[viscanti]

> By the time a pilot ejects they’ve exhausted EVERY other option to control the aircraft, no AI is going to regain control at that point.

It seems like they probably bail out when they've exhausted every option of being able to land it and survive. There are likely some scenarios where there's limited controls remaining, that wouldn't provide high enough odds of guaranteeing someone's survival, but that could optimize for something when it eventually makes contact with the land. In fact, it seems like there could be quite a bit of capabilities between where someone would want to bail out and where there are zero remaining controls.

[MarkMarine]

I live in the real world, and there are incident reports that go into great detail about every aircraft loss. I’ve read every one since 1999, and I’ve never seen an incident where the pilot ejected over a populated area in an aircraft that was still controlled.

What you all are imagining does not happen, and the odds of it happening are vanishingly small.

[ciscoriordan]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/russian-su-34-fullback...

“The statement went on to add that the crash was caused by an issue with one of the engines during takeoff, but the jet's two crewmembers are said to have ejected safely and survived. The extent of the injuries to the apartment building's tenants as well as civilians in the surrounding area is unknown at present.”

[justsomehnguy]

"To the last I struggled to lift the plane, [but] copilot Yuriy Yegorov hit the catapult [triggering ejection] and we two ejected with our seats."

[1attice]

What I love about HN is that you can get from 'a plane went missing' to a thread that cites every plane loss since 1999 followed by a counterargument citing a downed MIG.

Like, how the heck do you all know so much? The demographics of this site are unreal

[brabel]

You've never been in an internet argument yourself? You don't need to know shit, just google stuff to support your views which you had already formed without evidence and post it to prove whatever you need to support your case.

[moralestapia]

Well, one of those guys was just flexing/lying tbf ...

[MarkMarine]

Nah, I read every incident report for military in the US because it was part of my job. Since we were talking about US military aviation I felt that was the avenue. I have read every incident report for Russia, not that I even could.

[fragmede]

It's the long tail of the Internet, but with humans' knowledge.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

This encapsulates HN very well :-)

[selimthegrim]

You might also consider there is probably some cross-pollination with r/NonCredibleDefense, which has a lot of military intelligence people and analysts (the Yeysk crash got a lot of memes on there)

[cameldrv]

Have you looked at the MiG-23 that crashed last month in Michigan?

[Jtsummers]

https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/G...

This one? Which reads as though the back-seater (not the pilot) was the one that ejected and took the pilot with him?

[marcosdumay]

What invalidates none of the gain from the OP's idea.

And in fact, if it's reliable, it can help saving pilots lives.

[ZeroCooly]

I think it's worth noting that that the MiG-23 that crashed in Michigan was a privately owned aircraft, flown not by an active service member. I highly doubt the military allows their pilots to eject without absolute certainty that the multimillion/billion dollar aircraft is totally lost.

Additionally, I highly doubt there are many privately owned military jets equipped with ejection seats that are allowed to fly, especially in residential airspace.

Also, as someone who works on FMS's the likelihood that a military program would spend the money required to code an AT/AP to have that capability is just too close to zero.

[thrill]

"I highly doubt the military allows their pilots to eject without absolute certainty that the multimillion/billion dollar aircraft is totally lost."

Military pilots most assuredly do not seek permission to eject. Given time they may indeed seek advice about the likelihood of a good landing.

[JohnBooty]

Every military aviation mishap is investigated, as you'd expect. The mishaps may of course not be the pilot's fault.

This guy is a thoughtful YouTuber, former F-14 RIO (back seat guy), who has covered it a few times.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ward+carroll+ej...

My outside, civilian impression from lots of aviator interviews is that the military values its expensive hardware very highly and does not like it if you make expensive mistakes. But my impression is also that it does value the life of its aviators highly as well. They do not want you to die in general and they do not want you do die in order to save a plane.

The decision to eject is often a very very split-second decision. When things go wrong in the air they go wrong in a hurry, especially during takeoff/landing when there is very very little distance between you and the ground.

Just like any job, a mishap that is your fault might be a negative for your aviation career. But one that is the result of equipment failure or something else outside of your control isn't going to be a black mark. My impression is that the military generally tries to get these things right, because it is generally in the military's best interest to perform at a high level and because big expensive mishaps (particularly aviation-related ones) generate a lot of bad press.

[salawat]

> highly doubt the military allows their pilots to eject without absolute certainty that the multimillion/billion dollar aircraft is totally lost.

The amount of time it takes to train up a replacement pilot vastly outweighs a new airframe acquisition. Furthermore, ejection is still an incredibly dangerous activity with plenty of chances for things to fail or go sideways, and a near 100% chance of injury. Like, canopy seperation failing, but seat rockets fire due to safety failure...

Suffice it to say, no, there is absolutely no pressure on pilots to not avail themselves of ejecting over and above the fact that controlled demolition of people tank at appreciable fractions of Mach, under fire, or in any of a myriad of inconvenient orientations relative to airstream and/or lithosphete and/or material formerly contributing to the ongoing flight of a perfectly good airplane is exactly nobody's definition of a good day except measured relative to the alternative of being the first to the site of the crash.

[lsh123]

Interview with the guy who pulled the ejection cord in the Michigan Mig-23:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftcn3NwAZCI

tldr; they were out of airspeed and out of altitude barely within ejection envelope (i.e. exhausted all the options)

[orange_fritter]

In flight school lore, during a training exercise, a plane righted itself from "uncontrollable flat spin" after ejection. Basically, pilot input can fight against the natural stability of the plane's design.

Also:

> During a training mission from Malmstrom Air Force Base, on Feb. 2, 1970, his F-106 entered an uncontrollable flat spin forcing him to eject. Unexpectedly, the aircraft recovered on its own and made a gentle belly landing and skidding for a few hundred yards on a field near Big Sandy, Montana, covered by some inches of snow.

https://theaviationist.com/2013/10/24/cornfield-bomber/

[histriosum]

Worth noting that spin recovery is highly CG (center of gravity) dependent. Ejecting from an aircraft would significantly alter the CG. It's far more likely that the CG change broke the spin than the pilot was doing something unhelpful.

Additionally there would be a nose down moment from the seat firing (newtons third law) and that may well have broken the stall.

[mpreda]

Visually the cockpit of a fighter plane is located forward, thus very likely ahead of the plane's CG. Ejecting the pilot would thus move the CG towards the back of the plane, which is a less stable configuration making it more difficult to recover from a stall.

[histriosum]

A developed spin is an equilibrium of forces. Anything that disrupts that equilibrium has a decent chance of disrupting the spin, and that would include moving the CG aft.

However, see my other note as well, there would be a nose down moment when the seat fires. There would also be a massive drag profile change. Any of these things have good potential to disrupt a stabilized spin.

My main point is that it's almost certainly not the case that the pilot was actively making incorrect inputs before ejecting. The ejection itself is the variable that likely would disrupt a spin in such a situation, not the pilot no longer making inputs.

[ReptileMan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision

>Notably, the F-15, (with a crew of two), managed to land safely at a nearby airbase, despite having its right wing almost completely sheared off in the collision. The lifting body properties of the F-15, together with its overabundant engine thrust, allowed the pilot to achieve this unique feat.

Just posting here because it is awesome.

[versteegen]

At first I thought you were referring to this case where a crew landed an A300 with a large part of a wing missing and no hydraulic controls, using only differential engine thrust to control pitch, roll, yaw and speed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_sho...