Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

In_A_Dream said:
China's going to have everyone they can comb the area with drones for wreckage to ship back to China.

www.live5news.com

Debris field found in search for F-35 jet in Williamsburg County

Joint Base Charleston confirmed Monday night that found a debris field now believed to be the site of an F-35 crash two hours northeast of the base.
www.live5news.com www.live5news.com
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Local news outlet WLTX reported that the pilot put the plane on autopilot before bailing out of the jet.
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Free Bird!

 
When I first saw this I thought it was a joke.. slightly surprised (although I don't know the circumstances) that the other aircraft didn't track it as it went down.
 
hagaricus said:
When I first saw this I thought it was a joke.. slightly surprised (although I don't know the circumstances) that the other aircraft didn't track it as it went down.
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Sounds like weather was not great. And his wingman was probably more focused on the chute than the plane.

Some of the media coverage on this is absolutely bonkers -- reports that the plane might still be airborne 12+ hours later, etc.

The real issue is just that they haven't found the impact site. It might have gone into water, eliminating obvious markers like a column of smoke from burning wreckage.
 
Good to hear that the Marine Corp F-35B pilot managed to eject and is okay, strange how they canot manage to recover the jet though. I would have thought that they would have had some sort of sensor on board that would activate as soon as the jet crashed? Just an Idea.
 
Nah...that was a weather balloon...

From here on out---that pilot's call sign is "Thud" no matter what he drives...which is likely an ATV.

So, how many peeled potatoes is an F-35 worth of KP?
 
The fleet is grounded. If they had identified something that was only related to pilot attention, they would have not.
Remember, it could be anything that have left the pilot with the feeling that his/her life was in immediate danger: O2, erroneous data, toxic fumes etc..
 
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TomcatViP said:
The fleet is grounded. If they had identified something that was only related to pilot attention, they would have not.
Remember, it could be anything that have left the pilot with the feeling that his/her life was in immediate danger: O2, erroneous data, toxic fumes etc..
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And without enough time to say what that issue was over the radio, at that.
 
How they found it
babylonbee.com

Military Personnel Seen Wandering Forest Pressing Button On F-35 Key Fob

HUGER, SC — A team of Marines was seen trudging through the woods, stopping every 30 feet to wave a key fob around in a 90° arc, say campers at Francis Marion National Forest. The Marines, who traveled in a tactical column, were allegedly on a mission to locate, close with, and recover the F-35...
babylonbee.com babylonbee.com
 
Juicy rumour floating around that it was shot down by small arms fire as it was apparantly flying/hovering in an area known to local authorities for milita activity. rumours say it was at 2,500 feet? Was it at that height?
 
TomcatViP said:
The fleet is grounded. If they had identified something that was only related to pilot attention, they would have not.
Remember, it could be anything that have left the pilot with the feeling that his/her life was in immediate danger: O2, erroneous data, toxic fumes etc..
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They didn't ground just the F-35 fleet, they put a temporary two day stop on all USMC aviation. The stop is because of the high number of crashes the USMC as a whole has seen recently, not anything F-35 specific as of yet. Most likely it just means a lot of safety briefings for the USMC aviation community.

Additionally, F-35 operations in the other branches are continuing unaffected. That further indicates the pause in USMC flight operations isn't about an F-35 specific issue.
 
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piginapoke said:
Juicy rumour floating around that it was shot down by small arms fire as it was apparantly flying/hovering in an area known to local authorities for milita activity. rumours say it was at 2,500 feet? Was it at that height?
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Would have a better chance of being shot down by flying saucers.
 
piginapoke said:
Juicy rumour floating around that it was shot down by small arms fire as it was apparantly flying/hovering in an area known to local authorities for milita activity. rumours say it was at 2,500 feet? Was it at that height?
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Pure nonsense.

The "hovering" bit especially. Like Harriers, F-35 only hovers for landing, which means it won't be on the hover except in the immediate vicinity of its landing spot. And definitely not in the hover at 2500 feet AGL.

Hitting a fast jet with visually aimed small arms at 2500 feet would be monumentally difficult. Not to mention the weather was absolute shit at the time, so the visibility was almost certainly less than that.
 
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NCQ said:
They didn't ground just the F-35 fleet, they put a temporary two day stop on all USMC aviation. The stop is because of the high number of crashes the USMC as a whole has seen recently, not anything F-35 specific as of yet. Most likely it just means a lot of safety briefings for the USMC aviation community.

Additionally, F-35 operations in the other branches are continuing unaffected. That further indicates the pause in USMC flight operations isn't about an F-35 specific issue.
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And it may reflect a desire to be seen to do something, rather than a sign that there are actual systemic issues at play. Sometimes incidents just cluster due to random factors.
 
bobbymike said:
How they found it
babylonbee.com

Military Personnel Seen Wandering Forest Pressing Button On F-35 Key Fob

HUGER, SC — A team of Marines was seen trudging through the woods, stopping every 30 feet to wave a key fob around in a 90° arc, say campers at Francis Marion National Forest. The Marines, who traveled in a tactical column, were allegedly on a mission to locate, close with, and recover the F-35...
babylonbee.com babylonbee.com
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Too late for me to drive to South Carolina I suppose.
 
“I can confirm the [MoD] intends to upgrade the UK F-35B Lightning fleet with Technology Refresh-3 [and] Block 4 modifications,” Cartlidge said.
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UK commits to F-35 retrofits

The United Kingdom has committed to retrofit its fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning combat aircraft to the latest Technology Refresh-3 (TR-3) Block 4 standard.
www.janes.com
 
TomS said:
Hitting a fast jet with visually aimed small arms at 2500 feet would be monumentally difficult.
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The East Lake/Roebuck community near the airport of Birmingham, Alabama is a bit different. One poor sod I knew looked to get a house cheap.

I think I could get a rock up into the wheel well with my weak arm.
 
I believe it does but it will all be dependent upon a lot of things including fuel, payload, weather conditions etc. Either way, the Finns certainly would have factored all this into their decision to acquire.
 

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