F-35 Ejection Seat Fears Ground Lightweight Pilots 179
An anonymous reader writes: Writing for Defense News, Lara Seligman and Aaron Mehta report that "[c]oncerns about increased risk of injury to F-35 pilots during low-speed ejections have prompted the US military services to temporarily restrict pilots who weigh less than 136 pounds from flying the aircraft. During August tests of the ejection seat, built by Martin-Baker, testers discovered an increased risk of neck injury when a lightweight pilot is flying at slower speeds. Until the problem is fixed, the services decided to restrict pilots weighing under 136 pounds from operating the plane, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, F-35 integration office director, told Defense News in a Tuesday interview."
The F-35 is having problems? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet another bug in the slow-motion uber-expensive train-wreck that is the F-35 program.
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My thought exactly...
Re:The F-35 is having problems? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, it's way too big to get off the ground.
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"And yet another bug in the slow-motion uber-expensive train-wreck that is the F-35 program."
Much of the expense of this boondoggle is due to accommodating a human on board. The tiny detail of ejector seat engineering is a fine example.
Why are we building such dinosaurs in this century? A similar pilotless craft could be faster, far more maneuverable, travel greater distances, and cost less. (Not to mention that no pilot would be at risk.)
Google could have a fully tested, state-of-the-art control system rea
Re:The F-35 is having problems? (Score:4, Informative)
Because drone latency makes it impossible for them to replace eyes in the field.
Re:The F-35 is having problems? (Score:4, Informative)
And because a technologically advanced industrial enemy would easily take down all those drones by simply jamming communications or, more radically, shooting down the communication satellites. Why, IRAN managed to hijack a US drone. Of course they're not camel humpers but they're not Russia, China or India. Why, using drones against Russia would mean eliciting an armed response against the US satellite fleet. And you can bet they're not restricting themselves, either. Fancy living without GPS?
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We can put fuckton of small relays in LEO at negligible cost (relative to the F-35 project). Alternatively, if the opponent does have a ground based laser anti-satellite weapon (the only viable way of dealing with the fuckton of satellites) you could use a drone swarm with a mesh network. Either way you can use highly directional communication, which makes jamming moot.
Re: The F-35 is having problems? (Score:1)
You can do no such thing, kid. This is reality, not star wars. Now take your meds and do your homework.
Re:The F-35 is having problems? (Score:4, Insightful)
We can put fuckton of small relays in LEO at negligible cost (relative to the F-35 project). Alternatively, if the opponent does have a ground based laser anti-satellite weapon (the only viable way of dealing with the fuckton of satellites) you could use a drone swarm with a mesh network. Either way you can use highly directional communication, which makes jamming moot.
Jeezuz, man - your scifi scenario has so many holes in it, you probably like hte idea of screendoors on submarines.
You know what happens when you take out 1 or two LEO sats? You take 'em all out. And you don't even need to hit one, just put up more shrapnel to take em out. If someone was foolish enough to try such a scheme, and a nation was desperate enough, just think of a space hand grenade. Rocket designed to fragment after reaching orbit, and no more "fuckton" of sats. You want ot talk about inexpensive? Every new Sat you take out will become more shrapnel to take out others.
There's a reason why there have only been a couple tests of antisatellite weapons.
Our first war in space will be our last war in space. As we filled up desirable orbits with debris, we'd have to wait until it de-orbits to get anything new through.
Non starter idea. And your buzzword salad of mesh networks and highly directional comms is just that - buzzwords.
Remember, you don''t design weapons to be only used against people with mid 20th century tactics. You eventually come up against a technologically savvy opponent.
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And the resulting debris from the retaliation would render LEO useless.
Move to the next orbital band, same problem eventually. The real problem with space warfare is the debris. Policing the battlefield is surprising important on Earth. In space, much, much more difficult, with even more disastrous consequences.
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"IRAN managed to hijack a US drone."
I don't know the percentage of drone flights that are disabled. Is there a lot of that going on?
I also don't know the odds of a war against Russia, China or India. Are you suggesting we should arm ourselves for that? We haven't had any wars against such major powers in a very long time and our economic interdependence suggests we never will.
Our wars are less ambitious lately: war on drugs; war on terrorism; war on individual privacy ... Drones have been working for that,
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I also don't know the odds of a war against Russia, China or India. Are you suggesting we should arm ourselves for that?
That is the entire point of the F-35. It is for fighting another super-power. For any 3rd rate power, like Iran, good old fashioned F-15, F-16, and F-18 aircraft would be fine.
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The F22 Raptor is probably better suited at air combat against another 4-5th gen fighter.
The new Sukoi T-50 is more of a 4.5 gen fighter with frontal stealth but poor-to-medium side and rear radar signature and heat trails due to the external double-thrusters.
Unless they come in head-to-head, I dont think a T-50 has a chance against a F35. And dog fighting (avoidance of which is the whole point of stealth) is best serverd to the bi-axial thrust-vectoring of the F22.
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"IRAN managed to hijack a US drone."
I don't know the percentage of drone flights that are disabled. Is there a lot of that going on?
I also don't know the odds of a war against Russia, China or India. Are you suggesting we should arm ourselves for that?
Well yeah. There's an old saying that we are always ready to fight the previous war. It's not a declaration of war to have your country at the same technological level as possible competitors.
Complete Crap (Score:3)
Why, IRAN managed to hijack a US drone...
No, that's not what happened, and you know it. The drone in question had a software failure and landed in Iranian territory. Automatic systems on the drone destroyed all of the software, and some of the hardware.
Iranian chest thumping about this incident is NOT born out by these things called facts. You will also note that the Iranian claim to have reverse engineered this drone has not resulted in a similar Iranian drone.
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Much of the expense is coming from trying to build one plane to be a master of all jobs for all branches of the military. There are so many requirements that they are conflicting with each other.
I think they would have been better to try and build multiple planes for the different roles needed but for all of the common parts develop them as if for one plane. Many components can be shared between the versions (weapons, radar, wheels and landing gear, tail fins, wings, nose, fuel system, ...) For example t
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Exactly you need air to air combat with bvr and stealth. F-22
You need some air to air and some air to ground stealth is useful. F-35
You need ground CAS you need low slow and built like a tank carting weapons and fuel to loiter for hours. A-10
You need pictures and comm relays in the various zones that is what drones are for.
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You still need another air to air that can be exported from the US to it's allies because the US is keeping the F-22 to itself. That's one of the reasons why the F-35 is being developed.
There's also the version that the Marines and the British want with VSTOL capability.
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If you look at it it is essentially 3 aircraft. Different airframes, avionics, wing geometries etc. VTOL, regular runway, and carrier capability. The last it was tried was with the F-4 and it failed in it's original goals of interchangeable parts and sate of the art tech as well ( the expensive Sparrow missile dod not work correctly for about 10 years).
A total fuck up if there was one.
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Much of the expense is coming from trying to build one plane to be a master of all jobs for all branches of the military.
This and a hundred times this. I don't take my Jeep to the dragstrip, and I don't take my cruiser bike on trails. And one size fits all gloves don't fit on my hands either.
The very idea of the F35 replacing the A10 Warthog is laughable. Just attempting that feat makes it a bad replacement for the fighters it is supposed to replace. So you get a camel - a racehorse designed by a committee.
It's already been shown to not compete with the fighter planes we have now, https://medium.com/war-is-bori... [medium.com]
We'
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Google could have a fully tested, state-of-the-art control system ready in 6 months ...
Well... beta-tested anyway.
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> A similar pilotless craft could be faster, far more maneuverable, travel greater distances, and cost less.
A few years ago the russians sent a few 6x6 trucks with funny antennas on their topside to Iran, plus associated personnel. Those russians did some electronic magic and the CIA's super secret and expensive RQ-170 stealth spy drone aircraft suddenly decided she needs to disregards yankee commands and her own programming but land nicely belly up, right in the middle of Iran. She ended up in a street
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Huh? Google isn't even in the same ballpark as LHM when it comes to aviation.
This isn't about aircraft, this is about the AI to control them. For that, Google is lightyears ahead of Lockheed.
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This is no bug. This is airforce discovering the best way to keep a woman out of the cockpit, you kill them with the ejection system.
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Agreed, when it comes to the F-35, slashdot gets bombarded with the uninformed and the Anonymous Cowards. Short memory is an unfortunate human trait. As ejecitons [airforcetimes.com] from contemporary aircraft [916-starfighter.de] have never been problematic or ever killed pilots? Or is it simply that further testing of the Martin-Baker designed seat produced questionable result when constraining lightweight pilots? But I know it's more fun to simply trash talk the F-35 instead of preventing further deaths.
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Because it's so difficult to add a couple of 20lb weights to the seat if there's a lightweight pilot in it.
(To the seat because you don't actually want to be wearing a weight belt if you have to eject over water.)
Non-Issue (Score:2)
It's really not that easy. The combination of space constraints and aerodynamic engineering makes it a little more complicated than bolting a weight on. This is simply a routine engineering issue that will be solved the same way as all issues found in testing. Nothing to see, please move along.
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From the images I can find it doesn't look like there are any real space issues in the F-35's cockpit. And as is obvious in the images, aerodynamics are also not really a concern. Balance might be a bit of a concern, but that is a simple issue with the weight placement. The biggest issue I can think of is the procedures to ensure that the weights are in place for lightweight pilots but removed for others.
http://www.sbap.be/events/2013... [www.sbap.be]
Re:Non-Issue (Score:4, Informative)
A lead filled cushion is not that large at 20 pounds, we use them in gliders often for low weight pilots.
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Actually, it is, unless you assign an airframe to a specific pilot, which can be done, but limits your operational readiness.
Think it through. Messing around the bottom of an installed ejection seat is so dangerous the technicians doing so usually have absolute authority over the aircraft when doing so. NOBODY touches that aircraft when Egress is working.
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Are you aware that the US Air Force has had female combat pilots for a number of years? Did you know that these female pilots have participated in many real world missions? Did you know that at McChord AFO (JBLM-Lewis McChord Field) that we have quite a few female C17 pilots (yes, I know, not a fighter, I work here)? Gender is no longer a bar to pilot status in ANY US Air Force air frame.
Re:The F-35 is having problems? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure why this was a problem and why they couldn't use an existing ejector seat design but perhaps they have to be designed on a per-aircraft basis.
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train-wreck that is the F-35 program.
Keep in mind that the F-35 was designed for export. So it was intended to be good enough for foreign air forces to say "Ooooo! Shiny!" but be bad enough that we can still knock them down with something like an F-22 should we have to go head to head with an ex-customer*.
*Having high maintenance requirements works to our advantage as well. A few months after the coup, our newfound adversaries will have nothing but a fleet of hangar queens, waiting for spare parts.
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Plans that count on you being very clever, and the mark being a simpleton, usually backfire.
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But that's also okay: by the time they do, the other party will be in power and get the blame.
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Oh that thing is for export? Ok, then it's working as designed.
The US learned from their Iran blunder. Never, ever since did any vassal get top notch military hardware. No matter how trustworthy he may seem.
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The US learned from their Iran blunder.
Imagine what would happen if we sold Canada a functional fighter. We share an 8900 km undefended border with them.
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Even worse. 95% of pilots under 136 pounds are women. The airforce just banned women from f-35 flights without being directly gender discrimitory .
H
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The airforce just banned women from f-35 flights without being directly gender discrimitory .
Women are not banned from the F-35. ALL PEOPLE under 136 pounds are.
This is an engineering issue that will be solved in due course, like all complex engineering issues.
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... ejection seats... pilots under 135 pounds...
[Insert dwarf-throwing joke here].
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And yet another bug in the slow-motion uber-expensive train-wreck that is the F-35 program.
I see a joke about surge pricing in there somewhere.
Drat! (Score:2)
I'm sure they are crushed not being able to fly the boondoggle.
Add weights? (Score:1)
Um, if it's just a matter of weight or mass, just ask the pilots to sew weights into their flight jackets to make up the difference, or wrap lead weights around their bodies.
There has to be more to it than this.
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Yep. It's just another media frenzy over nothing.
How many pilots do you think it actually affects?
136 pounds is a midget...even Tom Cruise weighs more than that (169 pounds according to google)
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I'm pretty sure I've known some rather tough four foot eight men who could toss you across the room. But no [airforce.com], it's not far fetched that it affects some of their pilots.
A 5 year old could toss you across the room with some aikido or judo training.
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Not actually. In the movies, the wire rigs have been edited out, but it's not real.
In traditional martial arts, a lot of those "tosses" you'll see between people similarly trained are just because the alternative to being thrown is to be injured in a very bad way. Newton's laws still apply, and no 5 year old is going to throw me across the room. Maybe knock me on my ass, though.
You have to understand the context for things... like kendo makes sense only when you realize it is a sport developed for training combat between samurai that are both wearing armor.
I've seen, well ok not 5 year olds but 7 year olds literally throw a man across a room with aikido. It does work like that. But the man has to put some energy in, has to have a go at them. It doesn't work if the man is stationary.
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I've seen literally a lot of people on the Internet saying really stupid shit and, when confronted by someone reasonable, who then invented some "life experience" to try to justify the stupid shit they said in the first place.
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But no [airforce.com], it's not far fetched that it affects some of their pilots.
Not everybody in the air force is a pilot.
Pilots have a minimum height requirement, the bottom end of that chart doesn't apply to them.
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A skinny midget is still a midget.
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Besides, that's probably not a good solution if they eject over water.
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Come now, you're interrupting the Two Minutes Hate.
The proper fix is probably just to reduce the ejection force somewhat, and the seats probably allow it, but from what I know of milspec equipment, the problem is likely that 27 tons of paperwork haven't been completed, so that's not an approved adjustment procedure yet.
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Um, if it's just a matter of weight or mass, just ask the pilots to sew weights into their flight jackets to make up the difference, or wrap lead weights around their bodies.
There has to be more to it than this.
Or just get them to eat their daily quota of steroid and hormone laced cheeseburgers like normal Murcans.
Re:Add weights? (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that the seat over-rotates when it's underloaded. That's about where the center of gravity is, so it's not as simple as just making up the missing weight.
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Yes, and let's see the effect of this mass on the pilot when doing high-G maneuvers.
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"Proposing a workaround to a shortcoming is implying a pilot's shortcoming in the first place"
Having a pilot *is* a shortcoming in any modern-age fighter plane, so I don't see your point.
Not a major problem? (Score:1, Funny)
Well, that cut off is approximately your average seven year old American, so we should be good to go.
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Uh, women?
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Don't they grow faster at that age?
Also, I see someone found the troll modifier. *jumps up and yells, I spotted the fat guy with no sense of humor!*
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Have you seen a doctor about that?
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My son is weighs 120 and is in the 9th grade. He is about 5'4". He is by no means fat. He is quite skinny actually. Any grown man(18 and up) that weighs around that area is probably a woman acting as a man. Are you a woman?
Even if they aren't a woman they can just get their dick surgically removed and become a real woman. Right?
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Well then you qualify. What are you waiting for? It might be a shitty plane but, dude, it has rockets and stuff! It must be awesome.
136 lbs? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was going to ask how many pilots in the whole US Air force weigh less than 135 lbs, and then it occurred to me that this was just a way of keeping women out of their "no girls allowed" fighter jock club.
Re:136 lbs? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the ideal fighter pilot isn't actually very big, since cockpits are crowded, and smaller entities can handle g-forces better than large, muscle-bound types.
Re:136 lbs? (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly... I mean, Tom Cruise is a pretty small guy, so that makes sense.
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They wear special g-suits to somewhat constrict blood flow. When they perform G maneuvers they do have to flex and hold certain muscle groups, including their breath and take in small gasps of air - think constipated shitting - to keep blood from rushing out of their head and blacking out. So yes, for this reason, tall fighter pilots are rare and smaller pilots are typically better performers.
You wouldn't think it, but fighter pilots do have to stay in great shape and take an absolutely ridiculous toll on
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It's also a matter of fitting in the cockpit in the first place. I knew a guy who wanted to be a navy pilot, but his legs were just long enough that if he'd ever had to eject, they'd be taken off at the knees by the control panel. Fighter pilots tend to be small. Cargo planes are roomier, so that isn't an issue there.
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What nonsense!
Smaller, perhaps, less strain on neck and extended limbs.
Hiwever weight does not matter, the g-force is the same, and more muscles, while in asolute measurement give more strain on the limbs etc, help to breath, keep your neck and make you able to controll your plane. Moving the feet alone needs strong legs.
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Height is what matters, because the difference between the head's turn radius and the feet's largely depends on it.
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You don't use your legs for that idiot. You use your core muscles. None of the muscles in the leg can squeeze the arteries nearly hard enough to achieve anything useful, especially at 9G.
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The large muscle-bound types have large leg muscles
...should have large leg muscles. But then you haven't been to the gym very much. The large musclebound guys tend to spend most of their time working on arms and chest. There are a few of them that look pretty good from the waits up, but have little stick legs.
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I was going to ask how many pilots in the whole US Air force weigh less than 135 lbs, and then it occurred to me that this was just a way of keeping women out of their "no girls allowed" fighter jock club.
Isn't your comment sexist in itself because you're making assumption about the weight of someone based on their gender? It's like assuming a woman is weaker physically than a man just because she is a woman, even if statistically men develop more muscle mass that does not mean a man automatically has more physical strength.
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I was going to ask how many pilots in the whole US Air force weigh less than 135 lbs, and then it occurred to me that this was just a way of keeping women out of their "no girls allowed" fighter jock club.
Isn't your comment sexist in itself because you're making assumption about the weight of someone based on their gender? It's like assuming a woman is weaker physically than a man just because she is a woman, even if statistically men develop more muscle mass that does not mean a man automatically has more physical strength.
Absolutely. There are TONS of fat chicks out there.
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I was going to ask how many pilots in the whole US Air force weigh less than 135 lbs, and then it occurred to me that this was just a way of keeping women out of their "no girls allowed" fighter jock club.
Isn't your comment sexist in itself because you're making assumption about the weight of someone based on their gender? It's like assuming a woman is weaker physically than a man just because she is a woman, even if statistically men develop more muscle mass that does not mean a man automatically has more physical strength.
Technically speaking, yes, it is. However, it doesn't really count - men DO have a higher strength on average, backed by statistics, and nothing's going to change that. While I believe a woman who has the muscle mass should certainly have the freedom to join just like a man would, you simply have to accept the fact that your pool is going to be much smaller because there's fewer of them. It'd be like if you needed someone over the height of 6'3; while there are tall Japanese or Chinese people, I don't thin
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I think they need a "You must be this tall to ride" sign at the training camp... or maybe instead have a scale and a "You must be this dumpy to ride..." sign.
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I was going to ask how many pilots in the whole US Air force weigh less than 135 lbs, and then it occurred to me that this was just a way of keeping women out of their "no girls allowed" fighter jock club.
135 pounds is 61 KG. You would have to be a pretty small woman to weigh that much. I'd say that 61 KG would be small for an average height Caucasian woman. Probably a bit on the high side for many Asian sub races (particularly SE Asian). For a western woman who's gone through military training, 61 KG would be unusual (muscle is pretty dense making it heavier than fat). OTOH, how much does Tom Cruise weigh?
Who weighs 136? (Score:1)
The average American woman weighs 166.
The average American man weighs 196.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm
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This may be true of the general public. But then the general public doesn't fly fighters. In fact, I've known a number of pilots, including military test pilots. And the latter tend to be on the small side. There's no advantage to size in a cockpit.
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To begin training, a candidate must be 18 to 34 years old, be a U.S. citizen and have a bachelor's degree...
They must weigh 160 to 231 pounds, depending on height. Depending on age, men cannot have more than 20 to 24 percent body fat, while women cannot have more than 28 to 32 percent body fat. Pilots also must be able to complete a minimum number of push-ups and sit-ups and finish a timed 1.5-mile run.
http://work.chron.com/air-forc... [chron.com]
This will be an easy fix (Score:2)
This NOT a failing of the jet, but rather one of those things you find in testing. Which is what "testing" is for.
Having said that, the F-35 is a bit of a boondoggle.
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Add weight, or move weight, to get the CG to the proper location during ejection.
How would you do that if the CG needs to move forward and up? Strap weights across the pilot's chest? An extra heavy helmet? I can't imagine that having zero consequences while flying a plane.
Sexism (Score:1)
It's just meant to ground Cindy and Samantha, because those two are the only ones with that weight.
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Actually, TFA makes a point of stating that this restriction does not affect the one female F-35 pilot.
Turkey news (Score:1)
This plane is so misunderstood (Score:2)
The F-35 is supposed to sit on the ground and look pretty. It's a work of art. Of course it will be dangerous if you actually fly it.
Though they could probably make one that could actually fly for ten times the cost...
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The funny thing is that it doesn't look any good either. The F-22 is a mean looking plane, the F-35 is like his chubby brother trying to live up to it.
If I were a 138lb pilot... (Score:1)
Wait for it... (Score:2)
"The F35 seats make a bad squishing noise if you're under 200lbs and above 130lbs which maye distract the pilot and lead them to miss targets"
The whole thing is just a soap opera.
This plane is crap but how many pilots weigh 136? (Score:2)
The F-35 seat fears ground?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does this title use a convoluted syntax, or it it just me? (English is not my first language)
I had to read the summary to finally understand what was meant by "F-35 Ejection Seat Fears Ground Lightweight Pilots". Before that, I was stuck with a seat fearing the ground, and some lightweight pilots whom I couldn't quite fit into that fearful seat.
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Does this title use a convoluted syntax, or it it just me? (English is not my first language)
I had to read the summary to finally understand what was meant by "F-35 Ejection Seat Fears Ground Lightweight Pilots". Before that, I was stuck with a seat fearing the ground, and some lightweight pilots whom I couldn't quite fit into that fearful seat.
No, your hunch is right, the title is ridiculous, espcially because "Ground Lightweight Pilots" implies that the pilot is crushed into a thousand little pieces, which is maaaaybe what the aricle talks about? But no, it really does refer to the land. Every Slashdot article recently has had egrigeous spelling errors though, and I think at this point most of the readers don't even bother to read the summary anymore, so then you have ignorant misconceptions flying around and an editor who's extremely familiar w
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Does this title use a convoluted syntax, or it it just me? (English is not my first language)
I had to read the summary to finally understand what was meant by "F-35 Ejection Seat Fears Ground Lightweight Pilots". Before that, I was stuck with a seat fearing the ground, and some lightweight pilots whom I couldn't quite fit into that fearful seat.
No, your hunch is right, the title is ridiculous, espcially because "Ground Lightweight Pilots" implies that the pilot is crushed into a thousand little pieces, which is maaaaybe what the aricle talks about? But no, it really does refer to the land. Every Slashdot article recently has had egrigeous spelling errors though, and I think at this point most of the readers don't even bother to read the summary anymore, so then you have ignorant misconceptions flying around and an editor who's extremely familiar with CTRL-C CTRL-Y. So much so, even he doesn't read the article (or the summary or hell, even the frickin' headline) at all anymore either. Slashdot can be a very informative place at times, even though that's exclusivly on technical subjects only, but most of the time it's rather... disappointing.
Okay, my writing has a few mispellings too, please forgive me. However, as a reader, I believe an informally written comment is not quite as bad as a mistake in the story, and to be honest my spell checker does disable itself for Slashdot.
Obviously (Score:2)
I think it's just another example of the military trying to keep women out.
Poe's Law disclaimer: I'm not serious.
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It's simple: Western society is collapsing. It's too bad, too; we're finally figuring out a few things like equal rights for gays and ending prohibition for pot, the former marginalizing a significant portion of society (reducing productivity) and the latter costing society a fortune in money and violence (just like alcohol Prohibition did in the 1930s).
But I guess all the corruption, plus all the outsourcing to low-cost nations, plus all the lawsuits, is catching up with us.