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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

#121

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.

If you watch YouTube replay simulations[0] with ATC (air traffic control) when pilots violate a TFR (temporary flight restriction) for something like The President it's comical how long it takes for the interception fighters to find the target. It turns out the F-* radar is terrible at these kinds of situations. They almost always end up getting vectored in by air traffic control with their much more powerful ground based radar.

Just one example of how this kind of stuff plays out in the real world.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onx46fLyncM

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"food insecurity" is not the same as starving.

You would probably have a different perspective if you were in that situation, especially as a child.

EDIT: Downvotes for compassion, HN is rough today!

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

#127
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We know the JSF is a giant expensive computer. I wonder what code is in the exception block for when the plane is working but the pilot leaves. Maybe it does just try and gently crash somewhere. I doubt there's an exception block for that. What if there's a fault and it triggers while the pilot is still in the plane? > It's more surprising it didn't have some sort of phone home, become a drone, style fall back mech…

I think the Ukraine war and Russia's poor showing has proved that in some ways the west is overestimating the capabilities of it's enemies.

> I think the Ukraine war and Russia's poor showing has proved that in some ways the west is overestimating the capabilities of it's enemies.

That attitude is a recipe for overconfidence and failure, and is probably the biggest reason for Russia's poor showing in Ukraine.

Also, from what I've read, electronic warfare is one of the areas where the Russians have shown strong capability. It's a mistake to misinterpret "sucks at some things" as "sucks at all things."

Remember too that significant amounts detailed technical data for the F-35 have been stolen:

https://thediplomat.com/2015/01/new-snowden-documents-reveal...:

> Last week, Der Spiegel published a new tranche of documents provided to the German weekly magazine by the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden. The documents are the first public confirmation that Chinese hackers have been able to extrapolate top secret data on the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter jet. According to sources, the data breach already took place in 2007 at the prime subcontractor Lockheed Martin. A U.S. government official recently claimed that as of now, “classified F-35 information is protected and remains secure.”

> ...

> The Snowden files outline the scope of Chinese F-35 espionage efforts, which focused on acquiring the radar design (the number and types of modules), detailed engine schematics (methods for cooling gases, leading and trailing edge treatments, and aft deck heating contour maps) among other things. The document claims that many terabytes of data specific to the F-35 joint strike fighter program were stolen.

When designing military aircraft, it makes sense to reduce attack surface and avoid implementing exploitable features to address unusual scenarios.

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone would be over a billion dollars if we only made 40.

There's a lot of very low volume niche Chinese phones for reasonable prices. So it doesn't need to be so expensive. You could argue that an iPhone would cost over a billion because you need to develop iOS. But why would you do that instead of modding android for 1/100th of the cost, if you're only gonna make 40?

The hardware for the niche Chinese phones can only be so cheap, because an ecosystem exists around the mass production that is built around the mainstream iPhone and Android devices.

If not for the insane scale of phones being developed, the components that go into those cheap Chinese phones would be far far far more expensive than they are today.

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"food insecurity" is not the same as starving.

If 1 in 8 kids experiences food insecurity, then it's likely that there are at least some, maybe 1 in 100, who are starving, however you define it.

Also, there are two kinds of starvation: in one case the quantity of food is insufficient, in the other its quality is. Eating fries with soda in great quantity every day could still starve a growing kid.

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

#130

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

I was thinking more The Nightmare Man [1]. Scared the absolute piss out of me as a kid and I don't think it was even on that late:

https://ayearinthecountry.co.uk/the-nightmare-man-part-1-col...

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