[HN Gopher] British F-35B crash possibly caused by 'rain cover' ...
___________________________________________________________________
British F-35B crash possibly caused by 'rain cover' left on during
launch
Author : rwmj
Score : 86 points
Date : 2021-11-24 13:16 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theaviationist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theaviationist.com)
| glitchc wrote:
| Ultimately it's the pilot's responsibility to do a visual
| inspection of the entire aircraft. Of particular importance are
| the propulsion components and the control surfaces. We can blame
| the ground crew for missing an item on the checklist, but the
| pilot should have caught it.
|
| Those covers are red for a reason, so that they're easy to spot
| and remove. Furthermore, the ladder to climb into the cockpit is
| right next to the intake, and if you see one, you have to check
| the other side. How was it possibly missed?
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think this is not true in military aviation. I've heard it's
| a sign of trust in the aircraft's ground crew for a military
| aviator to walk out, strap in, and blast off, trusting that the
| ground crew has done their job thoroughly and correctly.
| _djo_ wrote:
| I don't know who practices that, but it's not a very
| professional approach. The only time I've known that to
| happen has been for quick reaction alerts, when it's
| considered an acceptable risk to save time.
|
| For normal operations the pilot doing their own check isn't a
| lack of confidence in the ground crew, it's the prudent,
| smart, and responsible thing to do when playing with people's
| lives and very expensive aircraft. I've never known ground
| crew to get upset over it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Air Force Thunderbirds: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-
| media/all-news/2012/march/31/m...
|
| (Which means I'm only partially right, but I admit mostly
| wrong. I've also seen strong evidence that the Blue Angels
| do something similar, but can't quickly find a reference.)
| CobaltFire wrote:
| I can't speak to the Thunderbirds, but I know that on the
| Maintenance side getting accepted to the Blue Angels is
| HARD. They are extraordinarily picky, and the application
| process is demanding.
|
| The people who go tend to be the ones everyone hates at
| the front line squadrons because they are the sticklers
| for doing things right and putting in the work to do it
| right AND fast. Most others will cut corners on one or
| the other without oversight.
| _djo_ wrote:
| Ah yeah, the Blue Angels do the same. It's all part of
| the show for them, with the aircraft parked in view of
| the public and a big deal made of the pilots walking to
| the aircraft and there being a smooth and rehearsed
| synchronised starting process.
|
| I don't really understand why they do it, to be honest.
| Most other military display teams, including the famous
| Red Arrows and Frecce Tricolori, just do regular startups
| with all the usual preflight checks.
| pie42000 wrote:
| This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It makes sense
| for something that you personally own and maintain yourself
| i.e. a Cesna. Do you expect Air Force 1 pilots to do walk
| around? Astronauts? Submarines?
|
| These are mostly war machines that have to be scrambled
| asap, meaning the pilot is expected to jump in and fly. To
| alter that during peacetime would be silly, as you want to
| establish habits.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| All pilots, no matter what aircraft they fly, do the pre-
| flight walk around. Too many people died by not doing it,
| so they do.
| _djo_ wrote:
| The pilots of Air Force One do in fact do pre-flight
| inspections and walks around, yes. I've seen them do it
| personally. All military pilots do their own pre-flight
| inspections, including checking inlets, exhausts, the
| undercarriage, and flight surfaces.
|
| But don't take my word for it, here's a video I found as
| literally the first result when googling for it, showing
| a USAF F-22 pilot conducting a full pre-flight walk
| around inspection:
| https://www.dvidshub.net/video/149526/f-22-walk-around
|
| Before saying something is the 'stupidest thing' you've
| ever heard, it might be worth first making sure you
| actually know what you're talking about.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Most Air Forces are nowhere near as professional as USAF
| so they might be much less likely to be enforcing pilot
| pre-flight checks.
|
| There are no shortage of horror stories about what is
| found when USAF pilots get deployed to train pilots in
| other Air Forces.
| _djo_ wrote:
| Unless you're talking about dysfunctional developing
| world air forces like the Afghan Air Force I have
| difficulty believing that, and even then I'd question it.
| I can't say I know how every single force operates, but
| I've seen a few African air force crews doing preflight
| preparations and in all cases the pilots did their own
| inspections. It's really basic operational stuff.
|
| The USAF is also not any more professional than other
| developed world and NATO air forces, who all have similar
| procedures in any case.
| metaphor wrote:
| > _I've heard it's a sign of trust in the aircraft's ground
| crew for a military aviator to walk out, strap in, and blast
| off, trusting that the ground crew has done their job
| thoroughly and correctly._
|
| To be sure, military aviation doesn't give a flying fuck
| about virtue signaling. The name of the game is checklist and
| enumerated procedure compliance or GTFO the flightline/deck;
| it doesn't matter if you're a fighter pilot or maintenance
| ground crew.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I've heard it's a sign of trust in the aircraft's ground
| crew for a military aviator to walk out, strap in, and blast
| off, trusting that the ground crew has done their job
| thoroughly and correctly._
|
| If that's true, that sounds kinda weird. Military aviation
| should run on procedures and checklists with redundancies.
|
| When someone hands you an unloaded gun, you don't just trust
| that it's unloaded even if it's their job, but you check
| yourself there's no round in the chamber first before
| handling it.
|
| Same with fighter jets, checks should be made by crew and
| pilot to ensure nothing escapes.
| cbtacy wrote:
| That is simply not true.
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| > How was it possibly missed?
|
| Since you asked, here's one idea:
|
| - Did you notice the rain covers are present in the second
| photo in the article? I had to do a double-take because they're
| very dark. I suspect they're less obvious compared to other
| aircraft.
|
| - Was the launch at night? If so, is the deck of this carrier
| appropriately lit wherever this plane was parked for
| inspection?
|
| This is pure speculation. My point is you can have all the
| checklists in the world but bad design could contribute
| significantly to a process failure.
|
| It sounds like this was a test flight of new equipment on a new
| carrier. I'd expect some design issues to be uncovered at this
| stage.
| cbtacy wrote:
| The color in the image is misleading. They are very bright
| red. Honestly, I have no idea how this could have happened
| without at least two people simply not doing their job, at
| all.
| sschueller wrote:
| I thought everything that needs to be removed before takeoff
| needs to be bright orange/red?
| dillondoyle wrote:
| It looks red to me. And probably more contrast/color with
| actual eyes. That photo is during the day and bright behind
| it cameras aren't great at that.
| stan_rogers wrote:
| ...and flagged. It shouldn't just be a panel/plug, there
| should be a ginormous length of red webbing attached with a
| "you can't miss it" "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" text in white
| (on both sides of the webbing) as well. It's not like we
| haven't been doing that for fifty-plus years or anything.
| That was old news when I was in the service [mumble]
| decades ago and our quaint training films on type were
| nearly twenty years old at that point (which should be a
| clue right there that I'm Canadian).
| hyperbovine wrote:
| Perhaps the millenials in charge of designing this most
| recent fighter tired of your grandfather's rain cover
| aesthetic, and modernized them to feature Hoefler Whitney
| and more muted colour palette. :-)
| pacificmint wrote:
| I mean, there are certain lessons that each generation
| seems to have to learn anew.
|
| It just that one would expect this to not be one of them.
| Causality1 wrote:
| The implications, if that is the cause, are shocking. Forget
| about the deck crew and the pilot being blind morons. It means
| the flight computer for a plane that took twenty years and a
| trillion dollars to develop can't detect that there's a fucking
| cover blocking the engine.
|
| How does a twenty thousand dollar sedan have a more robust
| readiness-detection system than a hundred million dollar
| airplane?
| mrep wrote:
| It didn't cost a trillion dollars to development. The trillion
| dollar number everyone always loves to throw around is for the
| total lifetime cost (i.e., to 2070) to $1.5 trillion in then-
| year dollars which also includes operations and maintenance.
| swarnie wrote:
| I personally love that number.
|
| That number has kept me employed for 7 years so far and will
| continue paying my rent cheques long after its necessarily.
|
| Long live the global murder complex.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The F-35B costs (currently- it's growing by the day) roughly
| a third of a _billion_ dollars each in acquisition cost
| alone.
|
| That's over a quarter billion pounds.
|
| To put that in perspective: the pre-primary and primary
| education budget for the _entire country_ , in 2016, was 800
| million pounds.
|
| Do you think MPs will hand-wring about this plane being
| flushed down the drain as much as they do about fiscal
| prudence in early education expenses?
|
| I wonder if UK teachers spend their personal funds on school
| supplies like teachers in the US do.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > To put that in perspective: the pre-primary and primary
| education budget for the entire country, in 2016, was 800
| million pounds.
|
| That doesn't sound right. This page says the UK spent 31
| billion on pre-primary and primary education in 2020
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/298910/united-kingdom-
| uk...
|
| (If that has a paywall, try googling for the info, which is
| how I was able to view the page.)
|
| Please help me understand the discrepancy or edit your
| comment.
| tcskeptic wrote:
| Its not right -- there are about 4.6M primary school
| publicly funded students in the UK.
|
| Source : https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governm
| ent/uploads/...
|
| The UK did not spend 173 pounds per student for a year of
| education -- the 30B cost leads to per student spending
| of about $6500, which is starting to approach a
| reasonable figure.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| So why dont they release the flight deck cctv to prove this or
| is it more likely a crap coverup?
|
| So the engine a joint effort between Lockheed (designer) and
| Rolls Royce (builder),
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
| makes me wonder if Rolls Royce used their turbine blades on
| this aircrafts engine? https://www.theengineer.co.uk/rolls-
| royce-single-crystal-tur...
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187770581...
|
| You see the US Lockheed C-130 Hercules has a different flight
| computer compared to the British version namely because of the
| use of different engines, the US engines are not as powerful
| and the USAF fly within the parameters of the flight computer,
| but the British Lockheed C-130 has a cut down flight computer
| which allows more risky manoeuvres because the Rolls Royce
| engines are more powerful, so they can land and take off on
| shorter jungle runways, stepper climbs things like that, ideal
| for security services operations. The Apache Helicopter is the
| same, the US engine is not as powerful as the Rolls Royce
| engine so you can do more in the UK version of the Apache.
|
| So I wonder with this one if it really is a crap coverup or
| not? There's a lot of technology built into these things and as
| we become more reliant on technology to help fly these things
| instead of the more natural mechanical elements of control from
| years gone by, there's more vulnerability being introduced
| alongside the de rigueur complexity.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >How does a twenty thousand dollar sedan have a more robust
| readiness-detection system than a hundred million dollar
| airplane?
|
| because the car industry is driven by market forces, not
| government corruption driven monopolies. I'm not sure why
| anybody thinks the US military is anything more than a paper
| tiger after the last few decades of failure, highlighted by the
| failed withdrawal from Afghanistan. I feel bad for the
| countries that got pressured into buying the F-35
| Causality1 wrote:
| I think the absolute incompetence the Navy has exhibited in
| failures to move their ships around the Pacific without
| running into things is a better example.
| nickff wrote:
| Ship collisions have always been a problem; the USN happens
| to operate many large ships.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I'm not sure why anybody thinks the US military is
| anything more than a paper tiger after the last few decades
| of failure, highlighted by the failed withdrawal from
| Afghanistan._
|
| I dunno about that, but the military industrial complex made
| absolute bank though, for which the taxpayers generously
| picked up the tab.
| elif wrote:
| It's possible (I would say likely) that there was a warning
| light. During normal aviation takeoffs, there are procedures
| that govern when it is too late to abort, and procedure
| dictates that it is safer to attempt flight. For a carrier, I
| imagine that point-of-no-return is about a few feet from
| stationary.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| The NEXT version of the software will surely add this check!
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Wait for the subscription-ware version where you need to pay
| 2 Billion per year to the defense contractor for the feature.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| That sounds like what we have now. We just haven't
| formalized it. :-(
| credit_guy wrote:
| > a plane that took [...] a trillion dollars to develop
|
| It didn't take a trillion dollar to develop. The trillion
| dollar figure includes acquisition costs (going to 2070) as
| well as operations and maintenance over the same period.
|
| By the way, the F-35 isn't any more expensive than other
| aircraft. For example for the latest budget proposal (2022),
| the DoD plans to acquire 85 F-35s [1] for a total price of $85
| BN, or about $150 MM per plane. At the same time, it plans to
| acquire 14 tanker aircraft KC-46 for a unit price of about $180
| MM, and 9 cargo helicopters CH-53K for a unit price of $190 MM.
| Yes, you read that right, those are helicopters, they are not
| attack, but cargo helicopters, and cost almost $200 MM apiece.
|
| [1]
| https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/263871...
| djsbs wrote:
| Now add the expected maintenance costs over the life of the
| aircraft.
|
| - How many hours of flight can the F-35 do before it needs to
| be hangered?
|
| - How long does it take in the hanger?
|
| - Can the F-35 even go supersonic without ripping off its
| anti-radar coat (thus becoming more visible as soon as it
| decelerates?)
|
| - given the cramped space, how capable are aircraft carriers
| at F-35 repair? How many can they do at a time? What is the
| duty cycle of the F-35 on a carrier?
|
| - Is the plane even finished the design phase?
|
| The US should have bought 500 F-22 and given the Navy its own
| carte blanc design skipping the F-35 altogether.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| "- Can the F-35 even go supersonic without ripping off its
| anti-radar coat (thus becoming more visible as soon as it
| decelerates?)"
|
| Yes. One of the major improvements over the F-22 is the way
| the stealth coating works. Its baked in to the skin of the
| aircraft. It does not flake off, it does not need to be
| constantly reapplied. The F-22 and all other prior stealth
| aircraft, F-117 and B-2 are hangar queens because of their
| fragile stealth coatings. This is not the case for F-35.
| Not only is a game changer but it was also a requirement to
| make a carrier based stealth fighter actually practical.
|
| "- given the cramped space, how capable are aircraft
| carriers at F-35 repair? How many can they do at a time?
| What is the duty cycle of the F-35 on a carrier?"
|
| Just as capable at servicing any other carrier based
| aircraft. The F-35 its actually smaller than the super
| hornet in every dimension so space shouldn't be a problem.
| Its much smaller than the F-14 was. And its biggest
| servicing issue wasn't its size but the complexity of its
| swing wing.
|
| "- Is the plane even finished the design phase?"
|
| Ok, now I'm starting to wonder if you actually have
| informed criticisms or if you are just an F-35 hater and
| only want to spread FUD.
| nradov wrote:
| All carrier aircraft are typically brought into the hangar
| for several hours of maintenance after every flight. But if
| necessary the F-35B can be immediately refueled and rearmed
| on the flight deck and sent right out again in a matter of
| minutes.
|
| Maintainers on a carrier can do fairly complex repairs,
| including engine replacement. If they need more working
| space in the hangar then other aircraft can be parked
| temporarily on the flight deck.
|
| The F-35 is primarily a strike fighter so supersonic speed
| isn't that useful. The biggest problem with flying at
| supersonic speeds is it drastically increases fuel
| consumption, and the F-35B has a very limited fuel
| capacity. British carriers have no tankers.
|
| As long as an aircraft is still in active production the
| design phase is never "finished". Updates will continue for
| decades. The F-15 design is about 50 years old and it's
| still not finished.
|
| The F-22 production program was cancelled in 2011 because
| there was just no funding available. It wasn't possible to
| fight the wars in the Middle East, _and_ procure more
| F-22s. Something had to give.
| jonnybgood wrote:
| > The US should have bought 500 F-22 and given the Navy its
| own carte blanc design skipping the F-35 altogether.
|
| Why? The F-22 is an air superiority fighter. The F-35 is a
| multi-role fighter. They're built for different purposes.
| It's crucial to understand the difference.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| "Multirole" is just Pentagon speak for "smaller, cheaper,
| and limited, but still stealthy".
| jonnybgood wrote:
| No, it doesn't mean that at all. It's differences can
| range from types of munitions to avionics. The fact you
| said a multirole fighter is more limited shows you really
| don't know the differences. A multirole is actually more
| capable. A multirole like F-35 can do air superiority but
| it won't outperform an aircraft designed specifically for
| air superiority like the F-22. The F-22 does not do air-
| to-ground strikes. The F-35 can.
|
| The multirole fighter is not a new concept.
| rjsw wrote:
| The F-22 has done air-to-ground strikes, its problem is
| just being too expensive.
| Causality1 wrote:
| That's the issue, trying to make one airframe fill three
| drastically different roles and hence failing at all of
| them. Every time the F-35 turns in a miserable
| performance report its mission profile is changed to make
| it look like less of an embarrassment.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| The F-35 wasn't intended to do everything. There are
| certainly those who have tried to make it do everything
| but that wasn't the intent of the program.
|
| For example it was never meant to be an air superiority
| fighter. While it does have a great radar, missiles and
| even a gun on the air force version it was never meant to
| fill the role of an F-15 or F-22. The air force wants to
| replace the F-16 with the F-35.
|
| The new Digital Century program shows the AF hasn't
| forgotten about the importance of dedicated platforms.
| However given the cost and development times of modern
| aircraft it takes a new approach to make them practical.
|
| The navy has also been clear about the role of the F-35.
| It wont ever be used as an F-14 replacement. They are
| actually working on that separately.
|
| As for other customers, different militaries have
| different missions and needs. It is true the F-35 is
| capable of filling most roles if needed. Some nations may
| rely on it as their air defense backbone. That's a
| secondary capability but when you only have the budget
| for one fighter and this is the only 5th gen on the open
| market then its defacto the best option.
| dragontamer wrote:
| In Hearts of Iron, you play as a country during WW2.
|
| As Germany, you face threats from Britain (ships,
| fighters and bombers), France (mostly land forces) and
| Russia.
|
| What do you build?
|
| Air superiority fighters win dogfights (F22 today) but
| are only useful vs Britain.
|
| Close Air Support (A10 today) beat tanks, but lose in the
| air.
|
| Multirole fighters (F35 today) work in all three
| theaters, but not as well as the specialists.
|
| Given that the next war might be vs Russia (Crimea
| situation), Taiwan / China (Naval), or maybe even
| terrorists in Africa or Middle East, multirole is the
| obvious airplane to build today.
|
| -----
|
| So Air Force wants a multirole fighter that can take off
| from airstrips / airports.
|
| Marines want a multirole fighter that can take off of
| Wasp Amphibious Assault Ships (ramp launch)
|
| Navy wants a multirole fighter that can take off of their
| Aircraft Carriers (catapult launch).
|
| This gives F35A, F35B, and F35C variants. But since they
| all wanted a multirole fighter, it makes sense to try to
| make the three variants as similar as possible. You want
| to standardize the gun, standardize the bullets,
| standardize the fuel, standardize the software.
| verytrivial wrote:
| Imagine if this level of corporate welfare went towards
| social care, the environment or education. What a racket.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Oh god let's please not add any for-profit subsidies to a
| broken pharma and healthcare system. It's a plague. I hope
| the drug price negotiation becomes law and actually saves
| as much as CBO score projects. I am less hopeful we'll ever
| be able to get a better healthcare system in the US
|
| I'm 100% for clean energy though. But probably not going to
| happen; Manchin said specifically he doesn't want to
| subsidize 'what the companies are already doing.' Yet he's
| good with a bunch of coal and coal employee subsidies...
|
| In a lot of circumstances I'd probably agree with his
| position but this is a crisis. It's like saying we
| shouldn't have invested in helping develop Covid vaccines
| because PHARMA is already doing it on their own.
|
| There is a greater survival and health risk to think of. If
| money can help we should spend it.
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| In the US, defense spending is ~700 billion, whereas the
| level of social care spending is about ~3000 billion.
|
| Given the relative effectiveness of US healthcare and
| education, vs the US military, I'd sooner call US social
| spending a racket.
| xxpor wrote:
| That includes Social Security, which is wildly
| successful.
| Alupis wrote:
| > That includes Social Security, which is wildly
| successful.
|
| Wildly successful at giving away other people's money,
| but not wildly successful at sustaining itself without
| congress intervention every few years, to the point where
| the fund would collapse and cease to exist without
| intervention (ie. capital injection, ie. printing money).
|
| I don't count that as "wildly successful" by any means.
| missedthecue wrote:
| You could say the same thing about the military. It's
| been 76 years since 1945, and the US is still on top.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think they are like supercars. They cost a lot but that's
| because two things: low volume and custom parts or
| components and special requirements.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Imagine how easy life would be if we didn't pay over the
| odds for either.
| jjk166 wrote:
| For anyone else confused, it's 85 F-35s for $12B, not $85B
|
| It's also worth noting that these other aircraft are widely
| criticized as being excessively expensive as well, mostly
| because of the exact same issues with the acquisition
| process. For example the CH-53K is supposed to cost half of
| that, but because only 9 are being purchased this year the
| fixed costs aren't as amortized as predicted. And that's
| really the crux of it: the F35 acquisition was always going
| to be an 11 figure program, but the leading digit could have
| been a 1 instead of a 4, the price tag is the right order of
| magnitude, but there were still hundreds of billions of
| dollars wasted due to mismanagement.
| colechristensen wrote:
| You can say wasted due to mismanagement and not be wrong
| but also designing, building, and maintaining warplanes are
| among the most complex tasks humans have ever done, and
| I've been on plenty of teams that could barely manage a
| CRUD webapp so it's not like being efficiently organized is
| easy and everywhere.
|
| It should be impressive that such a thing is possible at
| all.
|
| And, to be honest, it's partially a jobs program to keep
| engineers employed and experienced in case there is a real
| need for immediate defense work.
| symlinkk wrote:
| Is it really that complex? The best software engineers go
| to FAANG, not defense companies.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| What do you base this assertion on?
| missedthecue wrote:
| Prices?
| Zancarius wrote:
| Aircraft engineering isn't all software though. There's a
| _significantly non-trivial part_ that is hardware design
| (arguably the bulk of it), with incredibly tight
| tolerances, and often unique alloys. All of which can
| make or break a design.
|
| Even just a single component, like the engine, is a
| massive engineering undertaking. If the company
| developing the powerplant under-delivers the entire
| program can be a bust.
| kube-system wrote:
| > It means the flight computer for a plane that took twenty
| years and a trillion dollars to develop can't detect that
| there's a fucking cover blocking the engine.
|
| Of course the computer "could" do it. And maybe it did. That
| doesn't mean that precautions were followed, or that some sort
| of lock out feature for this would even be desirable design
| feature for a war machine to begin with.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Nothing says the plane couldn't detect the lack of airflow, but
| when you take off from a ship and your engines don't work
| there's not a lot your flight computer can do for you.
|
| Specifically, according to the press release, the pilot tried
| to abort takeoff while still on the deck but ran out of runway,
| meaning the plane was moving for at most a few seconds before
| the issue was noticed.
| gregschlom wrote:
| Well then maybe it's worth investing in a cover detector
| switch, just like my car can tell me I forgot to close the
| gas tank cap.
| kube-system wrote:
| You car probably doesn't have a switch for this. It detects
| that there is a leak in the tank when running an emission
| compression/vacuum test on the tank. And if this is the
| case, you can pull over safely and put it on. Your car
| doesn't crash.
| kitd wrote:
| Note that the article only states that the ground crew found
| the cover floating in the water. It didn't actually say the
| aircraft took off with it on.
|
| It may be, eg, that it had been taken off properly but got (or
| was left) loose on the flight deck and blew up into the intake
| of the jet as it was taking off.
|
| Something for the ground crew to fix, for sure, but not
| necessarily a catastrophic failure of standard checking
| procedures.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Forget about the deck crew and the pilot being blind
| morons._
|
| I thought aviation is _THE_ industry that runs on procedures
| and checklists you need to tick before and after each flight to
| make sure the even if you 're a complete klutz, nothing like
| this can ever happen. Did that go out the window?
|
| _> It means the flight computer for a plane that took twenty
| years and a trillion dollars to develop can't detect that
| there's a fucking cover blocking the engine._
|
| This is pure gold. Even my robovac can detect when something is
| chocking the suction intake and shut down and send me a
| notification on my phone. The fact that a trillion dollar
| weapon missed this feature is hilarious.
| kamaal wrote:
| >>I thought aviation is THE industry that runs on procedures
| and checklists you need to tick before and after each flight
| to make sure the even if you're a complete klutz, nothing
| like this can ever happen. Did that go out the window?
|
| Just a day back they dropped a $10 billion(20 years in
| development) origami transformer-like robot telescope(jwst)
| on the floor because some one forgot to secure a clamp well
| enough to hold the piece in place.
|
| So I'm guessing regardless of whatever people say about six
| sigmas, checklists and procedures, human errors just continue
| to happen regardless.
| kipchak wrote:
| Something similar happened with a NOAA satellite in 2003.
|
| https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1783/was-the-
| noaa-...
| colechristensen wrote:
| There is always a nonzero error rate and always an error that
| never occurred for anybody to check for.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The article says that this was a checklist item for both the
| ground crew and the pilot, and yet it wasn't spotted/fixed
| (did they even conduct the checks?). Multiple heads are
| definitely going to roll on this one.
|
| But two things can be true:
|
| - Procedures/checklists should have stopped this (and should
| be the primary way).
|
| - The flight computer should know that air flowing into the
| engine is unusual when a cover is blocking it.
|
| Also keep in mind that if both are fixed, this would be fixes
| from two _different_ organizations (the British Navy and
| Lockheed Martin /F-35B's manufacturing chain).
|
| This happened at peace time. I can imagine during a stressful
| wartime situation human error is more likely to occur, which
| is even more reason why computer sanity checks can be
| advantageous.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> The article says that this was a checklist item for both
| the ground crew and the pilot, and yet it wasn't
| spotted/fixed (did they even conduct the checks?). Multiple
| heads are definitely going to roll on this one._
|
| As it should be. If you're just ticking boxes on a
| checklist of a weapons system responsible for life and
| death situations, without actually performing said checks,
| you shouldn't be entrusted with this job. This is beyond
| incompetence.
| elliekelly wrote:
| It depends on how the checklist was structured/phrased
| though doesn't it?
|
| "Check for rain cover" isn't as clear as "Remove rain
| cover from engine and stow in compartment labeled 'Rain
| Cover'."
| tamaharbor wrote:
| In all fairness, Lockheed Martin made the cover bright
| red.
| foxyv wrote:
| There are a ton of ways that checklists can fail. For
| instance, when an item is 2x instead of separate items for
| left and right. When items are done in a series instead of
| one at a time. When time constraints force a rush. When
| items aren't read aloud. When checklists aren't completed.
| When those responsible for completing the items aren't
| present for the checks. When no one is following behind
| double checking each item.
|
| There is a whole science behind checklists like this.
| Surgeons have been learning this lesson for over a decade
| now: https://www.advisory.com/daily-
| briefing/2015/08/04/checklist...
|
| Also it is possible that the cover did not restrict air
| flow until the aircraft entered a cruise flight regime or a
| certain altitude. Often aircraft will have different intake
| bypasses for different flight regimes. However, a cover
| like this SHOULD have a pin and momentary switch similar to
| lockouts for flight controls. But if the cover was an
| afterthought, implemented by crews and not the engineers,
| that may not have been accounted for.
| kamaal wrote:
| Things can get complicated when checklists have if-else-
| branches and loops.
|
| Anything that has a list of lists, and if-else-branches
| can be really hard to get right. You walk into one wrong
| branch due to human error, mistakes just multiply from
| there.
|
| Also the worse thing is- you are confident that you are
| doing the right thing, while just making more mistakes.
| foxyv wrote:
| Don't forget checklist and alarm fatigue. When an alarm
| goes off every 2 seconds "Check air intake" because of
| changes in atmospheric pressure etc... When a checklist
| is 200 items long and your commander is asking why you
| aren't in the air yet. Organizational failure, when every
| other pilot in the wing is waiting to taxi because they
| skimmed the checklist and you are still checking freeze
| plugs and fuel.
|
| Anyone in charge of this sort of mission critical stuff
| has to be willing to take it on the chin to ensure
| safety. If top brass isn't willing to take "safety" as an
| excuse for a delay or cancellation it's just going to
| propagate down and cause an accident.
| hermitdev wrote:
| > Also it is possible that the cover did not restrict air
| flow until the aircraft entered a cruise flight regime or
| a certain altitude
|
| Article states that the pilot attempted to abort takeoff,
| but ran out of runway on the ship. So, apparently the
| pilot knew something was wrong pretty soon after
| initiating takeoff.
|
| edit: grammar
| dmix wrote:
| The aircraft was doing a VTOL take off. Maybe the upwards
| part went fine until it was required to start shifting
| forward?
| rjsw wrote:
| It wasn't doing a vertical take off. It accelerates along
| the flight deck and uses the ski-jump at the bow to help
| it get airborne.
| glitchc wrote:
| Carrier runways use a slingshot to launch aircraft, it's not
| an unaided takeoff, the runway is not long enough to develop
| sufficient airspeed to take off on engine power alone. By the
| time the engine reports a lack of airflow in the intake, it
| might already be too late.
| nradov wrote:
| That carrier lacks a catapult.
| morcheeba wrote:
| >Even my robovac can detect when something is chocking the
| suction intake and shut down
|
| I'm not sure I want my plane to just shut down if it ingests
| something.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| And robovacs don't need to keep their motor running since
| they're not airborne so why the odd comparison? Obviously
| they both should react differently to intake blockage, my
| point was that even consumer devices have such detection
| features.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I do, if it's still on the ground when it happens.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| I get your point, but no you don't on an aircraft like
| this.
|
| If you are on a takeoff roll with a heavily fueled and
| armed aircraft and it detects an ingestion it has no idea
| if running until it blows up will save lives or not. The
| pilot needs to make that call.
|
| There are significant failures here, but without being on
| the scene or seeing the write up I can't say what they
| are beyond the failure of both the ground crew and the
| pilot.
|
| This is speaking as a 21 year Naval Aviation Senior
| Enlisted who has spent plenty of time on the flight deck.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Aviation is the industry of procedures and checklists because
| it is more and more complex, never simpler. The complexity at
| some point is so big, people just start taking shortcuts,
| especially when they believe their experience will help them
| cutting corners.
|
| Also aviation is not special in any way when it comes to
| human error. I know details never published about aircraft
| accidents in my country (pilots talk on the airfield, it
| helps us knowing what happened and what to avoid) and most
| were incredibly stupid human errors. I know people who
| crashed more than once with planes and kept doing stupid
| things, I personally know 4 people that crashed planes, one
| of them 3 times, and keep doing it. Pilots are not special,
| not even above average, and they keep doing things that are
| not expected. Being tired, bored or distracted makes it
| worse.
| elliekelly wrote:
| As someone who knows nothing about aviation or engineering I'm
| a little surprised that a "rain cover" for a fighter jet engine
| is even a thing. Does that mean these jets can't fly in the
| rain?
| yostrovs wrote:
| Any openings on planes are usually closed when parked in
| order to prevent birds and other critters from getting inside
| and causing random damage.
| rwmj wrote:
| They lost a B-2 bomber because of moisture in a sensor.
| ($1.4 billion - oops). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_A
| ndersen_Air_Force_Base_B...
| jollybean wrote:
| They are not morons. These things happen all the time.
|
| The issue is the fact that whereas in 1945 fighters cost about
| as much as a few 'fancy cars', fighters are now 200 homes. Of
| course, they should be thought of as 'flying weapons platforms'
| ... but still.
|
| $16M F16 would be one thing, but a $120M piece of kit ... that
| hurts.
|
| I'm wondering how well the 'downgraded' variations of F18++ or
| 'some new fighter' will fill the gap or if Boeing can make a
| 'cheap F35'.
| nradov wrote:
| The F-18 is totally incapable of operating from UK Royal Navy
| carriers. There are no serious plans to build some new manned
| fixed wing VSTOL fighter. The F-35B will be the only
| available option for the next 20+ years.
| hasdf wrote:
| to my understanding the f35 is actually pretty price
| competitive with other offerings. The price keeps going down
| as more and more are sold
| marcodiego wrote:
| How to shoot down a F-35B crash:
|
| "Dealing with what caused the F-35B crash, the British media
| outlet The Sun reports that it may have been a "cheap plastic
| cover" that was left on during take-off."
|
| Of course, this may be a simple strategy, red herring, to fool
| unfriendly nations, but...
|
| Also, makes me think about the MiG-29 which has special opening
| on the top of the engines so it can tak-off/land on unpaved
| runways: https://www.quora.com/How-is-the-Mikoyan-MiG-29-able-to-
| take...
| js2 wrote:
| > Anyway, let's wait for the official investigation to provide
| more confirmed details about the incident and its root cause(s).
| [deleted]
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I highly doubt the initial story since it doesn't really make
| sense. There are tons of checks before takeoff. Jets also go full
| throttle during takeoff so this isn't something that would just
| show up during the roll
| trackone wrote:
| I agree with you, this doesn't make much sense. The source
| quote is saying that someone saw a red cover in the water. How
| would the cover survive going through an engine? It should be
| shredded. Also, if the cover was left on it would have been
| sucked into the engine as soon as the pilot turned the engines
| on or when he when to full power before taking off. Makes more
| sense if a cover was left unsecured on the flight deck and was
| sucked in during take off. It still would be shredded though I
| would think.
| fnord77 wrote:
| Is there a roll on an aircraft carrier?
| yborg wrote:
| There is on this one, it's a jump ramp carrier, not a
| catapult launch.
| davewasthere wrote:
| Yeah, I can't see it quite happening the way the Sun intimates.
| Can't rule out FOD ingestion, but highly impropably could it
| have been an intake covers left on.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Now we need a rain cover detection sensor.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Surely there is video?
| nradov wrote:
| Yes aircraft carriers always have video cameras running during
| flight operations. However cameras mounted on the islands might
| not have a clear view of some sort of cover left on an
| aircraft.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I am serious.
| [deleted]
| thih9 wrote:
| This is reported by The Sun; I'd apply Betteridge's law [1]
| generously. The crash may have been caused by the rain cover, but
| just as well there might have been a different reason.
|
| > Sailors saw a red cover floating in the sea after the stealth
| jet splashed into the Mediterranean.
|
| It could have been anything, from a red herring to a literal red
| herring.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
| f322323jiojio32 wrote:
| Russian submarines are probably already swimming around
| collecting parts of the plane.
| tartuffe78 wrote:
| Next time we have a real war I have a feeling there will be some
| very interesting dumb "hacks" used against all of these smart
| weapons.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The military is bored and loves to spend money on shinies.
|
| Everyone works hard to un-learn the most important lesson of
| war: In war, more of something beats less of something.
|
| And it isn't simply a "morer is betterer" argument, even
| strategically if you can place assets in multiple concurrent
| locations even if those assets are "dumber" then you're forcing
| the enemy to split their force into multiple beachheads.
|
| Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano ($18M~) Vs. F-35A ($79M~). One
| F-35A obviously beats one Super Tucano but does it even have
| enough weapons onboard to beat 4.3? What if you split your
| Super Tucanos between two locations, which one is the F-35A
| going to defend?
|
| And the Super Tucano is even the endgame here, the endgame is
| drone swarms. $1M~/ea and you have a 79-1 ratio, and it is
| indefensible and laughably so.
| nradov wrote:
| The primary threat is surface-to-air missiles, not other
| aircraft. A Super Tucano is simply not survivable against
| modern SAMs, nor does it have the sensors necessary to attack
| hardened ground targets. The F-35 at least has a chance.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The F-35 isn't completely stealth, it only offers a reduced
| sized signature for an aircraft of its size (no aircraft is
| completely, but the F-35 isn't even the best the US has in
| terms of stealth it isn't even in the top three).
|
| Before stealth small nimble aircraft avoided anti-aircraft
| fire by flying low where the horizon and or terrain would
| keep them shielded or provide physical barriers against
| missile intercept. That of course requires good low
| altitude, long duration flying which is also something the
| Super Tucano happens to excel at.
|
| I'd argue that the SAMs is an argument for "morer is
| betterer" since you're essentially pretending that the F-35
| has perfect stealth instead of limited stealth, and relying
| on it being never shot down as your win condition (as
| opposed to building in losses and utilizing strategies not
| dependent on a technological advantage).
| nradov wrote:
| That's just complete nonsense and displays a fundamental
| misunderstanding of reality. There is no such thing as
| "completely stealth" or "perfect stealth" , just varying
| degrees of observability. Terrain masking is only even
| possible in limited areas, and flying at low level (dense
| air) drastically reduces range. Turboprop aircraft like
| the Super Tucano also can't carry the sensors necessary
| to strike certain targets in all weather conditions;
| there's no place to even put a large radar.
|
| The days of building mass quantities of cheap, expendable
| tactical aircraft are simply over. Even if we were
| willing to tolerate higher aircrew casualty rates that
| approach is no longer cost effective. It's just too
| expensive to train more pilots and maintain larger
| numbers of aircraft in peacetime even if the initial
| procurement cost is lower. You have to look at the full
| lifecycle cost to achieve the target level of capability.
|
| For naval aviation the constraints are even stricter. A
| carrier can only fit a fairly small air wing, so it's
| essential that every aircraft be highly capable. Even if
| that means the aircraft are extremely expensive, it's
| still more cost effective than building another carrier.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The F-35 is useless for long engagements, dead if it gets
| into a dogfight, and can't fly near thunderstorms or it might
| explode.
|
| This is assuming it doesn't suffocate its pilot to death,
| because Lockheed still can't get the oxygen system to work
| properly.
|
| The finest plane $350M (and climbing) can buy (for the F35-B
| variant. The A variant is down to "just" $100M or so.)
| kcb wrote:
| Not this again. You'd have to have an army of suicidal
| fanatics to get them to take off in Super Tucanos against a
| squadron of F-35s or any American jet really. The F-35 is
| just going to BVR lob unavoidable AMRAAMs. Add some
| F-15/18/22s to the mix as well and it will be a good old
| turkey shoot.
|
| > And the Super Tucano is even the endgame here, the endgame
| is drone swarms. $1M~/ea and you have a 79-1 ratio, and it is
| indefensible and laughably so.
|
| "Drone Swarms" You either are just describing guided missiles
| which already exist or an actual drone aircraft capable of
| threatening an F-35 which would require similarly capable
| sensors and engines. It's not going to cost $1M.
|
| Take this as a grain of salt because it's a player in a sim
| fighting AI. But I love it as an example of what a lone
| fighter can do against less capable aircraft.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5FrxsBG_H8
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > One F-35A obviously beats one Super Tucano but does it even
| have enough weapons onboard to beat 4.3?
|
| https://www.raytheonmissilesanddefense.com/news/feature/armi.
| ..
|
| "The F-35 can carry up to two AIM-9X missiles on its wings
| and four AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles internally."
|
| Also- in the future:
|
| "Lockheed Martin is developing a weapon rack called Sidekick
| that would enable the internal outboard station to carry two
| AIM-120s, thus increasing the internal air-to-air payload to
| six missiles"
|
| So yes.
| ryanchants wrote:
| We already had that in Afghanistan. Our LAVs were being
| defeated by IEDs, so we spent a lot of money making mine
| rollers. The mine rollers were then defeated with 10 cents
| worth of lamp cord to separate the pressure plate from the
| explosive.
| echelon wrote:
| In Afghanistan we were spending lots of money to not kill
| civilians and cause a PR nightmare. If we didn't care, we'd
| have carpet bombed the place. Or developed and used chemical
| weapons.
|
| In a real war, we'll be using tactical (not strategic) nukes
| to take out carriers and bases and supply lines, not toys
| that avoid collateral damage.
|
| If shit hits the fan, the strategic nukes come out and we all
| die.
| swarnie wrote:
| > to not kill civilians and cause a PR nightmare
|
| Estimates sit at around 240,000 deaths, great job.
|
| Still better then the Iraqi genocide mind....
| adventured wrote:
| > Estimates sit at around 240,000 deaths
|
| You're of course referring to total estimated deaths over
| 20 years from all supposedly war-related causes (which
| includes poverty), not civilian deaths directly
| attributable to the US. The Taliban - as the blood-
| thirsty conquering force attempting to enslave the
| population of Afghanistan for the past several decades -
| is responsible for most of those deaths.
|
| It's funny how many people try to pretend the Taliban
| don't exist, their murders don't exist, the consequences
| of their conquering don't exist, and their aims don't
| exist, when it's convenient.
|
| The actual civilian deaths in Afghanistan by the US is a
| very small fraction of the number you're quoting, which
| is the point of the parent comment. The vast majority of
| violent civilian deaths were from the Taliban and
| associated groups, via suicide bombings and other
| intentional mass murder events.
|
| And the vast majority of all deaths during the Iraq civil
| war, were Iraqi on Iraqi murders. The US stepped in-
| between the warring factions and tried to stop it, which
| cost a lot of US blood and treasure.
|
| This isn't hidden magic information. It's right there in
| the estimates along with the number you quoted out of
| context. They break out how they arrive at the death
| totals.
| swarnie wrote:
| This is a lot of words to say:
|
| "We destabilised a region and are responsible for the
| MASSIVE number of civilian deaths as a result."
| hindsightbias wrote:
| The US destabilized Iraq, leading to the Civil War. Not
| like they're innocents in the matter.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Compare to the Soviet-Afghan war where the Soviets were
| not so nice.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War
|
| > Civilians: 562,000-2,000,000 killed
|
| Most civilian deaths during the US war in Afghanistan
| appear to be from the Taliban themselves.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
|
| > According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their
| allies were responsible for 76% of Afghan civilian
| casualties in 2010, and 80% in 2011 and 2012.
| sofixa wrote:
| That's naive. Strategic and tactical bombing did jack shit
| besides kill or at least make life miserable for lots of
| civilians, and destroy lots of land for the foreseeable
| future in Vietnam.
|
| Afghanistan is highly mountainous. Carpet bombing doesn't
| work very well for caves.
| dragontamer wrote:
| We pulled our punches in Afghanistan.
|
| Commanders on the ground were asking for air-dropped
| landmines to cover the areas that Bin Laden could have
| been using as an escape in Tora Bora in December 2001.
| Air-dropped land-mines would have made navigating those
| mountains much more difficult for Bin Laden, and may have
| killed him on his escape.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system
|
| ---------
|
| They may use IADs, but we have far better equipment for
| that strategy. We can deploy our mines from airplanes and
| just blanket an area if we so choose. But of course: this
| strategy means killing innocent civilians who
| accidentally walk on the mines.
|
| --------
|
| Difficult Terrain works for both sides. Sure, its
| difficult for us to move in, but that also makes it
| difficult for the enemy to move around. Doubly so if
| landmines are secretly littering areas.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| > the strategic nukes come out and we all die
|
| To borrow from the Bronze Age conflicts between the
| Egyptians, Hittites, et al, you don't want to annihilate
| your adversary because you still have to trade with them.
| Wars are just a strategy to establish a more favorable
| trading position.
| fnord77 wrote:
| and purge excess males from the population
| sterlind wrote:
| except when it comes to Carthage, then you have to salt
| the earth to shut Pliny up.
| N19PEDL2 wrote:
| -- Possible stupid question here (apologize, I'm not an expert)
| --
|
| How can a cheap plastic cover block the engines of a fighter
| aircraft? Even if they forget to take it off, shouldn't it be
| destroyed by the jets?
| jaywalk wrote:
| Not a stupid question. The explanation doesn't make sense, for
| many reasons. A large one being the sheer number of people who
| would have to be blind to a red cover over the engine intake
| that they all know is not supposed to be there.
| yborg wrote:
| This article is literally repeating an article from The Sun, a
| tabloid with a better track record of reporting on royals
| caught on holiday with their knickers off.
|
| There are a lot of covers on ports and weapons on a combat
| aircraft sitting on the flight deck, the implication is that it
| was the inlet covers, which is impossible, the engine wouldn't
| have operated with those on and they are kind of obvious. It's
| much more likely this was a cover on something like a pitot
| tube or AoA sensor.
|
| It's also possible that something just blew off the deck and it
| had nothing at all to do with crash, The Sun is reporting on
| some hot tip from the shipboard rumor mill, not the Ministry of
| Defense.
| toss1 wrote:
| It's probably not too much of a conjecture to assume that these
| fit in front of the stator vanes and would be effectively
| supported by them, so would not come in contact with the the
| rotating turbine blades. Even if the turbine blades could
| create a vacuum, the maximum pressure it would have to hold is
| 14 pounds per square inch bridged between the vanes. I'd also
| guess that "cheap" is relative and they are using something
| between high-end commerical and engineering-grade plastic
| (still way cheap compared to the composites on the aircraft),
| and that this could withstand the pressures for at least the
| few seconds/minutes it took to fire it up and toss it in the
| drink.
|
| I'm more surprised that they didn't notice it in firing up the
| engines - don't they run it briefly to full throttle as part of
| their checks? Seems it would at least sound badly off-tune, but
| what do I know...
|
| Major fck-up all around...
| ben7799 wrote:
| None of it makes any sense at all.. there's no way one of
| those covers can stay on during engine startup without a
| million warning lights going crazy in the cockpit, there's no
| way the cover could possibly not get ingested during an
| engine runup.
|
| And this was a carrier takeoff, so the engines would have
| been held at maximum thrust prior to launching off a catapult
| and possibly would have been run at afterburner as well. The
| inlet flow for that would develop far more than 14psi as the
| volume of air ingested is enormous. The mass of air ingested
| is measure in tons per second.
|
| I think this is just incompetent journalists. Not that I've
| ever done pre-flight on an F-35 but there are probably MANY
| protective covers that have to be removed during preflight.
|
| It most likely was another cover left on which did not impede
| takeoff but threw the systems for a loop after takeoff and
| the pilot wasn't well trained enough to figure out an
| emergency procedure on such short notice.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| >The inlet flow for that would develop far more than 14psi
| as the volume of air ingested is enormous.
|
| The max difference is 14 psi because that's atmospheric
| pressure.
| isthisnametaken wrote:
| HMS Queen Elizabeth doesn't have a catapult.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Which of course means the engine had to have been at full
| thrust.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, this does make little sense at all
|
| If it is actually a full inlet cover, there will be _zero_
| airflow, so just < 14psi pressure on the cover. (I was just
| answering how it could avoid being ingested if it was a
| full cover.)
|
| If it is some other smaller cover on some auxiliary inlet,
| it might make more sense, as it could definitely screw up
| the sensors, airflow, whatever, and not get ingested.
|
| I'm sure we'll all be really interested to see what really
| happened, 'tho I'm not sure we ever will.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Agreed. In the past, people have been sucked into the intake of
| jets on a carrier, I don't think a canvas rain cover is going
| to be able to block the intake. At worst maybe it'll scratch up
| the blades on the way through. Hell, I half expect the covers
| are designed exactly so they aren't substantial enough to
| damage the engine if they get sucked in by accident.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| If the source here is The Sun then we should really not take it
| at all seriously. The Sun are about as reliable as Reddit
| comments for factual accuracy.
| immmmmm wrote:
| I understand now better why my country (Switzerland) wants to
| purchase 30-ish of those for "National Skies Protection". It is
| well in line with their past strategies and accomplishments:
|
| 1) Provide a sky patrol, but on only on office hours (9 - 17).
|
| 2) Buy for 1B CHF worth of radar, that would unfortunately lock
| on _cows_ pasturing.
|
| 3) Buy for 0.5B CHF worth of software, then discard it because
| it's incompatible.
|
| 4) etc, etc, etc ....
| swarnie wrote:
| Could you possibly adopt the Irish model and just get someone
| else to do it?
|
| Germany have a few working planes i think.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Germany have a few working planes i think.
|
| Oh, yes, history has proven that we want cats guarding the
| milk, ahem, Germans protecting other European nations from
| invasion. ))
| saiya-jin wrote:
| We are well past that mentality here. Germans basically
| keep EU going not only financially which I consider a win
| overall for Europe despite its drawbacks.
|
| Not another Versaille hanging over them to humiliate and
| keep the nation poor to piss off somebody down the line.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Yes, of course, I'm well aware that Germany of today is
| not the Germany of 1939. Otherwise I wouldn't have Bosch
| appliances at home. )) > Germans
| basically keep EU going not only financially
|
| This could be interpreted as meaning that Germany _has_
| conquered all of Europe, finally!
| swarnie wrote:
| It was intentionally tongue in cheek.
|
| I love the EU nations online =)
| benjamir wrote:
| Indeed! Let's protect our col...common wealth ourselves!
| option_greek wrote:
| (1) is hilarious. Do they also expect enemy combatants to make
| an appointment and provide the location of the meet :D
| Sharlin wrote:
| They require strict observation of Robert's Rules of
| Engagement.
| SllX wrote:
| They're a neutral nation surrounded by countries which are at
| the moment friendly. Neutrality incentivizes them to stay
| armed and to do their patrols but Switzerland has no reason
| to expect a war from France, Germany or Italy anytime soon.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > no reason to expect a war from France, Germany or Italy
|
| Liechtenstein, on the other hand...
|
| https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/witzerland-
| invaded-...
| immmmmm wrote:
| it was subcontracted to france and italy. i think they now do
| provide this service 24/7 due to _minor_ backlash. however,
| the time a jet is in the air, the "enemy " is already in
| another country.
| brutusborn wrote:
| Do you have more info on (2)? I couldn't find any info from a
| quick google search.
| immmmmm wrote:
| yes, in french, via ggl translate:
|
| "Apparently it works in the plains but in the mountains, when
| for example a cow moves on the slopes, the radar identifies
| the animal as an enemy object", explained the Minister of
| Defense, Ueli Maurer.
|
| to my knowledge, no cows have been hit by missiles so far.
|
| https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/6619651-un-nouveau-radar-
| de-l...
| pie42000 wrote:
| I mean as a swiss person, your biggest industry (watches)
| exists almost entirely out of "it looks cool". Rich Militaries
| buy the F-35 because it's a cool toy, in the same way a rich
| businessman buys a Patel Phillipe. Not because he needs to tell
| time, but because he wants to have something fun to play with
| and look at when he has free time.
| immmmmm wrote:
| i don't think our biggest industry is watch nowadays.. but i
| agree with your explanation!
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| You brain damaged clown.
| efitz wrote:
| We've had hardware interlocks forever to prevent this sort of
| problem.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| The article links to a Sun tabloid news article as a source, and
| the BBC article/a defense minister who said:
|
| > Mr Wallace added that operational and training flights onboard
| HMS Queen Elizabeth are continuing despite the incident.
|
| and presumed the root cause was well-known.
|
| Since they used the Sun, maybe take it with a grain silo of salt.
| the-dude wrote:
| No thread is complete without : why don't they train a AI/ML/RNN
| network to screen jets before take off?
|
| I mean, it could probably be done within a weekend, tops.
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(page generated 2021-11-24 23:01 UTC)