NATO Ministry of Information video thread

Yeah, without actually having even the slightest clue about how the F-35B works, I can totally imagine a computer trying to fix that sink rate and maybe overcompensating. Or trying to even out the pilots overcompensations…
Kind of reminds me of the JAS 39 Prototype crash.

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I remember that one. Triple redundancy became the norm after that crash

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That F-35 crash sure looks weird, after the bounce, there was obviously a lot of lift going on, then the lift in the front is gone while still being there in the back. Good thing it didn’t flip on the back. Just from the vid, this could be anything from a drive train failure to a sensor malfunction. I doubt that it’s solely a software issue that far into the lifetime without it ever having happened before (that would have to be some serious Heisenbug).

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IIRC the 35 has roll posts for roll control, but the pitch is controlled by differential thrust.

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The thing is though, the 35 doesn’t really have the freedom of movement that the Harrier did. For instance, I’m not certain that the 35 can “bow” as the Harrier was famous for.

Once in the STOVL mode, the pilot tells the 35 what it wants to do, and the 35’s Flight Control System figures out the best way to do it.

As for the accident, it’s hard to say whether the descent rate was excessive. The Harrier was landed firmly. There were many odd forces that the Harrier encountered in VSTOL that were best avoided by moving through them at a steady rate…one of the reasons that Harriers hovered at 60ft; high for a Helo I understand.

But if the 35 was set down hard it could possibly damage the fan shaft or clutch. Considering you have to take a running engine and mesh it with a large and stationary fan, the junction between the two is no simple piece of engineering.

That certainly would cause uneven lift like that.

But it sure did look like the tail was still producing a lot of lift, so perhaps the Engine Control was not responding to pilot inputs as it should have.

It’ll be interesting to see what the investigation shows. Glad the pilot got out!

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This matches what I’m seeing…
High(ish) descend rate that either the pilot or the FCS arrests. But too little, too late, a bounce and suddenly only the aft thrust is working.

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The ONE minute of flying in that THREE minute video was terrific!

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Regarding the F-35 crash, wow! Wild! Other than punching out, it doesn’t look like the pilot did anything wrong*. The landing was firm, sure, but this thing is certainly built for much worse. It looks like whatever is supposed to produce thrust up front suddenly decided to stop while whatever was producing thrust in the back decided to go. Maybe HE decided to go and the engine agreed but the lift fan either didn’t, or it failed.

My understanding of the FCS (based on a 15 yo recollection of an AW&T article comparing the Boeing and Lockheed entries) is that in hover the stick is translation rate. Zero stick input = hover. Max stick displacement = max safe lateral or longitudinal translation, both acceleration and velocity. Half throttle = altitude hold. Any deviation from that setting is a proportional, constant rate of climb or descent. Max and Min throttle = the highest safe vertical accelerations and velocities (guessing without consideration of ground contact because that would make flying too restrictive.)

*Just my poor, uninformed opinion with no comprehension of the SOPs that guide a fighter pilot sitting on an ejection seat.

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I liked the spots where he was showing the cows as well. :slight_smile:

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Not strictly NATO, but it’s got a Polish flag on it, so it rates:

Samsung fighter jet mk1 first flight:

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Thats a nice lookin jet.

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Looks like a F-22 and F-35 had a baby?

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Indeed!

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A real nice look at the Swedish Viggen.

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Very interesting video showing a plethora of aircraft operating from around the world. Typhoons, Harriers, Dassault 2000s and Rafales. There are F-16s, Tornados and F-22s. Middle part of the video shows darn good footage of pilot trainees operating one of those big, expensive simulators. Quite a good look at this one. Last bit of video shows Blackhawk helicopters moving cargo around. Overall, some really nice footage.

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Some really neat shots of the F-35B. Also, section in this video regarding the U-2 Spy plane. Specifically, they show and talk about its unique landing and take-off characteristics. Was quite interesting.

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Nice video, that was fun to watch and had some awesome shots that I hadn’t ever seen before. Some of the captions had me hitting the doubt button, but that’s okay.

(The first one that comes to mind is the F-35B external wing pylons “decreasing the radar cross section”. Most likely exactly the opposite, kinda like how the F-22 always (*?) flies with radar reflectors installed, even when performing CAP missions in Alaska, in order to prevent adversaries from collecting intel regarding the actual radar cross section. Maybe they also provide some positive flight characteristics too?)

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That’s what I was thinking as well. Bit of misinformation there. :slight_smile:

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