Was it the Pilot or the Airplane? Veteran Naval Aviators Analyze the Latest F-35 Crash
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- Опубликовано: 31 янв 2022
- On January 24, 2022, an F-35C hit the back of the USS Carl Vinson while attempting to land. The pilot ejected, and debris from the crash injured seven crew members on the flight deck. The airplane was lost in the South China Sea near where the ship was operating.
A leaked video of the mishap taken from the carrier's stern shows that the weather was perfect for flight operations - sunny with calm seas. The F-35 appeared to be flying a normal Case I approach pattern, which would indicate the jet wasn't experiencing any sort of systems malfunctions.
So why did it crash? Veteran carrier pilots "Hozer" Miller (former F/A-18 squadron commanding officer and experienced Landing Signal Officer) and "Rowdy" Yates (F-14 Tomcat pilot and chief test pilot for the X-32 program) join Mooch to weigh-in with their thoughts based on current evidence and intel, including whether flight school is over-leveraged with the use of simulators instead of actual flights as a cost-saving measure. 
Развлечения
I was an Air Force-trained (graduated from USAF UPT December 1969) Marine aviator. My first CQ, (day and night) was in an A-6 squadron destined to be the first USMC Intruder outfit to deploy to WESPAC on the boat. Over half of our pilots were nuggets and Air Force trained. We had never seen the boat before. The Skipper had last hit the boat 17 years prior in an SNJ aboard a straight deck carrier, the Antietam! The OpsO was an Air Force interservice transfer pilot with a background as a T-33 instructor in the Air Training Command. The ONLY cruise-experienced pilot in the squadron was the XO who had done a Med cruise in the A-4 and was a Centurion.
The two shipboard LSOs who came TAD to Cherry Point from the Oceana A-6 RAG to qual us were in a state of shock when they found out that the entire unit's complement of pilots, with the exception of the XO, were either Air Force-trained needing basic quals, or Navy trained with no A-6 initial quals!
We made it through day quals on the Lexington without any serious incidents, but there were some colorful passes and a lot of taxi one wires. I had my share, i wasn't trusting the ball and spotting the deck. My grades sucked, but somehow I qualled. After all, there was a war on, and they needed more cannon fodder in WESPAC.
Then a month later we went back for night quals (6 traps required). The ship was quite far out in the Gulf, working the eye of a tropical storm. We flew out from Pensacola during the afternoon through the worst weather I'd ever experienced. I was on the wing of another nugget. The rain was so heavy that frequntly all I could see of lead's aircraft was his wingtip light. Because of weather delays, we were under extreme pressure to get through night quals as quickly as possible, because we were about to run out of allotted deck time on the Lex. CNATRA issued a waiver that allowed each pilot to get his six traps in one night in contravention of the existing restriction to two night traps per period. The eye of the storm was an oval only about 10 miles in length, so they'd bang a few of us off the bow, trap us a couple times, and chain us down while the captain maneuvered the ship around through the tropical rain storms and back into the clear so we could run the deck a couple more times. Did I say it was harrowing? The whole squadron got qualled I think in two or three nights, and nobody crashed. Interesting side note: there was one A-7 pilot and his RAG LSO from Cecil with us to also night qual. I realized later from a photo in a book about MiG kills in Vietnam that the A-7 LSO was the guy who shot down a MiG-17 in a dogfight with his A-1 Skyraider!
We joined CVW-15 for weapons dets and then pre-deployment workups on Coral Sea out of Alameda NAS in November 1971. During a night recovery with the ship making its own wind off the coast of California, I got bitten by the burble and the A-6's roll spoilers, and had a near ramp strike pass. The boss bingoed us to Alameda to have our hook inspected. The next day, our LSO took me to the aft end of the flight deck to show me the fresh dent my hook had made in the rounddown!! Very sobering.
They kicked me out of the squadron and I limped back to Cherry Point with my tail between my legs and my self confidence shattered. I eventually made it to the war at the end, flying 55 missions out of Nam Phong RTAFB Thailand. The infamous "Rose Garden".
I have tremendous admiration and respect for the pilots and NFOs of Naval Aviation. When there's a pop-up crisis anywhere in the world, the President's first question is always, "Where are the carriers?" There's a good reason for that.
I'm proud of my measly 46 day and night traps. I wear my Naval Aviator wings with pride every single day. One the most gratifying accomplishments of my entire 76-year life was when I redeemed my reputation (and self respect) as a Naval Aviator as an A-4 instructor at Beeville in VT-25, the day I bagged six OK, three-wire, no comment traps on Lexington! That was sweet!
Pertaining to your excellent discussion, Mooch, of the pros and cons of automation in shipboard recoveries, my nearly forty years of military and commercial aviation piloting experience says that automation is great when it works, but when it fails or malfunctions (Boeing 737 Max for example) if pilots have lost their fundamental piloting skills, it can lead to disastrous consequences. What happens when the aircraft of a cylic launch return to a dramatically pitching deck, and there's no bingo field within range, even with air refueling. Will the automated approach gizmos be able to get them back aboard safely when the LSO is forced to use a manual glideslope ball and the pilots are hand-flying their passes? Hmm, better give that one some thought before we take CQ out of the student Naval Aviator syllabi. "Thunder and tarnation!" as Grampaw Pettibone would declare.
PS: when I transferred from the Marines to the Guard, my Nebraska ANG Unit sent me to Shaw AFB, SC to check out in the Phantom. On one my early hops with my instructor in the rear pit, I took him down to MCAS Beaufort to show him some Navy landings. I told him to look on the left hand side of the runway for a piece of equipment with two rows of green lights and a larger orange light in between. "The orange light will tell us if we're on glideslope or not." We screamed into the break, and I proceeded to fly four or five touch and goes. I asked him after the first couple of passes if he saw it. He said, yes I see it, but how does it work? It just sits there between the green lights and doesn't move." That was one of the nicest compliments I ever received in my aviation career!⁷
Wow! Great story. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us!
I would buy and read your book if you write it. That was crazy.
When were you at Shaw? RF-4C?
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for flying 🇺🇸
Loved the story. You were so very fortunate to be an aviator!! Thank you !
Mooch,
I was a Royal Naval aviator for almost 20 years (mostly rotary wing) but in the mid-1970s I undertook a three-year exchange tour in the T-17 Canberra [EB-57 equivalent] with the RAF, flying as an EWO/Navigator. Flying the Canberra with one engine out was demanding for the pilot - because of the large turning moment created by the wing-mounted engines - and, since there was no simulator, the Drivers (Airframe) did a lot of so-called practice asymmetric flying. It is perhaps noteworthy that, in the Canberra's 40+ years of service, NOBODY was ever killed flying the aircraft after a REAL single engine failure but over a dozen aircrew lost their lives undertaking single engine practice (including two of my close friends). As a bit of a 'back-seater' gripe, the T-4 version of the Canberra - a two-pilot training aircraft - required the presence of a Navigator in the back seat on all flights and so I was frequently subjected to the 'delights' of night asymmetric practice, as the QFI and a series of pilots-under-examination scared themselves (and me) in the dark.
Yours aye,
Adam
Any confirmation that the pilot was indeed female?
I can only imagine how you felt training pilots at night ...I nearly had a few heart attacks teaching my two daughters how to drive🤣🤦
Hi Adam, my grandfather flew Canberra's and my father flew T-17 Canberra's on 360sqn in the early 90's, the stress and danger of the asymmetric flight that the crews went through in those aircraft sticks with me. My father lost friends in exactly the practice situation you described. (Grandfather had more than one belly landings among other storys in Canberras to boot!)
Thank you for your service Sir 🙏
As a marshall controller on the Forrestal (CV-59) in '68, I was involved in early ACLS training at NAS Cecil, Florida. During one of our training/observation assignmens ( visually sitting outside the radar trailer and near the runway approach end), a F4 encountered an abrupt nose up, ejected and amazingly, the plane recover and landed normally, missing a pilot. True story.
Now that's a great plane!
Who applied the brakes?
@@stokestomlin989 the hook that catched one of the wires.
Was that post-fire, right before a Med cruise?
WUTTT?!?!?
My son flies the Super Hornet and had a flameout on one engine. Fortunately he was able to fly and land back to the ship safely on one engine. This was his first deployment as nugget of the squadron.
Did your son receive any reward or recognition for that sortie?
That's extremely rare even in the baby Hornet, let alone the Super Hornet, though there have been some losses due to engine failure on the Super Bug.
There was an F-35C that ate a refueling basket that broke off and still recovered on the boat a few years ago.
@@jcheck6 this happened not long ago. I’m sure he will in the near future. I’m glad he was safe and saved the multi million dollar aircraft
It's in their training
That's what I call a Butt puckering experience.
Had 4 carrier tours, many deployments over 3 decade Navy career. Never did I ever experience a combo work-up and deployment without at least one, sometimes two or three mishaps. Warships, especially carriers, are hard places and relatively very safe considering the high tempo and crazy kinetics.
During Desert Shield/Storm my Navy cousin reminded me they lose more people a year due to accidents than DS/S combat ops.
@@LuvBorderCollies Yep. Motorcycle mishaps between deployments used to hurt the most people.
Same experience, though much shorter career. Back during Desert Shield/ Desert Storm it was extremely rare for a carrier air wing to make it through a cruise without losing at least one aircraft or shipmate.
"high tempo and crazy kinetics" >>>> 100%
Pray tell, what do you think it’s going to be like when the enemy starts actually shooting at these aircraft carriers. That’s gonna be some real Mayham. If I was stationed on an aircraft carrier, first of all I would go AWOL, but if per chance I was stuck there, I would sleep with my life jacket on, stowed away at the highest point on the ship, because every goddamn one of them is going to be sunk if we face even a third rate anomie that is willing to shoot at us. The only thing that has saved carriers so far is the threat of nuclear retaliation, or otherwise massive retaliation against anyone who might try to do so. There is nothing more vulnerable than a huge target in an era of swarms of missiles and drones. This whole aircraft carrier thing is a complete freaking joke, just like the battleship of World War II, they contributed nothing significant to the victory other than wasting resources that could’ve been used otherwise. Thank God our enemies were just as stupid then. I’m not sure they are As stupid now.
The A-3 Skywarrior first flew in the Navy in 1952 and was bone yarded in 1992. I have over 3200 flight hours in 4 different versions of the A-3B. It was the Largest, Heaviest jet aircraft ever assigned as a fleet aircraft squadron aircraft. The PW-J -57 Engine was made in the 1950's. There was no Auto Throttles, No ACLS (no needles), no simulator after 1980, an Auto Pilot that worked maybe 30 % of the time, a non reliable radio altimeter, and of course no ejection seats for a 7 man crew. We flew JCS Tasked Peace Time Arial Reconnaissance Program missions (PARPRO) requiring exact off set distance flight paths depending on targeted countries , including flying in Libyan Air Space 40 NM off their coast inside the "Line of Death" with no GPS, no LORAN, no reliable ground mapping radar. Virtually had a VOR, ADF and a Sextant for Navigation. Ask your buddy 'Hozer' if he ever waved an EA-3B aboard the boat. Please do the few of us remaining A-3 Crew Members by doing an episode on our efforts. The EA-3B crash (non successful Barricade engagement aboard the USS Nimitz in 1987) which I was one of the Pilot Instructors in the A-3 RAG in Key West, Fl (VAQ-33) to have trained the nugget pilot.
I really enjoyed watching the Whales launch from Alameda those last few years of service. I knew their days were numbered, but they sure were fun to watch.
My grandpa made tailhooks and refueling booms out of Titanium tubing for Whales and Scooters at Douglas's plant in Hawthorne. God bless you guys for driving that beast!
@@LRRPFco52 The Marines had a squadron of A-4's at Alameda too.
Yes, no ejection seats. On our watch (1965 Nam cruise) there were A-3Ds with a crew of 3 aboard. Scuttlebutt had it that A-3D stood for "All 3 Dead".
My first squadron tour was as an Aircrewman in HS-85 in Alameda in 1988. Great flying. Reserve squadron. I was the youngest aircrewman at the time and got to fly with Vietnam era pilots with thousands of hours that knew that airframe and never got rattled. Learned a lot until I put my chit in for active duty and was discharged from the reserves to reenlist regular navy and transition to SH-2F Seasprites.
Thank you Ward. Always great to have Hozer and Rowdy on board as well. Super interesting
Great job, guys. I look forward to the follow episode up when (if) the final report is available to the public.
We’re on it!
I have absolutely no experience on or around Fighter aircraft (other than the occasional one flying over my house) but the way you do these episodes combined with your general way of "presentation" somehow makes me feel included in the community of the people who do have had this experience (but in a I'd be the guy who checks the tyre pressure and changes the lightbulbs on the flight deck kinda way.........there to see the action, but not quite close enough) so i really want to give you (and your awesome guests/friends) a big compliment for that!
Thank you for the awesome stories and insights👍👍👍
Really makes the whole thing much more understandable doesn't it? Amazing how great some people are at explaining
@@adenkyramud5005 exactly👍
I spent my whole Navy career in AIMD. VA-86 TAD to AIMD since I deployed from my stint in Millington, TN AV"A", AVIB, and AV"B" schools. When you mention AIMD capability, and performance at sea, I know exactly what you mean. With the new tech, it becomes even more important to be able to support the F-35 at sea, and AIMD tasking is just sometimes overwhelming.
I used to work with LTV and IBM as a technician on auto-throttle at NAS Cecil Field on the A7-E Attack aircraft. At the time, it was an amazing innovation and I remember the IBM guys would actually write code for the ASN-91 and test it the next day. It wasn't deployed there at Cecil; when polished they would move the test bed off station. That only lasted for about 5 months, but for me, it was a lateral duty I took seriously. Building wiring harnesses, and various test platforms to check I/O to servo actuators, and we had some amazing working relationships with the very high tech guys from LTV and IBM. It was one of the reasons I decided to get my Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. There were three technicians from AIMD that volunteered for the duty, and it was a great experience. I'm very happy that Hozer got to fly the A7 with auto-throttle, I wonder what years he got to get familiar with it. It's funny, because a few years when I transitions to medical systems, I read an amazing article regarding the A7-E's ASN-91 computer was the great-grandson of the AP-101 which was the flight computer for the Saturn V rocket. I was floored, I worked on the ASN-91 for many years. Great computer.
Thank you for an excellent video, good sir! Anchors Aweigh!!
Great work as always, Mooch! While I appreciate all of your videos; I am really enjoying your panel and one-on-one discussions.
Thanks to you for hosting, moderating, and commentary. Thanks to Hozer and Rowdy for their great commentary and stories.
Loved the ACLS conversation by your experts when the A7 Corsair came up. I was an AE with VA 174 at Cecil Field in the late sixties and remember doing pre-flight checks on the ACL. I moved the AOA flag up and down to make sure the throttle moved up and down. I also punched the throttle to make sure it disconnected and went back to manual mode. There were pilots that didn’t trust the ACLS and had their hand right next to the throttle ready to slam it to disconnect it!! I loved being tdy for carrier quals on the Lexi , America, and Independence. I did 4 years in the Navy and 31 years with the Mass Air Guard . Great video Ward!
Thanks to Hozer and Rowdy! Great video, Mooch!
Thanks, Scott!
from an old A-6 guy, I love this channel. Brings back lot's of memories. I remember laughing at the F18 guys calling the ball with "no impact point", but evidently back then it was a big thing.
What was it like bringing the A-6 back to the boat?
Another great video Commander! I love that your channel includes both veterans and civilians in the comments and both are welcome.
Just a very broad rule: Any time you automate a human ability the human will lose that ability.
- 40 years ago the average adult had 30 or 40 phone numbers memorized. Everyone now has contacts on their phone and most people remember less then 5 numbers.
It has to make a difference.
This is an excellent point, but I think you over-estimate it. I can remember my home number from the 70's, when I grew up - all the way through to the 90's-2000's; friends, family, girlfriends - I can still recall them all. Today, I only know my number and none of the new cell phone numbers in my phone. No one dials a number any more...
Yeah right. If I look through my stuff, I can still find old address books I would keep in order to stay in touch with people in the '80s and 90's. I might have had 5 to 10 numbers memorized because I used them on a regular basis. The rest were in the black book. It still speaks to the point about automation, but let's not over estimate the mental abilities of people back then compared to now. If we did away with contacts, people would simply have new black books, and roughly the same number of people would be able to memorize roughly the same numbers because they had to dial them on a regular basis.
I know my home phone number most of the time. My wife has a cell phone and I still haven't got around to remembering yet.
@@sd906238 People still have a home phone? Wow - that's old skool!
Your example might not be the best example but your point is absolutely valid, but also NOT strictly true, because its totally dependent on the training, the type of automation system and how that system is used.
First off I started with a degree in aerospace but have mainly worked in industrial control systems, automation and robotics. I also have a PPL with an aerobatic endorsement.
There are 2 areas where automation is absolutely causing issues. One is reasonably well known and that's spell & grammar checking. Ever since MS Word started to be used so extensively then Microsoft software engineers became the arbiter of spelling and grammar.
The other area which in which automation is causing quite similar and significant issue is technical drawing. I see bad technical drawings all the time and it invariably goes back to an overreliance on automation. Its the engineering version of what MS Word does.
The crazy thing is that automation in certain industries has the opposite effect. I see this in 2 groups Machinists who do CNC and Welders who work with welding robots. In the early days of CNC machining centers there were many claims highly trained machinists would not be needed, just grunts to load stock, remove parts, install tools and clean out swarf. NO, NO, NO and NO on all 4 accounts. It turned out operators still needed all the basic skills and then extended to programming and training with all the new high speed tooling.
I've programmed several brands of robots over the years. When it came to welding robots NO engineer can out program a properly trained welder. Its simply a matter that you must understand welding to effectively program a welding robot or you get feeds and speeds and other settings wrong. With a lot of newer materials people want welded that requires even more skill.
So there is a double edge to automation. It can do exactly as some people suggest produce lazy operators who's skills go diminish and who get exposed when things go wrong and it can do the exact opposite and produce operators with even better skills.
Great discussion, Mooch. Props to Hoze and Rowdy for their input, greatly appreciated.
When I was in VT-24 in the late 70s, as a ADAN I was involved with picking up TA-4J peices. Me and a AD1 were the jet shop part of the crew. It was my very first accident and after retrieval we arraigned the peices in roughly their proper places on the hangar floor with a fully functional plane next to it so the investigators (2 from Trawing 3 if I remember correctly) could take actuator measurements to get flight control positions at impact, check parts locations and whether or not they were working and so on. We did a number of things including borescope the engine to find out why the low pressure turbine departed the aircraft effectively cutting the aircraft in two. The low pressure turbine exploded at 20k feet and 300 knots on the way back to the base. Marine Captain Paul Backs our legal officer was the pilot. It was my first experience in Navy accident investigation. No injuries, a successful ejection, and no damage other than the hole the aircraft made on impact. Nose first into a ranch field by Cotulla Texas. We ended up driving the pilot as well as the Huey crew back to the hangar as the Huey went down due to a tail rotor problem. Thats the only reason I knew the details of what happened in flight. A little better than an hour drive back so Capt. Backs talked about what happened as well as to why the Huey spent the night in a field before repairs and retrieval. I am sure things are way different now. Thank you and be safe.
Great stuff Mooch! Glad I found your channel. A shared dedication to and fascination with everything naval aviation after 42 year career spent on Carrier decks and all the test ranges. (And some other places)
You guys are amazing. I've learned so much from you and your friends mooch. Never had any contact with naval aviation, found this channel after getting into naval history and I don't regret that subscription one bit. Now I understand most of the terms you guys use just from your explanation of them in earlier videos. Really interesting World and I'm excited to learn more about it. Won't ever be anything I could get involved in since us Krauts don't get the cool toys but hey, still amazing stuff that is fun to learn about.
Interesting topic….as a former A-4/A-7 stick and throttle carrier pilot and subsequent airline Airbus A 320 pilot, I see the dangers of automation that is designed to make flying safer but actually doesn’t solve the safety problems, it just changes them. The challenge of automation is to give the pilots tools that help them but don’t take away their ability to override the airplane and don’t substitute for basic flying skills. Look at the number of Airbus accidents that were related to poor basic airmanship. I hope carrier aviation doesn’t get to that level.
The "magenta" generation. The chief pilot of American airlines foresaw this issues 25 years ago.
Do you think its possible that an adversary government could have hacked into the cell phones of naval crew members and posted the footage?????
Ummm… with respect, the incident that sticks in my mind most as an example of poor airmanship was the Asiana B777 at San Francisco. It’s no good blaming the aircraft when pilots make mistakes like that.
@@thethirdman225 Check out Air France 447. Crew had apparently gotten so used to the aircraft taking over that they had forgotten how to correct a stall, pulling the nose up instead of letting it go down to regain speed.
@@nickkaning7616 Its possible the photographer was talking to someone, like Facetime, provided they had a comm link.
@@thethirdman225 RUclips seems to have plenty of aircraft disasters where automation played a role.
Bravo Zulu Ward Carrol- Much better than previous episodes and much more credible by adding two pilots. Not only pilots, but Naval Aviators; one an experienced Landing Signal Officer (LSO) and one Test and Eval expert on newer technology. Your discussion of the accident was very good in that you kept speculation to a minimum and presented the facts as known.
As a former training LSO at VF-124 in 1984 with Tomcat A models your episode was well done on the landing characteristics of that jet. My personal technique on CASE III approaches was to scan Meatball, Lineup, AOA, and Needles until In the Middle to In close. On case I, II, and III I always used down DLC in the wires and a little aft stick to preclude a hook skip bolter.
Thank you for dispelling rumors until known (female pilot and booster shot) and pointing out that the PLAT video and accident report are months away. After active duty (Safety Department Head VF-14), I continued as an accident investigator and ran safety programs at an airline for 30 years as well as flying the line as a Captain. Some RUclips contributors are remiss in presenting knee jerk accident conclusions hours after an accident.
Excellent job again bringing in subject matter experts - SME to enhance the overall presentation.
So maybe it was a female pilot and she’s been vaccinated from head to toe? Is that what you were saying? All the more reason to get rid of goddamn pilots! They are the reason planes crash 90% of the time. Time for drones, time for total automation and no more combat pilots, they are a liability in so many ways - destructive of equipment, expensive to train, minimal situational Awareness, huge penalty on payload, huge penalty on maneuverability, huge penalty on cost of equipment because of life support and all the other shit. There’s nothing good about human pilots on combat aircraft.
@@steveperreira5850 pogue
This video showed up on my smartphone unexpectedly and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded me how much I missed hanging with true professionals talking about our common interests.
The following is a bit long but might shed some background in the early days of learning to deal with autopilots, auto throttles and early datalink systems. I wrote it a few years back along with many other stories of my adventures in Naval Aviation during the Vietnam War days hoping my 3 sons would read them someday.
When I was instructing in VF-121, the West Coast F-4B/J RAG at NAS Miramar in the early 70s, we sometimes got new F-4Js from St. Louis with new equipment installed with no information about what it did and how to use it. I always envied the test pilots who got to play with the new stuff. I wanted to play with it too. I tried to get permission to play with it but was told I couldn't because no one had been trained how to fix it yet.
Well, I just couldn't look at all the new toys like antiskid and especially the new data link bells and whistles and not play with them. I kinda self-taught myself by arranging with Beaver Control to hook me up with an AIC on a NTDS-equipped destroyer who wanted to practice flying a fighter on air-to-air intercepts by sending signals to my autopilot from his computer via one way datalink.
It was a real learning experience for both of us. His system only had a good fix on my position and the bogey's position every 7 seconds because that's how long it took his radar to make a 360° sweep. The rest of the time both targets were in coast and any course changes would confuse the computer until the radar got updated information.
When you're trying to do a forward quarter radar-guided Sparrow attack followed by a rear quarter heat-seeking Sidewinder re-attack it was maddening to have the computer controlled autopilot turn you across the flight path of your intended victim in front of him. That and other weird stuff kept happening.
Not much later I got orders back to the fleet to the VF-92 Silverkings. During work ups on the USS Constellation they had the new to them and to me SPN-42 ACLS. I thought the aircraft I was in had the necessary equipment and hoped I could figure out how to turn it on and use it. It was a CAVU Chamber of Commerce day so I asked if I could try it and they said okay. So I did.
After getting the autopilot and the APC autothrottles hooked up down I came. My initial impression was that the stick was possessed by a devil. It was flailing all over the cockpit. I wasn't sure I could catch it to turn the autopilot OFF without getting my hand broken. The throttles were going back and forth a bit quieter but much faster and farther than I would have thought necessary. Amazingly, the aircraft was flying smoothly down the glideslope like it was on rails.
I was very apprehensive as I approached the ramp but I was on centerline and caught the 3 wire. I was impressed. The next approach was just like the first. I was thinking I was getting pretty good at this hands-off "stuff" and I was beginning to like it.
The third approach was just like the first two UNTIL I crossed (barely) the ramp. The bottom fell out and dumped me on the deck so fast I was nothing but a scared passenger. It was a loooong taxi to the 1 wire.😱
Even though the aircraft had a retractable corner reflector on the nose wheel door to give the SPN-42's radar a good target it apparently shifted lock at the last second to an engine intake, a wing root or a bomb rack.
I never flew an ACLS approach ever again.😡
Gentlemen, thanks for your time and the conversation. I much enjoyed it!
this was a really interesting interview, thank you gentlemen.
Thank you for a great show Mooh, Hozer and Rowdy!
This was a great episode...one of the best in awhile I think...thank you all !!!!
"MQ-25, see, we're up to speed here... god damn it..." lol. Even the banter between you 3 was excellent, thank you.
This is cool. I'm glad to see this on RUclips. It's nice to see objectivity on this platform. People talking about something they actually know about should not be such a rarity. Thank you Gentlemen!
Let’s all be thankful for the many safety procedures and safety systems in place that allowed this to be a non fatality accident. All learned the hard way.
Thanks to all three of you for the discussion.
Excellent episode !
Excellent discussion!!
When I heard about this accident, I really wanted to know what had happened after learning that several on the flight deck had been hurt, with three medevaced to the Philippines. I suspected an arresting wire might have separated -- rare, but it happens. Then the PLAT footage was leaked, and the situation became a bit clearer. I enjoyed this discussion very much. I earned my wings in 1974, flying T-2Cs, TA-4Js, and S-3As, and then later a career with the airlines. I hope that we do find out the cause of this accident. I am bothered by something, however. With the airlines, pilot hand-flying skills are eroding with the constant use of automation. This is nothing new and has been a concern for several years. Several accidents have had as their root cause the lack of hand-flying skills, when taking over manually would have saved the day, as we know. It still remains up to the individual (and his sense of professionalism) whether to click it all off and fly the approach and landing manually. But for the life of me, I cannot imagine ever wanting to rely on automation too much of the time when it comes to flying around the boat! To couple up every time seems to be the recipe for a future disaster. I only bring that up because much of the discussion had to do with the increase in, and reliance on, automation, especially in daytime Case One ops (which was a surprise to me, frankly). Finally, I can understand coupling up at night, but what's the point of being a Naval Aviator if you're not flying the aircraft a good part of the time to maintain “meatball, line-up, angle-of-attack” with basic stick and throttle?
I agree that flying skills must be degrading because of automation. Myself, I am not a very experienced pilot but when I got my license, I continue to practice basic flight maneuvers on every flight that I could possibly do so, slow flight, steep turns, slips, crosswind Landing‘s, stalls of course, and disorientation recovery. I am astonished that so many pilots do not do this, especially airline pilots who are responsible for the safety of many passengers.
That said, we are better off with way more automation and totally getting rid of pilots completely. I will give you an example. At one time, in the infancy of rocketry, there was some manual control sometimes with the astronauts. As soon as better automation became available, and that was decades ago, all flight responsibilities by The astronauts was taken away in preference of automation which is much better and much safer. We don’t even think about an astronaut flying a rocket anymore, the payload and the personnel are too precious to risk a mistake.
We need to first applied the same principle to airline traffic, because as you know as a commercial pilot, 90% of all accidents are pilot error! Anyone that is a reasonable and self reflective aviator knows that he, the pilot, is essentially the weakest link in the system.
Simultaneously we need to get rid of all combat aircraft pilots to be replaced by automation, artificial intelligence, auto pilot, ground control pilot, whatever, but get those idiots out of the cockpit, and let them find a less expensive way to impress women. In the next war of any consequence, the nation with the best automation, and the least future prisoners of war flying around in airplanes is going to win.
I know this infuriates most fighter jocks and all that, but the truth is you guys are simply obsolete, and let’s face it. It is embarrassing to see these tough guys prowl around the airbase, and then three days later they are shot down and begging for their life on international TV after being taken prisoner of war. There’s nothing pretty about war, we should do everything we can to limit the human Suffering. Time to ban fighter pilots! It’s a matter of national security.
@@steveperreira5850 reliable automation is nice and all but, shit happens and human discretion is the reason for retaining manned flights.
@@steveperreira5850 don’t necessarily disagree, but reliance fully on automation and remote is highly dangerous in regards to hacking. The next war of any consequence is likely going to be won by people sitting in cubicles pushing code.
@@pbowes5Exactly. The potential for embedded attack vectors in the supply chain really scares me
Thanks to each of you. Very insightful.
Good talk, boys! Thanks very much for your time.
I love this channel and the way it's evolved since the beginning. Besides my interest in aviation and the military I'm also a big fan of my uncle who was in the Navy for a long time. He retired from the USD Anzio in around 2000 as a CMDCM. I believe he served on the Guadalcanal, Normandy, Nimitz and Anzio. I know he was on the Nimitz when they participated in operation Eagle Claw.
I don't really see him much and he doesn't talk a lot about his military days but I do know he was in AIC on the Nimitz and he worked a lot with a pilot named Alan Mullen, "Shoes".
Watching the videos that Ward produces is what I imagin it would be like talking to Master Chief Uncle Bill more often 🙂
Thanks Ward!
Again, as a maintainer, I think that there is no substitute for pilot training. All the nice shiny digital equipment we have in this era is great, but it doesn't replace the ability to be able to land an aircraft aboard a carrier in any situation. What happens in a real emergency like systems go down, aircraft or shipboard systems compromised, battle damage, etc. The pilot still has to be able to get his/herself back aboard the boat manually. Get my jet back to the boat so I can fix it! None of us knows what happened with the ramp strike, but as is evident, it happened in daytime on a gorgeous non turbulent sea with all systems up and running. I'm very happy the pilot got out, and hope that the sailors who were injured make a complete recovery. Operating in the manner of Naval Aviation is inherently dangerous, and accidents happen, people get hurt or killed, aircraft get crunched or worse. But we do it day in and day out for months at a time on deployment. Been there done it. Lived it. I hope the people involved get through this and keep up the good work.
I think pilots will be out of the loop in about five years.
Besides ACLS which was not used in this case I pattern, the pilot flew this pass. PLM helps pilots by reducing their work load; they don't have to focus as much on the flying On-speed part and can focus on flying the ball and staying lined up. It's kind of like altitude hold, the pilot still needs to point it in the right direction.
to be fair with fly-by-wire unstable jets nowadays.. if the system is down, you aren't getting back on the boat at all lol. Even the Hornet is an computerised FBW jet - the new PLM simply translates pilot inputs more intuitively. With or without PLM - if the computer's gone, it's toast. I find this argument not very strong in the FBW/unstable jet age.
@@mimimimeow Great point.
The incidental busting of chops that occurs in these "buddy movie" videos is priceless Ward. Making fun of the guys in the pointy end (no spoilers) during the Case I clarification got an audible laugh out of me.
And the reaction of you both to Razor's CQ description "...at night." (Uphill. Both ways.)
Truly enjoyable and educational conversation. Thanks for giving us this early dive on the subject.
Entirely fascinating discussion gentlemen, just goes to show how much talking is needed to get everyone on the same page before even starting to pick apart the details of the incident. I hope that the injured all make a full recovery, this underlines the risk all naval crews take every day.
Enjoyed. Thanks guests and Ward. Real interesting talk.
Suggestion for a future show, I think shipboard life would be interesting. Anything from relations between ship handlers and aircrew to events like steel beach or crossing the equator for first timers.
As a former carrier guy, you really want to open up that can of worms? Let's talk about the differences between black shoe/brown shoe Navy. Ship's company (black shoes) had issues with air wing folks. First of all, having the wing aboard means 2000 more people on the ship. Everything gets harder, meals, laundry, gym, all get packed. Then there's the fact that air crew don't do sweepers (cleaning periods), or general quarters (training drills anytime day or night). On non-flying days the wardroom line was led by all the pilots, and they'd clean out the cookies and ice cream before ship's company could even get through the line. I recall several times pilots with stacks of cookies on their plates, not just one or two, but six or eight. Needless to say, this didn't go over well. Plus, since we all shared the mess bill, we ship's company had to help pay for all that without getting much of it. We all knew a carrier exists for the air wing, but we didn't like being reminded of it.
@@RealDeal22 Thank you, John. That description was surprising, def not what I expected. I would have thought ships’ command would do better, for the morale of everybody aboard.
Silver waterfall is an outstanding Audible book for driving. Narrated brilliantly
Thank you, sir.
Outstanding episode. Always illuminating topics and quests.
AoM are knowledgeable, and entertaining. Well done, sirs! (From a retired USAF E-7)
Great talk! Really surprised to see that in Military Aviation it also comes to the question of hand flying proficiency. Wasn't expecting that, but makes more sense now. In Civil Aviation its an ongoing point for debate, best example the "Children of the Magenta"-Presentation of Warren Van Der Burgh. I saw several civil companies changing their SOP's back and forth about "don't touch the stick". Personally, I am a strong defender of manual flight...
I used to work closely with a medical/air-ambulance crew(s). They used to talk about their various pilots, who they "liked" to fly with and who they dreaded flying with. One of the most damning things they would say about some of the pilots was that they "were so far behind the airplane that they would only catch up with it when it was a smoking crater." You are either ahead of the airplane or you're behind it. It looks like this pilot got behind the airplane and couldn't catch-up in time before it got to the deck.
Its so good he escaped with his life. We only lost 1 F35 and looks like all will recover.
military aviation is so unforgiving they weed out the folks who can't keep up. Further (speaking roughly,) tacair pilots typically have _most_ demonstrated the ability to keep up in dynamic situations. That said, no one is immune from mistakes.
@@77thTrombone kinda ironic to weed-out people after they have a crash
@@touristguy87 dumb + expensive, too. They prefer to weed them out _beforehand._
Thank you thank you thank you! Other RUclipsrs have shied away from this topic opting to wait for a safer time(after release of mishap report) to even begin a discussion
Another great episode. Thoughtful analysis.
Great episode. Love the Space Ghost reference!
Also, during Nam, the medical people wanted to find the greatest stressers for aircraft in combat. The USAF was combat, with night landing number two. THe Navy was 1) night landing in bad weather, 2) night landing in clear weather, 3) night cat shot into black hole, 4) Blue water operations, 5) combat. I always thought that survey was very revealing.
The Japanese just lost an F-15 - night takeoff over the ocean, no moon, plane went into the water shortly after takeoff, no radio calls, bodies/plane not yet recovered. Respect the night!
@@jiyushugi1085 how do you know the plane went into the water? do they at least have images of it?
I thought it was for aircraft in COMBAT, not aircraft just taking off and landing, which they do whether they are flying a combat mission or not. I mean my God if you're going to girl-out about just taking-of and landing the plane then what are you not going to girl-out about?
I guess it's one of those things where they might stop girling-out if they do it 5000 times but until then, "Oh for chrissakes.." nothing more inspiring than a scared pilot.
Why join the Navy and become a fucking jet pilot who flies off a carrier if you're scared of flying jets off a carrier? That is what you fucking DO...nobody forced you to do this....
@@touristguy87 People on shore saw it hit the water shortly after takeoff, disappeared from radar a mere two miles from shore in a steeply banked right turn. It's been over a week now, yet they still haven't found the plane or pilots, just a few bits of the horizontal stab that washed ashore. Plenty of speculation in the domestic press, much of it by very knowledgeable people.
My take: vertigo leading to LOC. Only those who've made takeoffs over the ocean on a dark-dark night, single pilot, know how challenging it is. Very easy to kill yourself if you aren't absolutely on your game.
@@touristguy87 You might want to try hand-flying a few instrument approaches at night, single pilot in IMC before writing such nonsense.
Hi Ward. I really enjoy your channel. You have great topics and great guests.
My kids when to school with the son of an F14 RIO, I would expect he would have been a contemporary of yours. Robert Rouse. He did not talk a lot about his time in the Navy but he did tell me that he had 2 ejections from F14s. Hard to believe he survived, but he did. I lost contact with him, our kids went to different schools and he may have moved out of state. Anyway, since navy fighter pilots are a small and close tribe, I thought might know him or know of him.
Keep up the good work and thank you!
Thanks for the support! I don't know Robert Rouse, which surprises me since he ejected twice.
@@WardCarroll Sorry, his name is Dan Rouse, the son is Robert. He lives in the Boston area. You can google his Linkedin page. Maybe there's a story there? Thanks again for your work. All the best.
Nice listening to a balance explanation of what happened. Thanks for the lesson.
You guy's experience and expertise is really inspiring. Always fascinating to listen to your perspectives. And thank you for your dedication and service.
In the 80s I was in a National Guard 155mm artillery battery. We plotted fire on a chart table, estimated elevations from the map, and calculated corrections with a slide rule firing table. We eventually received preprogrammed calculators, survey could give us near centimeter three axis location, radar chronographs gave us each rounds velocity, and the observer with a laser designator could spot targets with in meters resulting regularly in first round hits. All very good.
During this time the Army was eliminating manual methods from fire direction control (FDC) training in favor of computer plotting. In the Grenada event planes loaded with the FDC gear dropped out with engine problems. On the ground with guns and bullets, but without FDC the troops were stymied until an old school sergeant, to their amazement, started plotting fire on the hood of a jeep with a blank sheet of paper, ruler, and protractor. You can do it, only if you really know what it takes to put metal on target.
The latest artillery like the 155mm M777 and M109A6 (self propelled) are amazing. The gun knows where it is without survey and receives FDC data through the air. All good as long as the communications are not broken, and then what?
A ground drone version of the XM2001 Crusader??
David Vik Bt2, SFC, GMC USNR(RET)
Yes, Sir! Electronics are not substitution of a map and compass, it's additional convenience.
If not for that 1 Sgt., what would they do? Cover all approx. area with markers and hope to find the right spot?
Ward, I love your channel. I am subscribed and you give us some great insights that I really look forward to seeing from you. Maybe I missed the point of this video, but I think any analysis of this accident in any form and at this point is pure conjecture. This would be better served once the investigation report becomes public, if it does. I can only imagine what the pilot in this accident is going through now.
Hi Mooch, JR here. I was a devout ACLS user when I was CAG-9 paddles. I wanted to make sure it worked for my airwings aircraft. My experience in the A7 was pretty good. Maybe 75% positive. The problem we found constantly was the antennas on the aircraft getting damaged. This was on Connie. Later flying off Enterprise we were starting to work the bugs out and the percentage of good landings went up. I found that a little pressure on the AE’s worked. When we got to the hornet off Midway I’m not sure I had a failed landing. Thing is it was hairy enough trying to land on Midway. I had a hard time talking my guys into auto passes. Anyway, that was my experience. Junior
Mooch, Hozer and Rowdy look like brothers. Must be a Navy thing. All that ice cream and filet mignon in the officers mess. ;-)
Yeah, that's it. ;-)
@@WardCarroll - great channel, Ward. Always fascinating. Please keep up the great work.
Thanks for the good words,@@supersixbravo1610! I'll certainly keep trying.
Superb job, Mooch, Hozer, and Rowdy. Thank you for your service to the country.
1 year out, this still an eye opener for me. and I now appreciate the mistake I have made by making snarky comment(s) having briefly read some of the comments scrolling by on my lower right. thank you for your unique presentations. I think you enjoy this as much as many of us do.
Excellent presentation! Well done...
I’ve been involved with the F-35 for going on 8 years, half of which were flight test at Pax. I’m currently a test engineer on the flight line in Ft. Worth. Also I’m sure you guys know my dad in some fashion. Anyways, it’s nice to listen to a very intelligent conversation about facts. Keep up the great videos!
My husband worked Flight Test for LM Marietta.
Who's your dad?
@@WardCarroll Jeff Wieringa
@@Andy_Dubya Copy. Know him. Please pass my best.
@@WardCarroll will do
"Yo Gramps, PLM is da bomb!"
It was great getting the perspectives of the seriously qualified senior naval aviators, great line up Ward. Interesting hearing from an apparent current fleet operator as well.
Great chat!!!
Great discussion. I think what really sums it up was pointed out at the end, a future with unmanned carrier aircraft.
Or a future of Navel (“Navel,” Freudian slip) Aviation we currently find incomprehensible. David D Adair’s description of symbiont technologies, describes his self-reported life experience building and sabotaging a first-strike missile, (lightning in a bottle) under Gen. Curtis LeMay, back when David was 17 years old and advising Dr Stephen Hawking on blackhole energy theory, David was given access in Area 51 to a bus size symbiont engine. The engine is intelligent and first reads your mind to establish if you are trustworthy. Once your consciousness bonds with the conscious symbiont materials of the engine, you merely think what you want to do and the craft is already doing it. Aircraft wings aren’t required. Angle of attack is irrelevant, airspeed is anything below C with workarounds for Warp. Apparently the engine would not bond with any US Government official assigned to reverse engineer it…. except perhaps Dr. Salvador Cesar Pais who seems to be on his own reality timeline.
This accident reminds me of an A320 crash back in the mid 80s. This flight was known as: Air France Flight 296Q and was the first passenger flight of the A320. The airplane was doing a low flyby at a small airport airshow. This airport was too small to handle transport aircraft. The plan was to overfly the field at 100 feet. There were about 100 passengers with a few fatalities. The A320 was the first large fly by wire transport aircraft. As the airplane approached the field it fell below 100 feet and descended to about 30 feet AGL. It looked like ground effect stopped the descent. The pilot stated he applied power at 100 feet to level off, but the engines didn't respond. Because it was an airshow event there are tons of video from this accident. The videos show the airplane approaching the airfield and descending to a very low altitude. After passing the runway it went into a stand of trees. As it went into the trees it was obvious the engines were spooling up before the resulting fireball. The pilot was tried for manslaughter and sent to a french prison. In the end Airbus revised the flight control laws to provide low and slow pilot warnings and improve engine flight idle speeds to reduce spool up times.
I was an ADJ in VA-52 (A-6) onboard the Kitty Hawk, my older brother was an AQ in VA-165 (A-6) onboard the Constellation and my second younger brother was a A-6 pilot in VMA-533 onboard the America. After the Navy I worked for Boeing Commercial Airplanes for 43 years. The last 12 years I was Operations Manager in flight test. These guys look to young to know what a ADJ is :) Good video, thanks for sharing your expertise.
Airbus control laws. Gear down and at that altitude = landing mode.
I saw a video about that crash on YT a few months ago. The flight crew was the Airbus official test crew or instructor crew for that plane, I forget which. ...the pilot was the lead test pilot of the program...I don't remember exactly what the cause was but certainly he flew too low and crashed into a stand of trees. But I don't recall anything about the engines not spooling up and frankly that simply doesn't make sense. It sounds a lot more like the pilot programmed an altitude into the autopilot and didn't have the correct pressure for it, then refused to actually take it off autopilot because it was already so low. Or even worse, he intentionally flew it low to prove a point about the plane, it being so safe and all that. Then blames the plane when it crashes. Priceless.
Even if it was on AP he could have dialed in a higher altitude and even if the engines did not spool up it could have still climbed unless it was right above the stall speed the entire time. Either way it was either amazingly reckless and stupid or an admission that it was really not a safe plane to fly. Like that idiot B-52 pilot who rolled one into a high-speed stall at a military air-show and blew-up 10 acres of the base. The Russian pilot who discovers that an Su-35 can't actually perform a cobra at 500ft AGL...the TWO Russian pilots who have a mid-air at 500 feet AGL at an air-show and somehow survive...the F14 crew that had a compressor stall at 500ft AGL and crash into a house...all it takes is one mechanical problem or a loss of control and boom
I would think not practicing 'manual' landings is a huge mistake. Nothing works perfectly 100% of the time and you need that skill to be honed razor sharp. The Navy even realized it was wrong at stopping celestial navigation training and that is nothing to the level of landing on a carrier.
PLM (Precision Landing Mode) is a fully redundant system in fleet jets. The only way to lose it would be to lose all electrical power meaning both the Rhinos and F-35's aren't flying anymore.
@@iamjtjoyce it didn't prevent the ramp strike in this incident, so something failed
@@sec808 it wasn’t the problem though. At the end of the day, it’s usually comes down to pilot error like not putting in the right ship speed or glide slope or something as simple as not flying the ball
@@iamjtjoyce Can you exlpain what you mean by "fully redundant system".
Also, I'm not a pilot but I do work with computers and they can fail for very strange and unpredictable reasons.
@@shrimpflea basically that PLM is able to operate as long a there is a good Flight control computer. If all the flight control computers fail, the jet isn't going to be flying anymore anyway
Hey Ward,
i bought your book Punk’s Fight, great book.
im also subscribed to your channel, again great job, i really enjoy what you share.
Thank God everyone survived!
Ward, you host a good show. Thank you to you and your guests.
Thanks, Charles.
In any case the F-35 has an enviable perfect record of ejections.
Thanks to Martin Baker.
The loss rate also isn't bad for the flight time and amount of aircraft built.
@@FirstDagger Two squadrons of F-35Cs deployed and one hull lost already… Okay, let’s see where we’re at in 12 months time.
@@thethirdman225 That's a heck of an expensive anchor...
You're forgetting the Japanese pilot that augered in in 2019
Tailhook? Lt. Paula Coughlin ended up in my squadron, HC-2 in Norfolk. I served from '89 to '98, flew '53's at sea and she did as well. I never flew with her but would have preferred she gone somewhere else. That was also the general sentiment in the wardroom. Everyone had to watch what they said and the skipper made it clear that if ANYONE spoke to the press about her, they'd be doing their disassociated on a frigate based in Diego Garcia as the fuels officer. She got more special treatment than anyone I'd ever met and rarely if ever flew. She had one of the most foul vernaculars of all the people I've ever met in my life. So when I saw her shed tears while being interviewed on a very popular evening tabloid show in the early '90's, I was pretty disgusted. I'll assume she's wealthy, still unhappy and still attracting only the most inebriated men.
Good term in the description, “vernacular”. I did not know the Lt or ever crossed paths in flight school, but others that knew her during flight school said similar things.
Ward I'm an old cat guy off the Lexington and enjoy your episodes. I think this was one of your best videos.
I am ex Navy a boatswains mate on AOR-6 USS Kalamazoo in 79 to 83 we sailed with the Nimitz Battle Group filling everyone up along the way. Still fallow every military channel, try to make sure anyone specifically NAVY. This is great you guys watch money werks weekly flight ops out of Texas pretty cool observations, you guys always have awesome videos.
Mooch, no grief allowed for being a RIO, mad respect. Was planning to go to USAF Academy, but pilots at local base told me what crap they gave incoming classes, and told me because of my eyesight I couldn't be a pilot, only backseater, sooo... I gave up academy pursuit like an idiot, went to state school. (Dad was career Air Force, btw). So years later, I go Navy as staff officer, end up on the Connie, go to Gulf and we drop bombs on Saddam's head in 2003. I feel like I missed out on flying, now living vicariously on your streams, great to hear Navy talk even if half of what you guys say is almost unintelligible to a non-aviator, lol. Our CO on the Connie was Fozzie Miller, XO was Moses Maloney, great guys to work for! Deployment was like you said, stuff happens. Two men overboard in middle of the night, (both recovered ok), F-18 over the side (brake failure), C-2 prop disintegrates on deck, hailstorm damages canopies on first wave of attacks... standard deployment! Oh yeah, massive fire destroys main #4 on way to the Gulf, we work with 3 engines remainder of deployment!
Thanks much, John. Appreciate that.
As a former LSO of VF-111 count the time this guy/gal rolls wing level in the groove. It’s like 6-7 seconds. Normal groove length is 15-18 seconds. Also it definitely appears that the engine is at idle until it just crosses the ramp. As to normal losses during a cruise, on my first cruise we lost three Tomcats, two A-7s, one helo, and one A-6. 1981. “Biff”
Yes, I still feel the accident rate of the 35 is low, and accidents do happen, as you said, with other aircraft. Its just that we live in rapid information age.
That's astonishing...I had no idea the loss rates were so high.
Another LSO with F-35C experience pointed out that they were high on the break, then tried to get down into the glideslope by going idle, ran out of options a few seconds before impacting the ramp.
@@idanceforpennies281 They lost 73 F-14As from 1975-1985, had at least 19 fatalities.
Hornet suffered 94 total losses with 27 fatalities its first 10 years of service.
This is 11 years and 8 months since the first flight of CF-1 F-35C, not counting any of the test and development years on the 2 X-35C experimental birds in 2000-2001.
Given the current mishap rate per flight hours, F-35C only has 2 Class As that have been openly reported. First was a refueling basket failure where it broke off and was ingested into the starboard intake and sucked through the engine, still recovered on the carrier.
2nd was this one. That's in 11 years, 8 months, with no published data on how many of the 480,000 cumulative JSF-A/B/C fight hours are from the F-35C fleet.
There are over 760 JSF airframes delivered already, with F-35C being the least-produced variant with a total of 72 ordered so far, over 62 delivered.
I would be surprised if the F-35C fleet has logged more than 50,000hr out of the 480,000 total.
2 Class As per 50,000 would scale to 4/100,000, one of which was damage to engine and normal trap, the other this total loss with 7 injuries.
That's lower than any carrier-borne fighter in USN/USMC history.
There will be more incidents. It's just a matter of how frequent they will occur. F-35C looks like it will demonstrate a very low Class A mishap rate going forward either way.
@@LRRPFco52 one thing outside F35 that when in the water from Japan the report at close to mach1 all the other the airmen have been save by the ejection seat and a few close to or on the runway
Lovely video. Lots of information. Thank you!
Great discussion, thanks.
You’re the USN, you’re flexing your muscle in Oceania, you tell the world: “We are asking our 5th gen pilots to fly in fast and dangerous for maximum efficiency in our carrier ops.” We lost an airframe, we are flying hard and fast like we always do.
💯 China doesn't lose planes because they don't shoot them at max gross, they don't do high tempo, nothing risky that could cause their people to ask questions. This is just another day for the USN.
@@wilfdarr I’m fairly sure China does lose airframes regularly, it’s just not publicised at all. There have been numerous deaths of their own naval pilots.
@@artnull13 Agree .......because those information consider state secrets......oh what are use with P&W Canada 3050790-01 ????
Ward, thanks so much for your excellent videos! As a civilian ATP I've always enjoyed learning about military aviation, and frankly I have to admit that you guys on the military side of the fence are often more disciplined and precise in both your terminology and your flying thanks to the exceptional training you receive in the military.
But there's one thing about military aviators that just drives me crazy: Why the F do you guys routinely refer to your aircraft as a 'jet'? Dude, seriously? The word 'jet' refers to a CATEGORY OF AIRCRAFT POWERPLANT, not to the aircraft itself. That category of JET includes turbojets, fanjets, and for you guys who are lucky enough to fly them, it also includes SCRAMJETs and so forth.
But honestly, every time I hear a military aviator refer to his AIRCRAFT as a 'Jet', it sounds just like a student pilot confusing an aerodynamic stall with an engine 'stall'. Like the guy just has no clue what he's talking about. Does the military actually teach you guys to refer to what surely ought to be called an AIRCRAFT or AIRPLANE as a 'JET'? How is this possible considering how precise and accurate everything else in military aviation seems to be?
Yes, obviously, I'm nitpicking terminology to a pedantic degree, and in the grand scheme of things everyone knows what you mean when you talk about "Sitting inside the jet", despite that when you think about it would be impossible if interpreted literally. But with everything else in military aviation so focused on accuracy and precision, I've always been fascinated by this habit of military pilots.
Perhaps you'll comment on this in a future video?
Drives me nuts too. Heard multiple co-workers refer to piston airplanes as jets, it seems the only ones that don't do it grew up in GA first. I refuse to call it a jet and get weird looks all the time lol.
@@Flyingcircustailwheel Saw another vid PRODUCED BY A FORMER USAF THUNDERBIRDS PILOT, in which he refers to the P-51 Mustang as "the most important JET of WWII"!
@@scottharrington8362 Doesn't surprise me. They use it as a synonym for airplane, it's so strange.
I was a black shoe PO3 radar tech @ PAX river for ACLS SPN-42 cert to Saratoga. Usually just A7 or F4 did mode 1 but only rarely but mostly mode 2 or 3.
As a tech it was continuous maintenance & calibrations. Pilots were always down for debriefs comparing our strip chart recordings of their performances. It was rare to get many complaints.
Great channel Mooch and thanks!
I was in CATCC on IKE 84-87, I was a final controller working the SPN 42 ACLS final consol. This system was designed to provide fully automated control and help "land" the aircraft to the deck. However, very few pilots would fly a fully mode 1 approach to the deck. Instead they would fly mode 2 (needles) approach, cross referencing the ILS SPN 41 with the ACLS, SPN 42 and at 1 mile, they would downgrade to a Mode 2 approach which is a pilot controlled approach to the deck. A7, S3 and A6 were notorious for not flying Mode 1, there was only one pilot in VF 143 (LTCD Klinker) that would fly the entire approach to the deck.........
Ward:
I was an AT on A-7s in the late 70’s. I was always awed by what naval and marine corp aviators did at sea. I took the physical, and, like you, I had eye problems. I got out, went to college, and ultimately got my private pilot license. I always wondered if someone with a private pilot license would have the basic skills to catch a wire. In other words, how much more training would a ppl holder require, or how much more difficult is it to trap than to hit the numbers onshore?
Go practice dead stick touch and go's over and over, after awhile you get real good putting it where you want it. Anybody can go from point a to b, maneuver flying, close to the ground, is where you get good. practice.
Stop trying to get the jocks to like you
@@justinliu7357 huh?
On CV-63 in 94, we had 1 of almost every aircraft type lost; A-6, Hornet, Tomcat, helo, S-3. All in 1 cruise. No aircraft fatalities.
>one of every aircraft lost in one cruise
Was this cruise cursed by a gypsy?
@@natowaveenjoyer9862 Heck I dunno.....We had a Tomcat from VF-51 ramp strike. An F/A-18 from VFA-97 had a double FOD on launch due to improper maintenance on the wheel bearings which ripped the wheel apart. The others were lost away from the ship.
Here was the VF-51 ramp strike from that cruise: ruclips.net/video/XhfUoID_sRo/видео.html
As a Ward subscriber there was little doubt that the F35 incident would be covered, this presentation far exceeded any of my preconcieved expections, great job to all of you and thank you for service.
CAG 7. I was with VFA 131 as a plane captain. We all was at NAS Oceana. Amazing Podcast. You have gain a subscriber. I was there in 2006 when the tomcats retired at Oceana.
"I failed my Air Force flight physical, when the flight surgeon discovered I had balls." A-7 VA Squadron Commander.
"Them's fightin' words"
F-105 Thud Squadron CO
Probably..
@@JamesinAZ LOL
Years ago, when I was an engineer at Vought working on A7 flight simulators, I had a squadron commander tell us that, when we were out drinking after a design review.. I assume it is a very worn out Naval aviator line. It was quite funny at the time.
As a former Navy helicopter pilot, I think the Navy should consider having a device they can tether quickly to an aircraft just laying in the water like this F-35 before it sinks. They will float for a short while before all of the compartments fill with water (Sully) and this time can and should be taken advantage of. This device would have a large inflatable ball at the end of a short length of appropriately sized rope and would inflate quickly after either tethering or by way of saltwater activation. A possible tethering point might be just inside the aerial refuel hatch and this hatch would pop open after an ejection making it accessible for a quick tether with a Carabiner type of coupling. The SAR helos in starboard delta would have one onboard and the crews would be trained on how to jump the diver and hook it up quickly and/or have a Zodiac crew on standby deploy-able from the ship during flight ops. The helo is already out there so let's add this to it's capabilities. I'm fairly certain there also may be a Zodiac and crew ready during flight ops for man-overboard purposes but correct me if I'm wrong as I flew '53's and we weren't normally deployed on carriers except my time on the Eisenhower while on the Haitian Vacation in '94. Please know I was on detachment to Key West and we pulled a F-16 out of a swamp at the departure end of the runway so either a '53 could later retrieve this tethered aircraft or a ships crane could, saving our asset along with coveted military secrets.
the best post hoc analysis of that event.
Thank you. Extremely interesting!
The helmet costs more than my airplane that took me 10 years to pay for. Sheesh, that is wild.
As asked before....What will the control automatic control situation be in a war environment, and also with a battle-damaged plane?
@Honey b. China lit their engine room on fire first time they took the re-commissioned Ukrainian-built rust bucket out to sea. But their uniforms were spotless for the pony show.
F-35 is self diagnostic and has a kind of self repair where it can reroute power to other systems. And usually if you take battle damage from modern weapons you are dead anyway (hence the focus on sensor fusion and Stealth), so the point is not to get hit in the first place, hence why low level missions are a thing of the past.
R2D2, please make it work again! Now!.
- Maverick in 2025 -
@Honey b. Yep. Nobody really knows. We have not been at war with a peer in a bazillion years, so it is all theoretical.
35 should be better with damage or a system failure as the ability to adjust is built in
I was in the Gunslingers from 2010-2015. "Tonight...We Ride!" It was the start of my naval career. I'm 12 years in and hope to continue to retirement. It's satisfying and reassuring to see a safe ejection as I maintain that system and related subsystems.
Thanks guys, very interesting to listen to this talk👍👍
This is the kind of content I love….I’ll never use it in my life but I love it….anyone else like me?
Hear! Hear!
Mooch, Could you please comment on the accident rate during your career? How likely was it for an accident to occur during a cruise that would result in loss of aircraft and or loss of crew? When I was in, it was common to have at least one such incident per cruise.
@@KevinJDildonik the mishap rate is far from zero. The number of aviation flight and ground mishaps has serious attention from leadership and is driving significant policy and organizational change.
Thank you for your service. Thank you for the information on safety procedures. Your professional presentation was exceptional to this non aviator civilian!
Great video!
There are about 60 F-35C’s in the fleet at this time. The only active squadrons are at Lemoore. So, do the math as to how many aircraft you need for a squadron in the US Navy. The C-models came off of the assembly line pretty early (and continuously), but nowhere near the rate of the A’s and B’s. The US Navy is the only customer, at this time, for the C. They seem to have chosen a measured approach to procurement.
Something to note in the photo of the aircraft in the water is that the windscreen and bow frame are still there. This is correct. It is a single piece assembly, hinging at the front because the F-35B lift fan did not permit the space for a rear hinge mechanism. I would imagine a random Internet photoshopper probably wouldn’t be savvy enough to know that the F-35 ejection system has the pilot going THROUGH the canopy glass (acrylic) using a “det cord” (FLSC) arrangement to pre-break the glass before the seat heads up the rails. Similar to the Harrier. Stretched acrylic is the material of choice for such a system. Polycarbonate, which is used on Raptor, for instance, and lighter because it can be thinner, is much more resistant to cracking. The windscreen on F-35 is 2 inches thick to meet bird strike requirements. All driven by the Navy jets. Not a bad system. Just one solution to a certain problem. We’ve had a few ejections now and no fatalities.
Great analysis by all. Lot’s of insight into Carrier Ops. I was looking forward to this episode.
Thanks for this comment. Good information.
"The only active squadrons are at Lemoore."
"The US Navy is the only customer, at this time, for the C."
Incorrect on both counts. VMFA-314, currently embarked aboard USS Abraham Lincoln, is based at MCAS Miramar.
@@AA-xo9uw Roger that. Mentioned during the discussion.
"I'll let the "nosegunners" describe the specifics..........." attaboy, Mooch. Sure the front seaters can do their "pilot s&*t", but the RIOs were what gave the Cat its fangs. Pro Patria.
Right?
Thank you for giving us context and inside information. You all look very gentlemanly, and don’t seem to fit your nicknames.
I was a Ranger for 6 years and we didn’t use nicknames like that so I don’t know much about it.
I appreciate your service.
VMFA-314 Black Knights, visited us at Fallon about last September before carrier quals. Nice professional group !