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A decision to eject from a failing F-35B fighter and the betrayal in its wake

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247 points po | 2 comments | 31 Mar 25 04:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.635s | source
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spoonjim ◴[31 Mar 25 05:50 UTC] No.43531541[source]▶
It's not a bad practice to automatically dismiss any pilot who ejects from a plane (other than test pilots) except in cases which are wholly obvious equipment failures. It will ensure that for these planes which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the pilot doesn't eject unless, yes, they really fucking need to eject.

Will this mean you accidentally fire some great pilots? Yes. But given the cost of these airplanes it is better to spend some more money on training a few more pilots.

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1. condensedcrab ◴[31 Mar 25 06:02 UTC] No.43531617[source]▶
I think you’ll find that the cost to train pilots is also substantial. Mostly pilots have 100-1000s of hours to be “combat ready” at many $1000s/flight hr. Google says around $10M for F-35 pilot.

Better to follow protocol and eject. The link is a story where a good pilot followed protocol but still got screwed over.

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2. bradgranath ◴[31 Mar 25 06:09 UTC] No.43531662[source]▶
10m for new pilot. This guy was a full bird instructor with 1000s of hours. Probably closer to 30 or 50 million.