Sacked Marine Pilot Whose F-35B Flew Without Him After Ejecting Gives His Side

4/1/2025 at 4:45:34 AM

I can't tell from here, but the fact his version of the story got 'overruled' even though he was there makes me think it had just as much to do with image/future sales. They are trying to sell F-35's to an international market. Any equipment rather than pilot error is a major drawback to potential future sales, thus I think but can't tell, the guy was the sacrifical goat.

The decision making process he went through in those 1-2 minutes with what looked like a cascade failure with no available fallback to visual confirmation due to the whether must have been an extremely intense stressful experience.

by partomniscient

4/1/2025 at 3:16:20 AM

Anyone who has flown in instrument meteorological conditions knows how terrifying it is when everything is working perfectly. Imagine driving down the interstate with a tub of yogurt over your windshield. Having all your instruments stop working during a STOL landing is absolutely a condition to pull your BRC parachute or ejection seat.

In IMC without instruments you have no idea what direction is up or down. For all you know, without instruments, you are spiraling towards the earth and you will die at any instant or about to crash into a pre-school. It feels exactly the same as level flight until you crash. This is what killed JFK Jr.

by foxyv

4/1/2025 at 4:20:32 PM

What is STOL, BRC, IMC?

by leoh

4/1/2025 at 4:24:40 PM

Sorry I mixed up BRC with BRS.

STOL = Short Take Off Or Landing (Usually involving downward thrust)

BRS = Brand of parachutes for light aircraft like this

https://youtu.be/jz9NoMPrH-I?t=2220

https://brsaerospace.com/

IMC = Instrument meteorological conditions (Fog/Clouds prevent you from seeing anything)

by foxyv

4/1/2025 at 1:11:27 PM

So, I guess a phone holder should be standard equipment on F35s, so that you can have an artificial horizon , altimeter, gps speed, and terrain projection when the main system inevitably glitches out. I’d recommend one of the ones with built in wireless charging, they are pretty handy.

It’s unconscionable that the aircraft lacks a mechanical gyro, compass, altimeter, ball, and airspeed indicator. With just those simple mechanical instruments and a wristwatch you can fly any aircraft that still has flight control and power in nearly any conditions. Mostly, they can be replicated by your smartphone.

Makes me want to make phone app called “backup F35 instruments” “made specially for F35 pilots to keep handy for those potentially career ending awkward moments.”

As a bonus I could add WAZE style UAP reporting with adorable alien emojis to drive engagement, and banner ads at the bottom since the number of F35 pilots is too low for a subscription model at their salaries. I could throw the UAP data in a free Amazon bucket, since I don’t expect much traffic.

I’d imagine the ad space for F35 pilots could be pretty pricey if it was pitched to the right verticals (legal and life insurance, maybe?), and since the app should only take a weekend to throw together a few hundred bucks a month would probably be worth it.

by K0balt

4/1/2025 at 8:50:56 PM

the F35 has standby instruments that work on DC batteries. it also has a radio that is also powered by a battery supply. probably an hour of operation without aircraft power.

no way it passed airworthiness without backup flight instruments and comm. every military aircraft for the past 50 years has this.

(oh, and the standby instrument package probably cost a couple of hundred thousand. certified for flight, of course)

by b_davis_

4/2/2025 at 6:37:48 PM

Well, that is good, at least. It sounds like those are Located between your legs? Could you actually do a 0/0 (not that it would be advisable) but -could- you even make a call safety at decision height with those? Even if you wouldn’t, would you feel like you -could-?

I’d bet if there was an iPad with foreflight synthetic vision running in plain sight looking forward, that aircraft would still be flying. Bailing out is a matter of pilot confidence in the aircraft being flyable.

Still, if he did have an operational horizon, HSI, turn and bank, altimeter, VSI, and turbine temp /RPM that he had presumably been trained to fly the aircraft with, I’m probably going to have to come down on the side of “he abandoned a presumably airworthy aircraft.” I mean, in that case, he had a (huge,catastrophically) failed system and he failed to use the backup for that system.

I still think the app would be a hit among F35 pilots, even if only for ironic reasons and superstition lol. Probably some national security concerns there though, if you handled any location data at all. I mean, can fighter pilots even carry smartphones? Dr. Evil wants to know.

by K0balt

4/1/2025 at 5:23:27 PM

Which currently available app do you recommend for this purpose

by kylehotchkiss

4/1/2025 at 7:16:49 PM

Probably ForeFlight synthetic vision, if I’m being serious.

But considering the pay scale of military pilots, A-EFIS would probably be better at €60. They even have a free version that punishes you for being poor by only showing black and white lol.

But for my app, I’d copy the styling and instrument tics from the F35 instruments to make the transition less stressful. The last thing you’ll want to be doing is relearning your backup instruments every time the airplane BSODs.

I love the idea of a free black and white version though, keep the strip ads in color, just to keep it annoying. Subscribe to put the screen in color lol.

by K0balt

4/1/2025 at 4:30:02 AM

Presumably the air force decided to blame and subsequently fire Del Pizzo because that would make for better PR. This makes me wonder why they didn't give Del Pizzo some money and an NDA.

by NoahZuniga

4/1/2025 at 4:49:07 AM

Marines, USAF couldn't have fired him since he wasn't under their command. But yes, it was probably viewed better to blame the pilot than the equipment that failed multiple times in under a minute by the powers that be in this case. They have to sell them, and they sell them to politicians not to other pilots.

by Jtsummers

4/1/2025 at 9:59:19 AM

I feel for the pilot who has been made a scapegoat. There was no way for him to know in which state his aircraft was in.

Officially the heavy rain has been ruled out as the cause of the incident. However, it's an interesting coincidence that just 5 minutes after entering it the cascade of faults began.

by MaKey

4/1/2025 at 8:43:51 PM

IMC plus having to look down at backup instruments will totally screw up your vestibular senses. Punching out seems the right move.

by howard941

4/1/2025 at 8:48:00 PM

pilots are trained to handle this.

by b_davis_

4/1/2025 at 9:03:10 PM

in rain, transitioning to vertical landing, with the helmet and primary systems power cycling and likely alarms going off? I'll defer to you because I'm not qualified in the F-35

by howard941

4/1/2025 at 9:38:23 AM

Was surprised to learn there is no kind of even rudimentary manual backup instrumentation. Just 4 dials in a small binnacle might have helped. Seems like a design flaw.

by nickdothutton