A US F-35 fighter jet made an emergency landing at US air base in the Middle East after it was struck by what is believed to be Iranian fire, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command, said the fifth-generation stealth jet was “flying a combat mission over Iran” when it was forced to make an emergency landing. Hawkins said the aircraft landed safely and the incident is under investigation.
The incident would be the first time Iran has hit a US aircraft in the war started in late February. Both the US and Israel are flying F-35s in the conflict; the aircraft costs upwards of $100 million.
This is heavily sanctioned crippled iran
Imagine what would china do to amrikkkans if they went war over taiwan
Now they need to choose whether they want to blame Iran for it to claim that Iran is evil or to claim that Iran couldn’t have done it because the F-35 is too advanced for Iran to be able to hit.
because the F-35 is too advanced for Iran to be able to hit.
There’s this silly assumption some people have that stealth = invincibility.
The fact is, you can see it. They may absorb radio waves, but visible light bounces off just fine. And if you can see it, you can shoot at it.
And on that note, it’s a little easier to hit, as it’s slower and less maneuverable than most of the fighters of the last generation. (This is essentially a design necessity for stealth, very hard to avoid)
The pilot was smoking
So many to choose from! Its like Christmas for excuses
As everyone knows, the only force advanced enough to hit an F-35 is Antifa.
we did it guys!
Tax dollars at work.
You actually think that because USA spends the most money on military that they’d have the most valuable military? I’m sorry to inform you that perhaps the military is in the same shape as your health care, which is also the most expensive in the world.
Grifting is a hell of a politic to count on when you actually need the stuff that you’ve already paid for.
Wait, but I thought these things are invisible…
They can also be flying with extra munitions under the wings. At which point they stop being stealthy.
Also stealth aircraft are notoriously difficult and sensitive on maintenance. So might be a case of stealth degrading after a few weeks of intense operation.
And the theory I see floating around on forums is that it was a QAEM-118 missile. Since it has IR and optical guidance that could ignore sheath at shorter ranges/low speed. And some US missions might be flying at low altitude to make use of terrain masking.
For the all the probably hundreds of sorties flown with a result of zero losses and only a single aircraft being damaged they might aswell be invisible.
When your targets are farmers and civilians, they don’t usually fire back. So much winning tho.
What’s the US version of tankies?
Wankies, and they’re out in force.
You don’t have to be a tankie or a wankie to recognize the fact that a loss ratio of 0% is very good for an aircraft.
If it was a Russian or Chinese aircraft doing this then that would also be a fact.
It’s stupid to say that a single aircraft being damaged makes the entire type worthless like many here are saying when the F-35 is the only aircraft flying these missions and come back with only damage to a single plane.
That is not a political statement or approval of the strikes. That’s just a statement on the plane.
Stealth is not invisibility, it’s a combination of technologies that make planes hard to detect by sensors such as radar.
The video the Iranians released showed an F-35 that was within visual range of an anti-air asset before being hit.
No confirmation if that video is legitimate. We’ll just have to wait for more information.
Trump literally thought they were invisible during a meeting in his first term.
Because he bought 200 of them off some guy.
Trump can barely grasp that the sun is bright. Remember Trump is quite possibly the human incarnation of the words fucktard.
No confirmation if that video is legitimate. We’ll just have to wait for more information.
Centcom doesn’t seem to be denying it. Tho the video I’ve seen going around has an abrupt cut when the plane was hit. So likely it was hit but not taken down.
I guess Whiskey Leaks intelligence got it wrong when Chat GPT said that all Iranian soldiers had their eyes replaced with radars.
Sneaky. Beaky.
I thought those were supposed to be
unsinkableunshootdownablesneaky beaky. How are the latest gripen’s stats?Can I unload a little?
Skip this if you want. This is some train of thought emotional rambling about my family. This also makes me a little sad because my little cousin, who may be a doofus about some things but we love him is a genius about other things and he helped design the F35 when he was at Lockheed. It’s weird to have that little amount of pride in weapons of war thinking “my bro built that, look how fancy” but like, every one of those quarterly icbm test launches, like, my great uncle was on the design team for the minuteman. We do a pilgrimage out to thiokol every ten years as a family to recognize the sacrifice and achievement. It’s fucking weird to have that pride and fear and sadness at the same time.
I thought those were supposed to be sneaky beaky.
Given how many hundreds of sorties over a hostile country, and only one damaged? Yeah, they are pretty damn sneaky.
Yeah I think this could be like with the F-117 being shot down by the serbs back during the Yugoslav wars. Statistically some or something is going to hit it no matter how advanced since there will always be gaps in its defenses.
It’s unfortunate how tightly coupled military, engineering and $$ are. If you want the last two, you’re working with the first…
it’s why i always had that dream of working with NASA, because it was cutting edge shit and not military. well okay there’s a fair amount of give and take and overlap
but like, also
Hopefully there are more to come (down).
the aircraft landed safely
Shame.
They’re saying that the pilot is in stable condition, which implies the pilot was wounded.
Grain of salt, you’re also in stable condition reading this. If not, maybe call a medic.
Or a horse
At least there’s a silver lining
If India wasn’t going to make the buy before… I bet they don’t now! (unless we give them a helluva deal)… Also wonder what Canada is going to do about their order!
Never underestimate countries licking the american empire boots no matter what
