F-35 Ejection Seat Fears Ground Lightweight Pilots

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."

Comments

The F-35 is having problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet another bug in the slow-motion uber-expensive train-wreck that is the F-35 program.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Goose In Orbit]

My thought exactly...

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[ATMAvatar]

The only flight-worthy component of the F-35 is its price tag.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[MouseR]

Because drone latency makes it impossible for them to replace eyes in the field.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[rahvin112]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[91degrees]

It's a minor design issue discovered during testing. They happen in engineering. The solution is to fix it.

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Oligonicella]

Unfortunately there are actually people who would believe this.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[JumboMessiah]

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 from contemporary aircraft 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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[AJWM]

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.)

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[PPH]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[CanadianMacFan]

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 the cockpit wouldn't need to be different between any versions so the plane designers would have specs for the size and wiring requirements of the cockpit. Mind you the VSTOL version probably would have some extra wiring and display options but the displays are electronic and you can build every cockpit with the extra wires. On all of the other models the wires wouldn't be connected to anything. The car industry does this sort of thing.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[fahrbot-bot]

Google could have a fully tested, state-of-the-art control system ready in 6 months ...

Well... beta-tested anyway.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[swell]

"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, piloted craft not so much. The F-35 seems particularly useless.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[orasio]

Plans that count on you being very clever, and the mark being a simpleton, usually backfire.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[peragrin]

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

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[peragrin]

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.

Re: The F-35 is having problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Frosty Piss]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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 parade in Tehran, as a prominent sign of shiaism's victory over the "Great Satan" and the White House wasn't amused. Now the chinese are building (obviously unlicenced) copies of her.

I think a redneck or tuskagee airman is much more difficult to convince he better land a USAF plane in (insert your favourite rogue country's name here). You may try to offer him money and/or pussy but that still won't work in 99% of all cases. In contrast, once you find a security hole in one drone, the entire air fleet is doomed.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Frosty Piss]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[CanadianMacFan]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[plopez]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[MouseR]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[arglebargle_xiv]

... ejection seats... pilots under 135 pounds...

[Insert dwarf-throwing joke here].

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[davester666]

No, it's way too big to get off the ground.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Fuck the human. Make it autonomous. Superior in every way.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[ultranova]

Plans that count on you being very clever, and the mark being a simpleton, usually backfire.

But that's also okay: by the time they do, the other party will be in power and get the blame.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Metabolife]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Ol Olsoc]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Ol Olsoc]

"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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Ol Olsoc]

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...

We'll see if industry support is more important than defense.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[thinkwaitfast]

Every way except flying. 418 US military drones crashed since 2001, report reveals

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[PPH]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[rickb928]

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.

Re:The F-35 is having problems?

[rickb928]

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.

Drat!

[SeaFox]

I'm sure they are crushed not being able to fly the boondoggle.

Add weights?

[davidwr]

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.

Re:Add weights?

[Joce640k]

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)

Re:Add weights?

[91degrees]

I assume that this is a tweak that the engineers need to make to improve the aircraft rather than something that should be bodged like that. They're still in an early stage so these issues are going to crop up.

Besides, that's probably not a good solution if they eject over water.

Re:Add weights?

[Oligonicella]

I'm pretty sure I've known some rather tough four foot eight men who could toss you across the room. But no, it's not far fetched that it affects some of their pilots.

Re:Add weights?

[myowntrueself]

I'm pretty sure I've known some rather tough four foot eight men who could toss you across the room. But no, 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.

Re:Add weights?

[turbidostato]

"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.

Re:Add weights?

[Sarten-X]

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.

Re:Add weights?

[myowntrueself]

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.

Re:Add weights?

[wonkey_monkey]

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.

Re:Add weights?

[William Baric]

Yes, and let's see the effect of this mass on the pilot when doing high-G maneuvers.

Re:Add weights?

[William Baric]

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.

Re:Add weights?

[Joce640k]

But no, 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.

Re: Add weights?

[Hognoxious]

A skinny midget is still a midget.

Re:Add weights?

[91degrees]

the problem is likely that 27 tons of paperwork haven't been completed,

Maybe they should just put the paperwork on the seat.

Not a major problem?

[KGIII]

Well, that cut off is approximately your average seven year old American, so we should be good to go.

Re:Not a major problem?

[sudon't]

Uh, women?

Re:Not a major problem?

[Joce640k]

Have you seen a doctor about that?

Re: Not a major problem?

[myowntrueself]

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?

Re:Not a major problem?

[KGIII]

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!*

Re:Not a major problem?

[KGIII]

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?

[germansausage]

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?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Possible.

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly... I mean, Tom Cruise is a pretty small guy, so that makes sense.

Re:136 lbs?

[nanoflower]

However don't pilots need some muscle development to be able to move within the airplane at high Gs? They don't need to be Arnold Schwarzenger level but they should be fit toned individuals which would add mass over the stereotypical 90 pound weakling. Think back to the test pilots that have been talked about over the years. None that I saw would be under even 150 pounds.

Re:136 lbs?

[SeaFox]

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.

Re:136 lbs?

[Oligonicella]

Muscle development != muscle bound. That 'stereotypical' you mentioned is forty pounds lighter than we're talking about.

Re:136 lbs?

[Viol8]

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.

Re:136 lbs?

[AJWM]

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.

Re:136 lbs?

[myowntrueself]

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.

Re:136 lbs?

[PPH]

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.

Re:136 lbs?

[angel'o'sphere]

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.

Re:136 lbs?

[EmeraldBot]

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 think it's racist to say the majority are going to be much smaller than that, so you're simply not going to have as many asians in that field. They're not actively discriminating against anyone, that would be if they KNEW she had the strength required from through woman out anyway; planning on averages and making a prediction is something you do everyday, with the assumption that some of them are going to be wrong. I do not believe workplace requirments should be relaxed for the sole sake of diversity, and I would hope you're not someone who wants to burden a 4'2 Indian guy with lifting massive shipping boxes if he's not capable of doing it.

Re:136 lbs?

[JoeCommodore]

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.

Re:136 lbs?

[Hognoxious]

Height is what matters, because the difference between the head's turn radius and the feet's largely depends on it.

Re:136 lbs?

[mjwx]

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?

Re:136 lbs?

[PPalmgren]

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 their body from what they do. I had a teacher, retired air force pilot, who looked about 15 years older than he looked pretty worn out. That constant G exertion on the body does serious damage to blood vessels.

Here's a short demonstration of the kind of training they do, I'm sure you can find more if you look around. Looks pretty awful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Who weighs 136?

[Anonymous Coward]

The average American woman weighs 166.
The average American man weighs 196.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

Re:Who weighs 136?

[PPH]

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.

Re:Who weighs 136?

[gnupun]

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...

This will be an easy fix

[YrWrstNtmr]

Add weight, or move weight, to get the CG to the proper location during ejection.
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.

Re:This will be an easy fix

[wonkey_monkey]

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.

This plane is so misunderstood

[Livius]

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...

Re:This plane is so misunderstood

[Lisandro]

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...

[ihop0]

If I were a 138lb pilot I wouldn't find this news troubling at all.

Wait for it...

[kangsterizer]

"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.

Re:Sexism

[PPH]

Actually, TFA makes a point of stating that this restriction does not affect the one female F-35 pilot.

This plane is crap but how many pilots weigh 136?

[EmperorOfCanada]

Even many female pilots wouldn't weigh that little? I would suspect that as a pilot went below 136 that they would also be too short to fly the plane.

The F-35 seat fears ground??

[rduke15]

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.

Re:The F-35 seat fears ground??

[EmeraldBot]

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.

Re:The F-35 seat fears ground??

[EmeraldBot]

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.

Re:The F-35 seat fears ground??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a convoluted syntax, but this is common when writing headlines, to reduce the number of words required. "Lightweight PIlots Grounded By Fears Related To Ejection Seats On F-35s" would convey the same meaning more clearly, but with four extra words.

Perhaps we need some linguistic equivalent to parentheses with the same meaning they have in maths and coding, like so: "((F-35 (Ejection Seat)) Fears) Ground (Lightweight Pilots)".

Non-Issue

[Frosty Piss]

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.

Re:Non-Issue

[Dereck1701]

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...

Re:Non-Issue

[Falconhell]

A lead filled cushion is not that large at 20 pounds, we use them in gliders often for low weight pilots.

Complete Crap

[Frosty Piss]

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.

Re:Complete Crap

[beastofburdon]

I find it interesting that you are willing to immediately discount their claims as propaganda, but believe the propaganda that your own government puts out without question. Just a little hint, most of what is said in an "official" capacity is propaganda. It doesn't matter if it is a government or large business, most of what they say is designed to manipulate you into doing something you would not otherwise do. That may be to buy a more expensive brand of toilet paper, or it may be to condone the slaughter of innocents in the interest of subjugating other countries for profit.

Obviously

[argStyopa]

I think it's just another example of the military trying to keep women out.

Poe's Law disclaimer: I'm not serious.

Re:Western World Projects are becoming embarrasing

[Grishnakh]

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.

On the plus side

[eric_harris_76]

On the plus side, all that money spent in those congressional districts won't be refunded.

Mission accomplished.