And How Was Your Day?

35 Replies to “And How Was Your Day?”

1. You’d think they’d at least put an AirTag on those things.

   1. Shouldn’t their autopilot mode include a “return to base” flight plan?

      And I’d do a full IRS “lifestyle audit” on the pilot, and check his newly opened foreign bank accounts funded in Chinese Yuan.

      1. F-35 located!

         https://tinyurl.com/44bt4mz6

2. Call China. Will all those overseas sourced components surely a few of them have GPS locators.

3. Wow.
   Foremost, excellent news on the pilot. Ejection is a dodgy event even when functioning perfectly.
   Wonder where it dropped off radar…. oh, wait.

   China loses a nuke sub, we lose an F-35, it’s a buffet.

4. I found it and I’m keeping it.

   1. Keeping it? Not me, Thomas. I’d trade it in on an F15.

      I saw the F15 that lost one wing and the pilot landed it. They have that much power!

      It was in the shop for repairs when I saw it. “That’ll buff right out.” ;o)

      1. Little makeup, hair dye, shades, …. does Thomas have a cat?

         1. My wife has a couple. I have a dog and a slightly used jet plane … for sale.

      2. I’d go for a couple A-10s, myself.

         1. Time to deploy a squadron of those over LA and SF? Well … after FIRST deploying them to the southern border.

      3. HR
         Butt that was an Israeli pilot, and only about 105 of American pilots would qualify for the IAF

5. Vee are also patriotikally helping looookeeng for F-35. If find for revaard, call Vladimir at 1-800-got-usaf. Strikt konfeedent.

6. Aliens confiscated it.

   1. They were disgusting that pigs could fly…in the name of aircraft.

7. A “mishap”?!?! You lose an F-35 and it’s a “mishap”?!

   This is not like hitting the garbage can while backing out of the driveway. That’s a mishap.

   1. A multi-multi-millions of dollars mishap. This is the logical endpoint of participation trophies. No one need ever feel bad about dumping taxpayer money in the drink, else it might affect their self-esteem. I mean, the president pissed away billions of dollars of military hardware in Afghanistan, do you think he’s self-flagellating, or feeling any sense of remorse? And I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed.

      1. $70 to $90 million a copy, depending on the model. I was thinking that was an outrageous amount of money, and then I remembered that President Puddin’ Cup just paid $1.2 Billion each, to buy hostages back from Iran.

         1. B-2s are over 4 billion each in today’s U.S. dollars.

         2. The money isn’t the issue. The software is way more valuable than the plane. That’s what identifies friend or foe long before visual range. That’s got the encryption and decryption for communications and telemetry.

            And losing a plane like that is failure on many levels.

            1. It’s not even the first one.

         3. You mean Iran got its own money back?
            Awesome!

8. China called their loan. This was the first repo.

9. I watched a video where a test pilot/F35 pilot gave a lecture on the F35.
   If the engine dies so does all electric power. Apparently there is no backup power. Since it has all electric controls and cockpit a power loss turns it into a 70-90 million dollar brick. Hence I doubt there was a locator beacon functioning when it went down.

   Now, I am a simple old truck driver, but don’t they have radars that track these things? Stealth, yes, I know, but not totally invisible especially when the canopy then the pilot is ejected. Also, I would think they would install an emergency system to make them visible during training when an accident occurs.

   Apparently that is too simple.

   Canada is buying a single engine fighter to send pilots over the arctic and oceans. A fighter with no backup power and all electric everything.
   If I were a pilot I would be nervous.

   1. SO this is the next-generation network-centric ISRD all the time super duper datalink platform. And they can’t find it? Sonds like a bullshit story. They know where it is.

   2. That’s because what you heard is bullshit. They have backup electrical to run systems… called a battery and other systems. But, you know, with no engine it’s not like running out of battery juice is the main problem. The ELT and eveything else have their own. And they track every flight. Dude, they have been doing this for 100 years. The story is bullshit.

      1. Yep… wing man returned to base safely.
         Don’t think they’d cover up pilot error.
         Would have been a better story if they colided during pre landing visual inspection sequence. I’m thinking another overheating issue. Dunno if the wing man followed the pilot or the plane… or neither given a coms failure. They’re still trying to sell these things before tearing every one of them down.
         For that matter we could have lost one near Russia and they shuffled the loss over here. We’d never know. Regardless, the F-35 is not ready yet, we know that much.
         https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2023/06/has-the-pentagon-learned-from-the-f-35-debacle

10. A long ten-year-old article about the origins and features of the F-35
    https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5

    1. Bookmarked this one.
       The Gepard was the subject of the next article.
       At least some people are paying attention to reality.

11. Tryin’ to find a stealth fighter is kinda like lookin’ for The Invisible Man.

12. I call B.S.

13. A military aircraft is is difficult to track BY DESIGN. The systems on board are designed not to emit signals of any kind. Also, training exercises are intended to parallel the real thing (no point in training to fail) and are therefore hazardous by their very nature. Also, while the pilot was almost certainly training very hard to not be found there were also likely other military installations (surface and air) training very hard to detect him. This holds regardless of what kind of military aircraft it is. It is not easy to bypass signal emmision controls. That is the equivalent of putting a switch in the cockpit labelled “KILL ME”.

    Military aircraft (and other systems) are not mass produced and refined over a production run of millions of units. There may only be a few thousand of any given aircraft. They operate at the the barest edge of what materials science will allow and the pilots are always pushing that envelope to gain an edge. The equipment is NOT simple to operate or maintain and they do it under conditions of extreme stress.

    Something went wrong and the aircraft was lost while the pilot survived. God has already blessed him: when things go wrong at 500 knots there is typically only a smoking hole with some associated grease stains remaining. And not MIL-PRF-23827C grease, either.

    While it is fashionable to mock our military institutions (and particularly the US) these are brave young men who are risking their lives. I find it entirely understandable that:
    – They lost an aircraft while training,
    – The aircraft wreck is difficult to find, and
    – They are asking for help from any potential witnesses.

14. Any one have a flat bed trailer I can borrow?

15. Word is some Hunter fellow sold it to the Chinese.

    Arms sales are very profitable.

    Not as good as the Afghan haul but made some good bucks for the Big Guy.

16. I couldn’t refrain from commenting. Well written!