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F-35 can’t be found after pilot ejected

thedrive.com

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

#471

Post by _djo_ »

mortureb wrote: post #466
tehf0x wrote: post #265

So a similar thing happened near some friends' in France. A military jet crashed into the forest near their house, but the air force couldn't figure out where it had gone. Eventually a farmer noticed that a new pond had appeared on his land. The jet made enough of a crater when crashing that drained the nearby swamp and created a new pond deep enough to conceal the full fuselage, thus completely hiding the airplane.…

But why? Don’t these billion dollar machines have a GPS tracker on them?

They have transponders that transmit their identity and location on the most modern, but those depend on being active (for some reason the one in the F-35 was not) and on there being receivers nearby to pick them up. At lower altitudes in remote locations coverage is spotty.

So it's not a guarantee.

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

#472

Post by _djo_ »

jpadkins wrote: post #468
mortureb wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why? Don’t these billion dollar machines have a GPS tracker on them?

I don't think stealth aircrafts normally have trackers or anything broadcasting a signal. Kind of defeats the purpose... I did read that stealth aircraft have transponders installed when operating in US airspace, so commercial radar can see them better. But it was not installed on this flight.

They're always installed, just selectively disabled as needed.

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

#475

Post by mortureb »

foxyv wrote: post #218
btbuildem wrote: post #70

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.

Fighter jets in general are a constant maintenance marathon. They are pushing the edge of engineering and performance. That means that they are less reliable and more expensive to maintain than a 777 by a wide margin. However, the F-35 is significantly more reliable than it's predecessor the F-16. The F-35 represents the result of a changing model for warfare. Less dogfights and missile duels, more managing a fleet o…

We got to move away from fighter jets for the most part. It’s the age of slaughterbots baby, bring on the tens of thousands of highly intelligent drones.

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

#476

Post by ortusdux »

chankstein38 wrote: post #335
btgeekboy wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, I would hope that anything you could do with ADSB-out data is something that the US military has already tried.

That's my assumption as well but I'd have assumed that'd be the case with basically anything except on-site search parties (though I'd hope they could do that as well haha). I'm with you though!

From the article -

"The jet’s transponder, which usually helps locate the aircraft, was not working “for some reason that we haven’t yet determined,” said Jeremy Huggins, a spokesman at Joint Base Charleston. “So that’s why we put out the public request for help.”

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

#478

Post by kube-system »

dheera wrote: post #465
tehf0x wrote: post #265

So a similar thing happened near some friends' in France. A military jet crashed into the forest near their house, but the air force couldn't figure out where it had gone. Eventually a farmer noticed that a new pond had appeared on his land. The jet made enough of a crater when crashing that drained the nearby swamp and created a new pond deep enough to conceal the full fuselage, thus completely hiding the airplane.…

Why don't these aircraft get 10Hz GPS updates and send them to StarLink as they are going down? It's 2023 already.

Well, for the plane in the parent comment's article, that reason is likely because the design for that plane was started in 1972.

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

#479

Post by vGPU »

pydry wrote: post #451
mannerheim wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey seems awfully broken up about not being allowed to buy the F-35.

Turkey had a choice between S400s from Russia and F-35s and they chose the S400. Theyve since doubled down on that choice. Realistically it was probably the better choice. The US MIC was probably more cut up about it than Turkey which is probably why this stunt was pulled: https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/06/29/us-could-buy...

Even if it was come to a war situation where they had to trade off 10 s-400’s for a single f-35, they’d still be significantly ahead financially from what I remember.

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

#480

Post by vGPU »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #161
mrtksn wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that might turn out to be irrelevant as the drones prove detrimental in a warfare. With the advancements in AI in recent years, it will probably get harder and harder to justify carrying a biological being and all the support systems onboard. At some point, a warplane capabilities might become irrelevant and the only important aspect would the the implications of carrying a solder onboard and making the downing o…

How do drones get around the issue of communications jamming? I suppose they have some way (autonomous would be one way), but it seems to me that if communications are cut off, having a pilot with human judgement to respond to changing conditions will almost always have some advantage. Although, you could get a pretty advanced autonomous system that responded to changes from a pre-programmed attack plan.

Can’t jam every frequency.
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