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F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

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Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#91
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the plane is in trim (does the F35 even have manual trim?) and/or on autopilot, I can see a long glide to somewhere with a stable flight path, at least until the loss of thrust due to fuel exhaustion leads to an aerodynamic stall. But in of these circumstances, there would have been no need for the pilot to eject. Strange indeed.

It's the most advanced plane the military has. You would think that an eject would trigger some additional communications or allow remote control of the jet.

"Remote control of jet" comes with fairly obvious adversarial risks the military likely wishes to avoid.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#92
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We don't have children starving in schools

As of 2021, roughly 1 in 8 children in the US experience food insecurity[1].

[1]: https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/child-hunge...

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#93
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the plane is in trim (does the F35 even have manual trim?) and/or on autopilot, I can see a long glide to somewhere with a stable flight path, at least until the loss of thrust due to fuel exhaustion leads to an aerodynamic stall. But in of these circumstances, there would have been no need for the pilot to eject. Strange indeed.

It's the most advanced plane the military has. You would think that an eject would trigger some additional communications or allow remote control of the jet.

There is no remote control of manned tactical aircraft. That was never a requirement.

The jet may have been transmitting it's position via civilian ADS-B or military data link. But those systems could have been switched off, or malfunctioned during the mishap.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely BS. Transponders aside, the US has radar and near real-time satellite imagery of every square inch of American territory. There is a zero percent chance they don’t know where this plane is.

Isn't the whole point of an F-35 that it is really hard to track with radar?

Outside of combat missions, stealth aircraft have little widgets on them which multiply their radar signature. Stealth aircraft are meant to be stealth only in real combat missions.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#97

An 80's movie dream is playing out for some rural kids, where they stumble upon a smouldering high-tech wreckage and as they explore it, men in suits pour out of black SUVs and talk to them in taciturn ways. Seriously though, these jets sound terribly overpriced for how unreliable they seem to be.

Maybe you are thinking of The Machine-Gunners [1]. I loved to watch the BBC adaption as a kid.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Gunners

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#99

This sounds too ridiculous to be true. I'd be more inclined to believe that it's a gambit to flush out an intelligence leak rather than an inability to find their own $160M plane.

It’s definitely BS. Transponders aside, the US has radar and near real-time satellite imagery of every square inch of American territory. There is a zero percent chance they don’t know where this plane is.

> the US has radar and near real-time satellite imagery of every square inch of American territory.

have you been watching prime-time crime fighting drama TV shows?

the implementation of that system is probably 8x as bad as it sounds, and it sounds too complex to implement in less than two decades.

real-time (or "near" real-time, whatever that means) imagery of every square inch of the continental US? No.

Re: F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely BS. Transponders aside, the US has radar and near real-time satellite imagery of every square inch of American territory. There is a zero percent chance they don’t know where this plane is.

Isn't the whole point of an F-35 that it is really hard to track with radar?

It's really hard to track with active radar, which is why the first thing NATO does in a foreign country is bomb all TV and radio stations off the air. With passive methods it's no problem at all.
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