F-35B Down at Ft. Worth

Kenny Taylor

Kenny Taylor

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Kenny Taylor
This looks unlikely to buff out.. Pilot ejected without injuries.

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The video that is snipped from is very interesting....
 
I was surprised to see the pilot eject when the plane was (to my non-expert eyes) already on the ground and coming to a rest. I would have thought at that moment, the risk of injury from an ejection would have called for another course of action - i.e. climb down and run away.
 
Seemed like it still had some thrust when or just before the pilot ejected. It may not of been stable when he/she decided to eject.
 
Interesting sequence…is there no chop device’s for emergency shutdown…hope the pilot is okay and recovering…
 
Maybe a problem with the thrust vector program. Otherwise, I'd have expected the pilot to close throttle once on the ground. I'm guessing that the initial impact (landing?) was bad enough to disrupt a flight control system (the pilot?). I wonder who the lucky S.O.B. was who "volunteered" to hop in the cockpit to shut down the engine?
 
sourdough44 said:
Seemed like it still had some thrust when or just before the pilot ejected. It may not of been stable when he/she decided to eject.
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This. I would in no way second guess that decision. He pulled the lever in the dust cloud with the thing still putting out thrust and clearly not in control. Thing could have still flipped over.
 
Fearless Tower said:
This. I would in no way second guess that decision. He pulled the lever in the dust cloud with the thing still putting out thrust and clearly not in control. Thing could have still flipped over.
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Flipped over, exploded, flipped over and then exploded, exploded and then flipped over, or simply exploded and flipped over simultaneously.

Fearless Tower said:
The F-35B is not really a bad airplane.

I think of it like a Tesla. Actually kind of cool.....just not worth the price tag.
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At some point, it would have been more affordable to build more angle decks than a VTOL fighter jet, but I think the ship has sailed on that one, so we are left with a kind of cool jet that occasionally makes back its purchase price in the news coverage.

I don’t know much about the F-35B control system, but is it possible that he tried to power it down and the fly-by-wire system didn’t listen because of an errant sensor reading or the like? We see a jet do a nose-low bounce where killing the engine is the right reaction, but maybe the jet’s computer saw something else and reacted accordingly.

I’m with you on the ejection, though. We can ask him why he ejected when he returns to duty. If he hadn’t ejected, we might not have the opportunity to ask why not. There’s no way to know what was behind Door #2, but Door #1 is open and he definitely didn’t die, which is a good thing.
 
Fearless Tower said:
The F-35B is not really a bad airplane.

I think of it like a Tesla. Actually kind of cool.....just not worth the price tag.
Click to expand...

My comment was really directed at the AV-8B, which always seemed to be a problematic airframe with relatively modest capabilities. Something that was given to the Marines because they "deserved" something, even if it wasn't capable of doing what they needed. Also, easy to mort with a manpad because of the exhaust location. I don't know how much help it would have been for the Marines in a real war.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Only someone with no experience working with Harriers would say that.

The AV-8 was a POS
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Cousin flew harrier for the RAF and loved it, tears were shed when the MOD announcement came out. Must look for the videos
 
Scrabo said:
Cousin flew harrier for the RAF and loved it, tears were shed when the MOD announcement came out. Must look for the videos
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Probably flew them when they worked. Extremely temperamental airframe. When they landed on the deck, you never knew if they were going to catch on fire.
 
kyleb said:
My comment was really directed at the AV-8B, which always seemed to be a problematic airframe with relatively modest capabilities. Something that was given to the Marines because they "deserved" something, even if it wasn't capable of doing what they needed.
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AV-8s were indeed problematic. Their operational availability 20 years ago was absolutely abysmal. Deploy with 6 and hope that you had two that were operational. Only improved when the Brits retired theirs early in anticipation of the F-35B and we got the spare parts. But still temperamental.

I don't think it was as much of the Marines thinking they deserved something as it was a genuine need to replace the only fixed wing aircraft organic to the amphibious ready group. Before the F-35B became operational we were using the AV-8s for strike purposes that wouldn't necessarily warrant a full CV air wing.

They're just so bloody expensive and damaging two in one week is a kick in the nuts.
 
I can't speak to how good a harrier was, especially compared to US aircraft at the time, but I can see how the British might have loved them. Without those things, I can see how their fight with Argentina might have ended up a lot differently.

If it were USN fighting for that island, though? I think a bunch of F-14's and A-6's, and E-2s would have made it quite a bit less fun for Argentina. (Not sure on the years, but that sounds like the right aircraft for us at the time.)
 
Keep in mind there's 3 different versions of the F-35: Air Force, Navy, and Marines (the STOVL version in the video).
 
Albany Tom said:
I can't speak to how good a harrier was, especially compared to US aircraft at the time, but I can see how the British might have loved them. Without those things, I can see how their fight with Argentina might have ended up a lot differently.

If it were USN fighting for that island, though? I think a bunch of F-14's and A-6's, and E-2s would have made it quite a bit less fun for Argentina. (Not sure on the years, but that sounds like the right aircraft for us at the time.)
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Don’t forget A-7s. One of my all time favs. ;)
 
Capngrog said:
... and Ed Heinemann's Hot Rod, the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.
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Always liked A-4s as well but I’m not sure they were still being deployed on a US Carrier in 1982. Possibly the Marines? Not sure.
 
Albany Tom said:
I can't speak to how good a harrier was, especially compared to US aircraft at the time, but I can see how the British might have loved them. Without those things, I can see how their fight with Argentina might have ended up a lot differently.

If it were USN fighting for that island, though? I think a bunch of F-14's and A-6's, and E-2s would have made it quite a bit less fun for Argentina. (Not sure on the years, but that sounds like the right aircraft for us at the time.)
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Don't believe the Royal Navy *had* anything but Harrier Carriers back then. VTOL capability is of no advantage in a ground-attack role, since you don't want to slow up in hostile airspace. If the RN had kept a carrier capable of hauling Phantoms and Buccaneers, they probably would have had lower losses.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Velocity173 said:
Always liked A-4s as well but I’m not sure they were still being deployed on a US Carrier in 1982. Possibly the Marines? Not sure.
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A-4's were already in the mix in the Falklands conflict :cool:

Nauga,
and the view from the other side
 
Velocity173 said:
Always liked A-4s as well but I’m not sure they were still being deployed on a US Carrier in 1982. Possibly the Marines? Not sure.
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You're right, the A-4 was retired from the fleet around 1976, although it remained with the USN in various roles until 2003. Argentina used them rather too effectively against the British in the Falklands war.
 
nauga said:
A-4's were already in the mix in the Falklands conflict :cool:

Nauga,
and the view from the other side
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Yes, Argentina had them in the mix. However, my comment was a reply to @Albany Tom on the typical mix on a US aircraft carrier.
 
Looks like a hard landing for both plane and pilot.
 
Well, I saw this a little while ago. I was the IPT Lead for the Integrated Flight Propulsion Control System for the DoD program office back in the late 90’s prior to the downselect decision between Boeing and Lockheed. I am now retired, but would love to be on the mishap board for this one! Given the pitching moment, I would also speculate they lost thrust on the lift fan engine. Perhaps a drive shaft problem off the main engine. The coupling mechanism was an interesting mechanical marvel! He also seemed to have a pretty rapid rate of decent, which may have caused the initial bounce.
 
wanttaja said:
Don't believe the Royal Navy *had* anything but Harrier Carriers back then. VTOL capability is of no advantage in a ground-attack role, since you don't want to slow up in hostile airspace. If the RN had kept a carrier capable of hauling Phantoms and Buccaneers, they probably would have had lower losses.

Ron Wanttaja
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I think you're exactly right. They flew them because that's all they had. One aircraft to do all those things. If they had an ability to keep F-4's in the air as CAP, it might have saved them a couple of ships. But those Harriers did bring down some aircraft, if my memory is right.
 
Rcmutz said:
Given the pitching moment, I would also speculate they lost thrust on the lift fan engine. Perhaps a drive shaft problem off the main engine. The coupling mechanism was an interesting mechanical marvel! He also seemed to have a pretty rapid rate of decent, which may have caused the initial bounce.
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I wonder which was cause and which was effect.
 
Lindberg said:
I wonder which was cause and which was effect.
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Good point. The hard landing may have caused the coupling to fail which then caused the lift fan to loose thrust causing the nose down pitching moment.
 
I got this from an f35 pilot I know-

There’s an auto-eject feature in that variant but it didn’t look like that was engaged. It’s based on pitch rate in case of a lift fan or main engine thrust failure while hovering.

It looks like he lost thrust control. It should’ve cut to idle in his first touchdown. His descent rate looked like it might be higher than the full rate you can command too. Maybe he was too heavy for a mode 4 landing but couldn’t roll it on from there. ? Dunno. I’m gonna have to wait until I can get some gouge from my friends.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
iamtheari said:
Flipped over, exploded, flipped over and then exploded, exploded and then flipped over, or simply exploded and flipped over simultaneously.


At some point, it would have been more affordable to build more angle decks than a VTOL fighter jet, but I think the ship has sailed on that one, so we are left with a kind of cool jet that occasionally makes back its purchase price in the news coverage.

I don’t know much about the F-35B control system, but is it possible that he tried to power it down and the fly-by-wire system didn’t listen because of an errant sensor reading or the like? We see a jet do a nose-low bounce where killing the engine is the right reaction, but maybe the jet’s computer saw something else and reacted accordingly.

I’m with you on the ejection, though. We can ask him why he ejected when he returns to duty. If he hadn’t ejected, we might not have the opportunity to ask why not. There’s no way to know what was behind Door #2, but Door #1 is open and he definitely didn’t die, which is a good thing.
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One would hope that pulling the power would be a true pilot command, or at least a pilot option, rather than a FBW decision.
 
Any news on this one? Seems like the lift fan clutch failed or something like that to me.
 
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