> Also, a pilot blaming procedure for a bad call is ass covering.

Huh, is that a specific thing for military pilots? Just watched the latest MentourPilot's video and there the french equivalent of the FAA found that the pilots were told to improvise too much, and should have followed the procedures better.

Isn't this a catch22 with hindsight based judgement?

Somewhere in the middle. You don't want to turn your brain off and bail out of a perfectly good airplane, but at the same time if the very first step of the checklist says “LAND ASAP” in giant red letters then maybe you should just divert to your alternate and land.

The prime rule, which supersedes all others, is to not have shit go wrong. That's more important than following any of the other rules; if you follow all the other rules, the rules which you think are important because they're written down, but miss on the prime rule, then your ass is in trouble. Even if it doesn't end your career, it will still hurt it.

When things really matter the foremost objective is never "follow the rules so your ass is covered", it's to not have a situation where that ass covering is relevant in the first place. Outcomes matter more than preforming according to the book.

>It’s a new plane!

The F-35B has been operational with the US Marie Corps since June 2015.

Which makes it a new plane, considering the same organization flies planes from the 1950s too.

> Also, a pilot blaming procedure for a bad call is ass covering

Ultimately pilots are humans, being asked to make split second decisions. A certain percent of the time decisions are going to be bad. That is why we have procedures. In pretty much every other field we recognize that. Ignoring that fact is incompetence on the part of military command.

There are of course situations that cannot be covered by procedures, however this doesn't seem like one of them.

Do you think there is no value in picking pilots that make the correct split second decisions or screening out pilots that don't?

The priority here is combat effectiveness, not job security for pilots.

On top of all this, they found that he didn't follow the correct procedures that did exist!

Yup. Some humans make okay split-second decisions. Some make great ones. That this difference is unfair is irrelevant. Nobody should be entitled to be a commander.

Oh, i think there is tremendous value in that if you can do it. However i don't think humans work that way, and what is really happening is survivorship bias. This reduces combat effectiveness as it sweeps opportunity for organizational improvement under the rug.