clueless.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Puma44 on December 19, 2022, 12:15:53 PM
Please tell me this is sarcasm. :noid He made corrective inputs as best he could, and besides, the 35 has a side fly by wire stick like the F-16. It would have gone forward harder if he had "slumped forward on the controls." That looks very much like a lift fan failure, the nose just dropped, it didn't accelerate forward.
Some recent articles have mentioned lift fan malfunction, which makes sense. There was definitely a flight control malfunction. I still wonder if the descent to the runway was higher than desired, and the start of a bad day.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: icepac on December 19, 2022, 01:45:08 PM
I wonder if the lift fan disconnected. It would cause the horsepower the fan was using to now be freed up likely causing a slight increase in jet thrust. Or maybe throttle never decreased when lift fan was shut down.
Software, sensor, or user error.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: DmonSlyr on December 19, 2022, 06:01:04 PM
Some recent articles have mentioned lift fan malfunction, which makes sense. There was definitely a flight control malfunction. I still wonder if the descent to the runway was higher than desired, and the start of a bad day.
Did seem to me as well when watching at first glance that he was coming down a little hastily.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: -gg- on December 20, 2022, 07:27:47 PM
Did the pilot and everyone on the ground all survive this?
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Toad on December 20, 2022, 08:00:19 PM
IIRC, the exhaust nozzle on the B rotates down. Only watched the video once but kinda seems like touchdown in a pretty much normal VTOL attitude but then the tail rises and the nose dips.
Exhaust nozzle malfunction in the transition from VTOL to level flight? IE: VTOL/nozzle down and touchdown. Transition to level flight for taxi in (nozzle rotates to level) but nozzle remains down. Pilot adds power, tail rises kind of deal?
Who knows at this point. Who knows if they will ever release what really happened.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: CAP1 on December 21, 2022, 07:41:41 AM
IIRC, the exhaust nozzle on the B rotates down. Only watched the video once but kinda seems like touchdown in a pretty much normal VTOL attitude but then the tail rises and the nose dips.
Exhaust nozzle malfunction in the transition from VTOL to level flight? IE: VTOL/nozzle down and touchdown. Transition to level flight for taxi in (nozzle rotates to level) but nozzle remains down. Pilot adds power, tail rises kind of deal?
Who knows at this point. Who knows if they will ever release what really happened.
looked to me like the entire aircraft bounced. almost like touchdown was too hard. then as it started coming down again, nose dropped, nosewheel collapsed and ejection happened......
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Shuffler on December 21, 2022, 07:41:55 AM
IIRC, the exhaust nozzle on the B rotates down. Only watched the video once but kinda seems like touchdown in a pretty much normal VTOL attitude but then the tail rises and the nose dips.
Exhaust nozzle malfunction in the transition from VTOL to level flight? IE: VTOL/nozzle down and touchdown. Transition to level flight for taxi in (nozzle rotates to level) but nozzle remains down. Pilot adds power, tail rises kind of deal?
Who knows at this point. Who knows if they will ever release what really happened.
This is how I saw it too.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: -gg- on December 22, 2022, 12:31:44 AM
The bottom line is that we won't really know what happened until the FBI gets done investigating it. There's only speculation at this point.
In all honestly, to me it looks like he had stuck the landing and then it seems like he did a little hot dogging at the end, for which he paid dearly .
There's a lot of forces that we might not understand that are involved with this type of an aircraft
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: nrshida on December 22, 2022, 02:31:22 AM
There's a lot of forces that we might not understand that are involved with this type of an aircraft
Not really.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: icepac on December 23, 2022, 05:09:15 PM
It takes huge amount of power to do any hovering. I don’t see the power being reduced at all much like the guy who thought the green arrow means to accelerate from his red light. I heard his engine right before he hit. No braking.
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Puma44 on December 23, 2022, 10:45:28 PM
Title: Re: F-35 Landed, _Then_ Crashed, Pilot Ejected
Post by: Rocco on December 27, 2022, 08:28:55 PM
Just came across this article. It has unofficial info so take it with a grain of salt. but the article says they found a problem with a fuel hose in some builds. Would explain why the pilot descended so fast, if the engine's fuel flow was restricted.