JASDF F-35A crashed

I suggest having them bring along a stand alone gps/attitude indicator/ altimeter device as back up. We had a few for our Mooney. Completely independent from the Mooney.

There is a back up ATTITUDE INDICATOR in the F-35 (I think it has been pointed out already). See previous page: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=55255&p=419952&hilit=backup#p419952 IF the pilot is DISORIENTED catastrophically as pointed out earlier - how will more instruments help? As I mentioned training is important along with knowledge about disorientation and how to deal with it. I think the pilot had a medical problem exacerbated by SD or vice versa. TYPE III (incapacitating): viewtopic.php?f=22&t=55255&p=420943&hilit=Type+III#p420943

Would AGCAS have helped?

Does it work over water?

Crashed aircraft F35A fighter, found part of the pilot's body Iwaya Defense Minister
07 Jun 2019 Abema Times

"Crashed aircraft F35A fighter, discovers part of the pilot's body

Regarding the Air Self Defense Force's F35A fighter jet crashed off Aomori Prefecture in April, Defense Minister Iwaya announced that it had found part of the missing pilot's body.

The Minister of Defense Iwaya has declared that he has found something that seems to be a part of the pilot's body from the sea area where the parts of the F35A were scattered, and has determined that he has died.

The Self Defense Force has been searching in the surrounding sea area for the crash of the latest stealth fighter F35A. So far I have found some of the engines and wings but no flight recorder. The search for the aircraft is virtually discontinued."

Source: https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=2019 ... abema-soci GOOGLE TRANSLATE: https://www.google.com/search?q=google+ ... ss&ie=&oe=

Now his family can have closure. RIP.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... na/011000c

Missing Japanese F-35A pilot's death confirmed by Ministry of Defense

2019/06/07

At a June 7 press conference held after a Cabinet meeting, Iwaya confirmed that Maj. Hosomi had died.
He said that body parts discovered among the aircraft's dispersed wreckage were confirmed to be Maj. Hosomi's remains on June 5.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan ... ce=twitter

The JASDF has officially stated that spatial disorientation was the likely cause of the crash.

"We believe it highly likely the pilot was suffering from vertigo or spatial disorientation and wasn't aware of his condition," Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya told a briefing.

"It can affect any pilot regardless of their experience."

More info from the above source:

"“We believe it highly likely the pilot was suffering from vertigo or spatial disorientation and wasn’t aware of his condition,” Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya told a briefing. “It can affect any pilot regardless of their experience.”...

...Japan, Iwaya said, would increase vertigo training for its pilots, [spatial disorientation SD training] check its remaining F-35s and meet residents living near the base from which they operate, in Misawa, Aomori prefecture, before restarting flights.

The air force has yet to recover any intact data from the $126 million aircraft’s flight data recorder to back its assessment, which is based on data and communication received by ground controllers and interviews with other pilots.

The pilot, who had only 60 hours flying time in the F-35, gave no indication he was in trouble and did not try to avoid a collision despite advanced instrumentation and a ground proximity warning system that should have alerted him to pull up. [probably descending too fast at that stage] The air force did not find any indication he had attempted to eject...." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japa ... SKCN1TB0BM

The Japanese Ministry of Defense have posted their official report on the crash:

https://www.mod.go.jp/asdf/news/houdou/H31/20190610.pdf

I'm attaching two documents; the first is a raw Google translation of the report's text (created using Google Translate's 'translate document' function):
download/file.php?id=30637

The second document is my semi-manual English interpretation of the report - I do not speak / read Japanese, but what I've done is used Google translate on paragraphs, individual sentences, phrases and even words or characters to get a better understanding of what the actual meaning is behind the Japanese text, then I've re-written it in English as closely as possible while maintaining half-decent grammar and edited it back into the original PDF, including with the graphics on the last 2 pages:
download/file.php?id=30639

In short, the F-35A had just killed 2 targets during air-to-air training and had radioed "21 (his aircraft code), 2 kills". A US military aircraft (type not disclosed) was flying nearby at 37,000ft however, so air traffic control orders the F-35A to descend to increase separation. The pilot replies with "Yes. Roger that" but is now in a slight left turn and has a serious descent rate (around 820ft/s). About 20 seconds later, ground control asks him to further separate by performing a left turn, to which the pilot changes heading by about 100 degrees and replies calmly with a "Yes, Knock it off". At this point he's at about 15,500ft and still descending. For the next 15 seconds the jet is descending at about 1000ft/s (factoring in his horizontal velocity he would have been travelling at near Mach 1), up until radar / data link contact is lost at <1000ft from the surface and the plane hits the water moments later.

Because the pilot was awake and replied with "Yes, knock it off" in a calm manner after that left turn (and didn't communicate anything else), the Japanese MoD believes that it was spatial disorientation and not G-LOC or a problem with the jet's engine, controls or electrical systems in general. That said, they will be educating their pilots on G-LOC and performing special inspections on the jets just in case (a false instrument reading might possibly resulted in the spatial disorientation).

I made a text post with graphic and now it has disappeared? Now I'll just post GIF graphic made from 'Dragon029' PDF....

Hurrah for AGCAS (on any type of plane)

When you start losing altitude during an "engaged" turn, natural refelxes (pull the stick, push engine) are wrong. despite whatever instruction, if you are furthermore losing consciousness of your environment etc....

Thoughts to the unit and the family

Looking at some representative pictures of the HMDS display from the Avionics forum, a couple of questions come to mind concerning the type of confusion with displays that can lead to misinterpretation.

In the first pic, how is it possible for the 'zero pitch line' (commonly called the horizon line, though incorrectly so) to overlay the terrain well below the zero pitch line as it passes through what appears to be a hill, with in fact the FPV symbol still on the 'zero pitch line' at the base of the hill? Also in the pic, the negative pitch line tabs that point to the zero pitch line are on the outboard ends of the lines themselves.

In the second schematic from the Norwegian discussion, the negative pitch line tabs are on the inboard ends of the lines, while the positive pitch line tabs are outboard. Never seen that before.

What would this guy have been looking at in that steep descent, assuming the display was functioning properly?

What would have been his best indication of "up"?

The first pic would either be photoshopped (by Rockwell Collins, etc for marketing material) or shows some early / non-standard version of the helmet symbology in a simulator where the pitch ladder and other data follows the helmet.

What would this guy have been looking at in that steep descent, assuming the display was functioning properly?

What would have been his best indication of "up"?

This is what his HMDS would have shown if he was looking forward:


This is what his HMDS would have shown if he was looking elsewhere:


This video from 2:54 shows a depiction of what the GCAS system would have shown as he was getting close to hitting the ocean, though the real thing likely looks slightly different (the rest of the HMDS symbology doesn't match the above images for example):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkBA9cCAtTY


The Japanese report also states that there was no noticeable recovery attempt, so it's unclear whether (manual) GCAS worked properly, or was somehow disabled, or if the pilot saw it but chose not to act due to spatial disorientation and a lack of trust in his equipment.

That first picture looking out the front seems a little flaky.

You've got a zero pitch line apparently moving up with attitude, not inertially fixed,

you've got an "X" thru the FPV apparently indicating the FPV not in the FOV....where is it?

One would think the looking forward display would be centered on either the attitude symbol or the FPV (like in the video at -70 degrees FP).

And the 'looking elsewhere' view....no room for attitude confusion there.

Here is a detailed PDF on the F-35 AGCAS testing that just came out on June 7th, 2019.

I put it over on the Program Docs page.
viewtopic.php?p=421517#p421517