JASDF F-35A crashed

Discuss the F-35 Lightning II
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by outlaw162 » 22 Jan 2020, 20:49

You know, the A-7 really was a remarkable aircraft. We'd demo and then have the student do 3 or 4 departures, both low and high energy, on those training syllabus rides which called for them....with some reasonably violent side loads from that initial slicing motion and follow-on disorienting rapid snap rolls....and that sturdy, reliable little inertial would still generally park within less than 10 seconds of the surveyed geographic coordinates placarded on the ramp for the parking space.

It's interesting to me that from the first operational US jet (F-80) with its benign straight-wing handling....T-33 (stretch F-80) used the so-called 'Canadian Recovery' to expedite recovery from spins, but would eventually recover hands-off (flew a few spins with an ex-RCAF T-33 IP at Niagara).....to the F-35 with its 'hands-off' spin recovery and its minimal 'hands on' philosophy to do everything else better....during the interim 50 years, aircraft companies managed to build a bunch of aircraft with some of the worst handling characteristics ever devised by engineers and accepted by the military in the interest of performance advances.

Finally we get to the point where aircraft are relatively 'pilot-proof'....and now they're talking eventually taking the 'pilot' out of aviation entirely. Glad I flew when I did.

I found that the best way to teach a primary student about the realities of being 'disoriented', was to have him close his eyes, put the Tweet in some extreme unusual attitude.....and then cage the J-8 and say 'recover'. This seemed to bring the concept of spatial disorientation right to the front burner. And this was VMC....


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by spazsinbad » 11 Feb 2020, 20:56

Another recent SD caused crash story - non-fatal thank goodness - in an F-16 in poor weather after takeoff - instruments?
Power Malfunction, Poor Weather Caused Spangdahlem F-16 Crash
11 Feb 2020 Brian W. Everstine

"...The weather was rough around Spangdahlem, with a ceiling at just 500 feet and heavy clouds causing instrumental meteorological conditions up to 15,000 feet...

...Thirteen seconds after taking off, the F-16 experienced a power disruption causing a partial power loss, regularly called a “brown-out,” which took out most of the instruments. The report states the pilot’s heads-up display went blank, the aircraft’s malfunction display set turned off, the electronic horizontal situation indicator went blank, the embedded GPS and inertial navigation set to lose power, the primary attitude director indicator froze, and the pilot-activated recovery system was unavailable.

The pilot continued to fly at what he believed was 5- to 10-degrees nose high based on the attitude indicator, which the pilot did not know was frozen. The pilot also could not determine the jet’s heading because both the HUD and horizontal situation indicator were blank.

About 45 seconds after takeoff, the F-16 descended to just 280 feet above field elevation and the pilot could begin to see trees. This prompted a quick climb on maximum afterburner. Back in the clouds, the pilot tried the recovery system and radioed to the wingmen, telling the other pilots he lost spatial orientation and to halt the training mission to help with the situation.

The pilot then realized the navigation systems malfunctioned, and wasn’t showing what he saw on the ground. This prompted a “more aggressive” cross check of instruments, in which the horizontal situation indicator restarted and froze, showing the pilot was heading in a different direction.

A minute after takeoff, the plane descended again and the pilot saw more trees, prompting another climb. The pilot tried the recovery system again, with no success. At this point, he realized if the aircraft descended again, it “wouldn’t have sufficient energy to maneuver away from the ground.” He radioed, “two’s ejecting,” and punched out about 1 minute and 31 seconds after takeoff, egressing safely...."

Source: https://www.airforcemag.com/power-malfu ... -16-crash/


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by outlaw162 » 11 Feb 2020, 21:31

Isn't this situation what the little battery bus powered 'dohickey' in the upper right hand corner is for?
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f-16c instrument panel.jpg
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by spazsinbad » 11 Feb 2020, 21:33

Probably we need to read the actual crash report to glean what the 'brown out' does (soil ones derpants?) to instruments?

Here we go: https://www.airforcemag.com/app/uploads ... DAHLEM.pdf (3.2Mb)

From 1st page EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
"...The Accident Investigation Board President found, by a preponderance of the evidence, the cause of the mishap was the combination of two factors. First, the MA experienced a partial electrical power loss (brownout). The power loss caused a cascading failure of the EGI and the MP's primary flight and navigation instruments. Due to the EGI's loss of power, the primary attitude direction indicator continued to display unreliable data without fault or failure indications and prevented the MP from transitioning fully to the standby attitude indicator for attitude reference. Second, the weather conditions at the time of the power disruption caused the MP to rely on his primary and standby flight instruments to maintain aircraft control during a critical phase of flight. The mismatch in data provided by the primary and standby attitude indicators, due to the power disruption, caused the MP to become spatially disoriented and unable to maintain aircraft control in the weather and at low altitude. The absence of either factor may have prevented this mishap."
Last edited by spazsinbad on 11 Feb 2020, 21:42, edited 4 times in total.


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by steve2267 » 11 Feb 2020, 21:36

spazsinbad wrote:Another recent SD caused crash story - non-fatal thank goodness - in an F-16 in poor weather after takeoff - instruments?
Power Malfunction, Poor Weather Caused Spangdahlem F-16 Crash
11 Feb 2020 Brian W. Everstine

"...The weather was rough around Spangdahlem, with a ceiling at just 500 feet and heavy clouds causing instrumental meteorological conditions up to 15,000 feet...

...Thirteen seconds after taking off, the F-16 experienced a power disruption causing a partial power loss, regularly called a “brown-out,” which took out most of the instruments. The report states the pilot’s heads-up display went blank, the aircraft’s malfunction display set turned off, the electronic horizontal situation indicator went blank, the embedded GPS and inertial navigation set to lose power, the primary attitude director indicator froze, and the pilot-activated recovery system was unavailable.

Source: https://www.airforcemag.com/power-malfu ... -16-crash/


That's bad ju-ju right there.

Every Viper driver, or driver of an aircraft with no mechanical AI, oughta stick one of these DYNON AVIONICS D3 POCKET PANEL PORTABLE EFIS on the panel... but... is there even room in the Viper front office for such a thing, let alone 9g-rated velcro?

Ooph. Thank goodness for springy seats.
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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by steve2267 » 11 Feb 2020, 21:39

Oh, I see Outlaw beat me to the draw... battery powered doopher apparently already installed. Unless the model that crashed had been upgraded to all electronic gizmos? Spaz' point still stands...
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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by spazsinbad » 11 Feb 2020, 21:43

Whatever doofers extra youse wanna bring IF ONE BECOMES SD DUE TO DATA MISMATCH at LOW ALTITUDE all hope is lost.

Crash report attached with the pages OCRed for easy text extraction - last couple of pages very relevant to pilot actions.
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AIB-REPORT-F-16CJ-8-OCT-19-SPANGDAHLEM OCR.pdf
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Last edited by spazsinbad on 11 Feb 2020, 21:51, edited 1 time in total.


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by outlaw162 » 11 Feb 2020, 21:44

The report says pilot confusion about failure annunciations prevented the pilot from fully transitioning to the standby AI.

Understandable....and also under trained.


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by spazsinbad » 11 Feb 2020, 21:54

outlaw162 wrote:The report says pilot confusion about failure annunciations prevented the pilot from fully transitioning to the standby AI. Understandable....and also under trained.

My quick reading with perhaps possible misunderstanding (I have no experience in these aircraft/instruments/HUDs etc) seems to indicate the pilot dun good in difficult LOW TO THE GROUND circumstances. I think I would have punched out when seeing the trees briefly etc. However this pilot stuck with it trying stuff when perhaps he should have gone earlier?
Last page 31 "...The MP overcame several human factors while attempting to maintain aircraft control and determine which instruments were providing accurate information. The MP recognized he was spatially disoriented, transmitted his condition to his flight lead, and tried to resolve it using his instruments. While the ADI and EHSI continued to display unreliable information without corresponding fault or failure indications, the MP correctly initiated his automatic recovery system multiple times and induced specific flight control inputs to detect trend information with the
altimeter and airspeed indicators to determine which attitude display was correct. However, without an outside visual reference due to IMC conditions, the MP could not resolve the mismatch in data provided by the primary and standby attitude indicators.

The weather denied the MP's ability to gain an accurate visual reference to confirm the MA orientation and flight profile at low altitude and was causal in this mishap...."


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by outlaw162 » 11 Feb 2020, 22:22

Is AutoGCAS not a player here? What is the pilot initiated automatic recovery system?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.


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by vilters » 11 Feb 2020, 22:32

The problem is with the weakest link in the chain. => The pilot' brainpower and workload..

Even with the best of instumentation systems, when the pilot loses SA, it does not matter what or how many instruments are in front of him. He is in doubt and needs time to resettle.

Unfortunately, in an aircraft moving at XXX kts and YYY sink rate, time is something one does not have.

My first and including up to the last instructor Always said; When in doubt => Back to basics and FORGET ALL the rest.
The simplest instrument is the best instrument.


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by spazsinbad » 11 Feb 2020, 22:41

outlaw162 wrote:Is AutoGCAS not a player here? What is the pilot initiated automatic recovery system? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Yeah terminology is important and should be standardised and used as such. Meanwhile "pilot-activated recovery system (PARS)" from Ground Collision Avoidance Technology https://goflightmedicine.com/gcat/


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by steve2267 » 11 Feb 2020, 22:45

outlaw162 wrote:Is AutoGCAS not a player here? What is the pilot initiated automatic recovery system?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.


Assuming the pilot had the backup AI in the upper right corner of the cockpit, and it was battery powered... I think your earlier comments are spot on.

However, my take is that AutoGCAS et al were not players 'cuz the power went to hell in a handbasket. Since it is an electric jet... why did he still have flight controls? Don't the flight control computers all run on 'lectricity too, or does each Viper have at least one super Squirrel in a cage in there somewhere?
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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by outlaw162 » 11 Feb 2020, 22:50

why did he still have flight controls?


PMG (super squirrel :D ) with next stop the FLCS batteries. (hydrazine and aircraft battery also in the hierarchy somewhere)

edit: added hydrazine gizmo
Last edited by outlaw162 on 11 Feb 2020, 23:22, edited 2 times in total.


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by steve2267 » 11 Feb 2020, 22:57

outlaw162 wrote:
why did he still have flight controls?


PMG (super squirrel :D ) with next stop the FLCS batteries. (aircraft battery also in the hierarchy somewhere)


One would think the super squirrel would frantically be powering the gizmo in the upper right you had pointed out...
Take an F-16, stir in A-7, dollop of F-117, gob of F-22, dash of F/A-18, sprinkle with AV-8B, stir well + bake. Whaddya get? F-35.


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