[JCEccles]

When a pilot loses control of a jet, his job is to GET OUT, so that the millions spent training him/her are not wasted in death.

But as long as he has control, he might choose to stay with it for a few more seconds or minutes, right?

Otherwise the reports out of Vietnam of pilots staying with crippled F-105s or F-4s and nursing the stricken aircraft as far toward the coast (and hopefully to the ocean) as possible would be fiction as well. But they are a matter of record. Duke Cunningham flew his F-4 completely inverted all the way to the ocean before he punched out due to loss of control and battle damage.

You may be a former F-14 pilot, but there are plenty of reports of pilots staying with stricken aircraft as long as they are able--your experience and training notwithstanding.

[ex-NFO]

“But as long as he has control, he might choose to stay with it for a few more seconds or minutes, right?

Otherwise the reports out of Vietnam of pilots staying with crippled F-105s or F-4s and nursing the stricken aircraft as far toward the coast (and hopefully to the ocean) as possible would be fiction as well. But they are a matter of record. Duke Cunningham flew his F-4 completely inverted all the way to the ocean before he punched out due to loss of control and battle damage.”

I think those cases had more to do with not wanting to spend a decade in the Hanoi Hilton, or summarily killed by villagers.

[dalereed]

“Otherwise the reports out of Vietnam of pilots staying with crippled F-105s or F-4s and nursing the stricken aircraft as far toward the coast (and hopefully to the ocean) as possible would be fiction as well.”

Only to avoid becoming a POW!

[Pukin Dog]

Nobody wants to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. The instinct is to stay with it as long as you can. There is a mental checklist that you train on, which basically boils down to -'can I control this thing or not?' which takes a millisecond to determine. If the aircraft does not follow orders, you gotta get out. If you can control the thing, there is no reason (except fire or incapacitation) to warrant getting out.

In Duke's case, he got out finally, because the fire eventually burned out his controls. Nobody wanted to get out over Vietnam, and Duke had made it out to sea. Crippled does not mean unflyable. And as I said, jets of the Vietnam era could even glide, because they were stable platforms. Even the F-4 could glide a bit with enough speed and altitude.

[Polybius]

You may be a former F-14 pilot, but there are plenty of reports of pilots staying with stricken aircraft as long as they are able--your experience and training notwithstanding.

He addressed that issue in Post 247