Fighter Pilot Breaks Down Every Button in an F-15 Cockpit | Ars Technica

I'm Andrea Emily and this is an f15 sea fighter jet the f-15 is a twin-engine all-weather air superiority platform that has the most impressive kill ratio of any modern aerial fighter 104 victories 2-0 losses in aerial combat I was an Air Force pilot for 23 years and I have over 3,400 hours in high-performance aircraft including 1100 hours in f-15s just like this one here today I'm going to walk you through the most used features emergency controls weapons and defensive controls customizable features navigation and communication and backup systems and redundancies then I'll show you how they all work together to start the jet there are over 250 buttons in the cockpit but it was designed so that everything the pilot uses the most is right in front of them moving from top to bottom the most important features are the HUD which is the heads-up display the radio the ADI which is the attitude directional indicator the HSI the horizontal situational indicator the SiC the throttles and the rudder pedals these large screens are powered off right now because the information they display is classified you have the vertical situation display a multi-purpose color display and the pad but we'll get back to these in a moment everything that's yellow and black on this aircraft is pretty much a switch you don't want to have to use for example the ejection seat when I pull 45 pounds of pressure on these ejection handles right there and I move those levers up to inches I am sitting on a catapult rocket I'm gonna be sent straight out of the aircraft and I'll find myself 1.8 to 2.9 seconds later underneath a full parachute canopy out of all of these controls here there's actually one that we are prohibited from using and that is the v-max switch down here on the left console so it is actually safety wired shut and it is guarded closed and it's a switch that we're not actually allowed to use but if you were to use it if you were to brick that safety wire off and unguarded and turn that on what it's going to do is allow the engine to burn 22 degrees hotter and it gives you about 2% more revolutions per minute so it really just gives you a little bit of extra thrust if you need it in a combat situation so some of the other yellow and black switches there's an emergency jettison switch if you're in a thrust efficient situation where you really need to get all of the external stores off the aircraft you would hit this button right here and basically all of your fuel tanks all of your weapons anything that's on the aircraft will be jettisoned right away if you've lost an engine and it's a high pressure altitude type scenario and you really need that extra thrust it's going to reduce your drag and reduce your weight significantly this switch right here is an emergency jettison switch for the canopy if for some reason I'm unable to open my canopy and say everything is engulfed in flames I might just want to blow that canopy off and this switch right here uses a little bit of pyrotechnics to do that it is a one-time actuation switch and you don't want to have to do it if you really don't need to all right this switch is for the hook there is a tail hook in the f-15 and even though we don't land on carriers we might need that hook to be able to catch an approach on cable in case there was a brake problem or a gear problem that necessitated it once they put the hook down there are cables strung across the approach end of a lot of fighter runways they'll be able to actually take that cable and not have to use the full length of the runway and the cable will help stop the aircraft in the event of any gear problem or brake problem the f-15 has a highly sophisticated weapons and defensive system it's controlled with HO tests potage stands for hands on throttle and stick and pretty much everything that the pilot needs to manipulate and control the radar and the weapons are right here on the pilots throttle and sticks on the throttles all of these switches are different shapes and that allows the pilot the ability to feel what they're doing without having to look down right here there's a little pinky switch that deploys countermeasures sure the aircraft carries both flares and chaff so flares are designed to make a big eye our heat signature and try to deflect any heat-seeking missile away from the aircraft the chaff is basically bundles of aluminum and essentially what it does is it blooms into a big radar signature and tries to get the aircraft's radar signature to be able to be hidden within that chaff plume on the right console is this guarded red switch that's the flare jettison switch if the pilot needs to they can unguarded and jettison all their flares at the same time the only time I can really think that you'd need to use this is if you were to do a gear up landing and you don't want to have any extra pyrotechnics on the bottom of your aircraft to cause any other secondary fires on the control stick you have seven different switches starting at the very left here this is the pickle switch it's a weapons employment switch it's called a pickle switch because in World War two the b-17 bomb sight was so accurate it was said to be able to hit pickles out of a pickle barrel hence the name pickle switch and it has stuck for 75 years moving over here this is called the castle switch it looks exactly like a turret of a castle so that's why they've named it that this switch has multi functionality depending on left side aside straight up and down and it does various things with your displays to be able to put whatever the pilot needs when they want it on the proper display this switch is a trim button here the trim button is found on every aircraft everywhere the faster you get the more pressure the pilot feels on the aircraft to be able to maintain level flight and that trim button actually just takes that pressure off and allows the pilots to take their hands off the controls and the aircraft will maintain level flight the other button that's really important is the trigger right here in the front of the stick the trigger is what actually fires the gun each aircraft is loaded with 940 rounds of twenty millimeter ammunition and you can fire it at about 6,000 rounds per minute that equates to just under 10 seconds worth of guns usually you squeeze the trigger for about 2 to 3 seconds at a time so that you don't Jam the gun itself a lot of the buttons and dials in the cockpit are there to help the pilot customize different features of the jet for example these dials and switches adjust the HUDs brightness everything that pilot needs is right here on the heads-up display in front of them so they're able to see they're heading there out to their airspeed various target parameters radar data it's also contained on the helmet mounted cueing system so there's a reticle in front of their eye that has all of the same information that the HUD has and that way they're able to move their head around from side to side and still take that information with them no matter where they're looking this panel here allows a pilot to adjust the temperature of the cabin to their own personal preference in addition that same pneumatic air that changes the temperature in the cabin is also used to pressurize the cabin it pressurizes the canopy seals and then keeps the actual pressure of the cabin at a more comfortable level the aircraft can go all the way up to 50,000 feet but the pilot will never experience an actual 50,000 foot cabin on any commercial airliner the cabin is always pressurized for passenger comfort as soon as you go up in altitude all the gases in your body to include those in your teeth and your bones and your joints and your stomach are all going to expand and they will cause a lot more pain unless you keep that pressure altitude a little bit lower even when a pilot is up at 50,000 feet he or she will only feel like they're at a lot lower cabin pressure around 18 these switches down here on the left and right consoles are pretty much used only about five to ten percent of the time usually on the ground before takeoff and after landing this button hidden in the back right here is to test the g-suit before flight and make sure it's hooked up correctly every pilot wears what's called a G suit to help counteract the extreme pressures that they feel when they're pulling G's if you're not used to the g-forces it's easy to pass out even when you experience 4 or 5 G's if you've ever been on the bottom of a loop of a rollercoaster and you start seeing grayed out vision where you don't have a hundred percent of your color vision that's when you're starting to feel those g-forces already in the blood leaving your brain the G suit is designed to squeeze against your own muscles and remind you to do an anti G straining maneuver the straightening maneuver helps to counteract the g-forces by bringing blood back up to your brain here the pilot can adjust the rudder pedals so however they need them people with longer legs can push them a little farther and of course people like me with shorter legs have to pull them a little bit closer to them this is the pilot air conditioner this is the only way that the pilot stays cool and summer that is probably the most antiquated part of this aircraft this is definitely the pilots best friend in the summer there are a number of instruments that the pilot uses to navigate and also communicate with other aircraft these include multiple radios a transponder and an embedded GPS and inertial navigation system the pilot has multiple radios so they're able to talk to multiple external agencies at once in addition to being able to have intro flight communications with their wingmen this is your primary control for your radio one the aircraft has three radios and this radio here can be turned on with this switch right there and you can control it in either a preset channel or a manual frequency that can be dialed right in here from the pilot so even though the f-15 is a single-seat aircraft the FFT pilot is never truly flying by themselves the f-15 flies in formation so you're either in a two ship or a four ship or an eight ship and you're going to employ all together and you're able to see each other and see what each other are targeting and locked onto right here on this multi-purpose color display these large screens are powered off right now because the information they display is classified the MPC D or multi-purpose color display is going to give the pilot a moving map and what this is going to do is display the pilots own ship position with respect to everything else out there to include their own formation members the enemy targets the enemy fighters enemy airfields anything that's out there the pad on the top right side is going to be an interchangeable display that allows the pilot to put targeting pod information radar warning receiver information or engine management display information about the current parameters of the engines over here is your vertical situation display what this does is shows you every single thing that the aircraft radar can see you would turn these switches on to increase the intensity of it and you're going to be able to see all the targets that the radar is painting the aircraft has an embedded GPS with inertial navigation system the GPS is just like the one you have in your car the inss inertial navigation system is a ring laser gyro system that essentially allows the aircraft to know where it is with respect to any point on the earth at any time and it's self-contained so that is also not susceptible to Jami most important information will be available to the pilot in their helmet mounted cueing system and their heads-up display but if those things fail they have another way to read them on their primary flight displays below so down here you've got some standby instruments you have to standby airspeed your standby attitude direction indicator and your standby altimeter a little bit further down your standby attitude Direction indicator is powered by its own individual battery and it will last for nine minutes after you lose power the standby airspeed and the standby altimeter don't require any power to operate and all they use is inputs from the pitot static system the air pressure going in the pitot tube and the static pressure from the static pressure ports to provide information to the pilot so if you lose all your avionics you're not going to be any good in a fight you're not going to actually be in combat anymore all you want to do is land that aircraft where you need to land it and so to be able to find an alternate airfield or a place to land you need to have some navigation capability and some ability to fly that aircraft there over here you've got your hydraulic gauges the hydraulic systems got basically three independent hydraulic systems the PC one kc2 and the utility hydraulic system and they're all independent and redundant and that's on purpose so that you've got plenty of hydraulic power in the event of an emergency down here is your fuel quantity gauge the pilot is able to rotate this knob and tell exactly how much fuel is in each one of these tanks depending on where they have this pre-positioned we refer to these older gauges as steam driven gauges in most modern cockpits you see more glass and LCD displays and that's why they're referred to as glass cockpits so you have to remember that this aircraft first became operational in 1976 so there are a lot of gauges and switches that are still the original ones that came with the aircraft as technology has evolved the Air Force has put money into upgrading a lot of these sensors and switches and dials but there are some of them that have remains just based on limitations with funding so now that we've gone over everything in the cockpit here's how it all works together to actually start the jet first the pilot has to turn the engine master switch is on which turns the fuel pumps on and enables the JFS or jet fuel starter to couple to the engine normally a jet engine which is a turbine engine is going to need air flowing over the compressor blades to continually keep that turbine running because you don't have that air flowing on the ground the f-15 needs a separate little small motor called a jet fuel starter or JFS to be able to power those engines and turn those turbines once the engine gets to 18% rpm the pilot is going to add fuel by pushing the throttle to the idle position and it's going to complete the start sequence on its own once it gets to around 50% RPM that JFS will automatically D couple and be ready to start the second engine so there you have it I've shown you the most important features of the f-15 so while all of this looks very overwhelming the engineers really did have everything in mind for the pilot to be able to organ on eclis control everything that they needed at the appropriate time the men and women that fly this aircraft spent a lot of time in the air and in a simulator practicing a lot of repetition and a lot of Drive to ensure that they can be the best they can be at employing this aircraft hopefully you learned a little bit about the f-15c I'd like to thank Fresno Air National Guard and the 144th Fighter Wing for allowing us to be here today you

Channel: Ars Technica

Views: 2,913,583

Keywords: f-15, f-15c eagle, f-15 jet, ars technica f-15 jet, f-15 buttons, f-15 cockpit, fighter jet cockpit, cockpit break down, f-15 controls, f-15 simulator, f-15 flight simulator, f-15 eagle, f-15 eagle cockpit, fighter jet, fighter jet controls, us military, f-15 united states, f-15 ars technica, f-15 eagle break down, f-15 break down, f-15 cockpit tour, cockpit tour, ars, dcs, dcs world, digital combat simulator world, ars technica, technology

Id: zikI2fazPLo

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020