The pilot safely ejected over South Carolina yesterday, but the plane continued to fly to parts unknown. Of course, the plane’s stealth technology means that it does not appear on most radar.
Perhaps posting some fliers on utility poles will help?
Broken Arrow!
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Read in some article that not only did something go wrong with the plane, but the transponder that is supposed to help find the plane has also failed.
Edit: Oh. It says that in the linked article too.
This could be a fun way to raise some money for whoever finds it.
The F-35 has had a lot of problems staying in the air. Here are some recent crashes that made the news:
A crash in the Mediterranean in November 2021:
A crash in the South China Sea in January 2022:
Of course, the plane can’t fly within 25 miles of a lightning storm.
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Military jets frequently turn the transponders off. That is likely the case with the missing plane.
“I’m gonna hide this so good, even I won’t find it!” 
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it had to run out of fuel somewhere… unless, of course, it was wind powered…
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Better than the Chinese autopilot landing it in Canada.
It looks like the military found the missing F-35:
All military aircraft are grounded for the next two days–very strange:
https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1703863373174358473
■■■■■■■■■ You might want to compare their carrier operations record with the F18 for example. And the F-14 crash rate is 8.87 destroyed or lost aircraft per 100,000 flying hours.
Furthermore …
You are ALL grounded, misters!!
Every new aircraft has its problems. I have a cousin that was in the navy from 73-78. That’s when the F-14 was coming into service. He was an aircraft mechanic (E-2C Hawkeye) so he got to see firsthand all the problems it was having. He said he’d walk into the main hangar and there’d be a line of those things on jackstands.
And in the early 80s the B-1 bomber was having all kinds of issues.
And of course the Osprey. Unfortunately a number of marines have been killed because of crashes.
Correction … all Marine jet aircraft grounded for two days.
“A service-wide (USMC) email said all units are grounded until the completion of a two-day discussion about safety procedures.”
And it’s not “very strange.” It happens fairly regularly, particularly with newer aircraft. And in comparison to other fighter aircraft, the F-35 has (so far) a better safety record than most.
The F-35 is a trillion-dollar boondoggle.
Manned aircraft are rapidly becoming obsolete. Missiles and drones can destroy them on the ground and in the air.
The US and its NATO allies are woefully lagging in hypersonic weapons technology. Russia has used them successfully in Ukraine. China and Iran also have the developed the technology. The US is still testing the technology, and the poor state of engineering education in the west makes it likely that the US will remain behind for the foreseeable future.
NOTE ON INTELLIGENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ARMAMENTS N°61 / AUGUST 2023
WHAT CAN BE THE REASONS FOR THE WESTERN DELAY IN HYPERSONIC WEAPONS?
JEAN-FRANÇOIS GENESTE
Jean-François Geneste has nearly 40 years of experience in the aerospace and defense fields. He was Scientific Director of the EADS Group, now Airbus Group, for 10 years. He was a professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow. He is currently the CEO of the startup WARPA, which has just been awarded a patent for its infinite specific impulse space propulsion engine.
Quelles peuvent être les raisons du retard occidental en matière d’armements hypersoniques ? - Centre Français de Recherche sur le Renseignement
Once again … you’re changing the subject. Why can’t you ever stay on track?
Plus many of the F-14’s serious issues were never actually fixed during its service life. The thing was a maintenance hog. Especially the Swing Wings.
They did fix the most glaring problem that caused most of the crashes. That god awful TF30 engine the A models had. The B and D (and upgraded A+ models) got new GE engines.
Funnily enough when adjusted for inflation the F-14 was MORE expensive than the F-35 and even the F-22 on a per aircraft basis. In modern money they were 200 million per airframe. Twice as much as the F-35 and about 20 million more than the F-22.
I love the Tomcat and she was one of the most beautiful aircraft to ever fly. But the big girl had a TON of problems and was absurdly expensive. There’s a reason the Navy rebuilt the fleet around the Super Hornet starting in the late 90s. It was much cheaper and far more reliable.
US weapons tend to be highly complex, high-cost, and high-maintenance. Those features maximize profits for the contractor, but they may cause us to lose a war.
The strange story of the plane sounds like a computer issue.
Did hackers crash the plane?
Can we expect more F-35s to fall out of the sky without warning?
How far from your original criticism are you going to take this?
