I Mean, That's Fair...

[Skyfire77]

It was a big spider too.

[jminer]

@skyfire77 I see no other option - they made the right choice

[facw]

@skyfire77 I do wonder if there's a point where fighter jets get so expensive that we reject ejection seats because a chance to save the plane is more valuable than saving the pilot. I guess it will probably become a non issue as the plane might just automatically try to fly home and land if the pilot ejects (or alternatively, try to crash more energetically if it's likely to go down in enemy territory).

[Chariotoflove]

@skyfire77 that’s defcon 5 right there. No other choice.

[sn4cktimes]

@facw I'd love to be corrected on this, but I feel we've really always been at the point where the latest jet fighters are "worth" more than the pilot. I know a LOT of money goes into training. But probably not in the hundreds of millions. I think the ejection seats are more a "make the best of the worst case scenario" device. If the plane is a lost cause anyway, best to save the pilot vs training a new pilot. Why start from scratch.

[facw]

@sn4cktimes I mean we you are right that we are probably well past that point. But we've gone for example from an F-16 that cost ~$24M in today's money to an F-35 that costs ~$100M today. And while yes, if the plane is lost, you may as well save the pilot, but the pilot is not exactly an impartial judge of when the plane is lost. For example plane was flown home and landed, but I'd guess the vast majority of fighter pilots would have considered it a lost cause (and frankly they might have been right):

Note also that we don't fit transport aircraft, commercial or military with ejection seats, in part because we don't think pilots should be able to abandon their aircraft and passengers. But the idea that if the plane is already doomed, we should save the pilots would still apply there, and yet we clearly don't do that.

[sn4cktimes]

@facw hmmmm. That is a fair point concerning the other types of planes... odd then to save a FIGHTER pilot and no others. This is gonna roll around my head for a bit now while I get back to work.

[trivet]

@sn4cktimes said in I Mean, That's Fair...:

@facw hmmmm. That is a fair point concerning the other types of planes... odd then to save a FIGHTER pilot and no others. This is gonna roll around my head for a bit now while I get back to work.

Because building a working ejection system on a cargo plane that is not specifically designed for combat is not realistic.

A single pilot (or pilot/nav combo) usually has a top mounted raised cockpit for visibility, so easier to implement.
They are built specifically for combat, so the likelihood of being shot down is MUCH greater than a cargo plane,
Also a fighter is pushed MUCH harder than a transport, often at or above design limits - so it makes sense to build in a system to save the personnel since the odds of the plane being incapacitated/failing are much greater, and the design of the aircraft itself lends to the ability to engineer an ejection system.
Basically they will always try save as many people as possible.

Source: I'm taking a complete guess, but it makes sense to me.

[awesomeaustinv]

@facw I'm assuming/hoping that by that point, most fighter jets will be drones anyway. No need to eject the computers.

[Eric]

@facw said in I Mean, That's Fair...:

Note also that we don't fit transport aircraft, commercial or military with ejection seats, in part because we don't think pilots should be able to abandon their aircraft and passengers. But the idea that if the plane is already doomed, we should save the pilots would still apply there, and yet we clearly don't do that.

But that’s not entirely accurate. These planes tend to crash relatively slowly because they move relatively slowly and they have much larger wings. They have parachutes, so you get in a parachute and jump if it gets sketchy when at a high enough altitude.

[VincentMalamute]

@skyfire77 "There was a spider in the car!"

https://imgur.com/gallery/1tTPFPq

[Skyfire77]

@awesomeaustinv YMMV, INAL, etc., but the promise of autonomous fighters is a long, long way off. Stuff like the Predator, capable of flying itself but with a human pulling the trigger, work so long as who you're attacking can't jam or otherwise attack your comms. Look at the RQ-170 that Iran managed to capture by hacking the control freqs. In the same vein, imagine dogfighting with PLAAF J-15 only to miss a kill-shot due to lag. Having a UCAV able to call it's own shots would be worse; imagine the hell created when HAL mistakes an A321 for a Russian Tu-95 and pumps a couple AAMRAMs into it.

[VincentMalamute]

@skyfire77 said in I Mean, That's Fair...:

imagine the hell created when HAL mistakes an A321 for a Russian Tu-95 and pumps a couple AAMRAMs into it.

To be fair, we don't need HAL to do that. Our Navy has done that and the Russians have done that.

[facw]

@skyfire77 said in I Mean, That's Fair...:

Having a UCAV able to call it's own shots would be worse

I suspect it's coming anyway. At some point an AI pilot will be better than a human one, and at that point, everyone will need AI pilots to keep up.

As I said before though, I'm not sure we even need to get that far before my question becomes obsolete, since even before we let AIs take the shots, we can let them decide if the plane is salvageable after an ejection, and if so fly off and land without the pilot if possible.

[sn4cktimes]

@trivet I mean yeah, that all makes sense too. Your source is as good as mine!