Japanese F-35 missing

Probably too soon but oh, the irony

“The advanced single-seat jet ... disappeared from radar, the Air Self Defense Force said.”

Here’s to a successful search and rescue.
 
Interestingly, Japan has grounded their F-35 fleet until they figure out what went wrong.
 
SkyDog58 said:
And it ain't even a Boeing.

But it still probably has systems and computer code the pilots know nothing about or don't understand.
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That plane won't fly with direct pilot commands; there's code between every input and the flight surfaces.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
That plane won't fly with direct pilot commands; there's code between every input and the flight surfaces.
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And it’s very far from the first military jet that is like that.
 
Doesn’t sound good ,hope for the best.
 
"The advanced single-seat jet was flying about 135 km (84 miles) east of the air base in Aomori Prefecture at about 7:27 p.m. (1027 GMT) on Tuesday, when it disappeared from radar, the Air Self Defense Force said."


Uhh.... Isn't that what is friggin designed to do? :sosp:
 
Unit74 said:
Uhh.... Isn't that what is friggin designed to do? :sosp:
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Would be a bit difficult in peacetime if ATC can’t provide radar service. ;)

Seriously though, hoping for a safe recovery of the pilot.
 
Isn't that what the F35 is supposed to do? Disappear from radar?
 
Velocity173 said:
Not ATC radar. That wouldn’t be a good thing.
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I’m curious if they track off IFF only. If your RCS is <1m squared, it starts to get lost in the noise pretty quickly.

But maybe solid state RADARS handle that better.
 
TCABM said:
I’m curious if they track off IFF only. If your RCS is <1m squared, it starts to get lost in the noise pretty quickly.

But maybe solid state RADARS handle that better.
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My understanding for ATC purposes they use radar Reflectors (Luneburg Lens) to increase RCS and get a primary target. I’ve seen a good primary on a flight of two F-117s before. But yeah, if somehow they couldn’t get primary, SSR would work fine. Increased sep with secondary only though.
 
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Velocity173 said:
My understanding for ATC purposes they use radar Reflectors (Luneburg Lens) to increase RCS and get a primary target. I’ve seen a good primary on a flight of two F-117s before. But yeah, if somehow they couldn’t get primary, SSR would work fine. Increased sep with secondary only though.
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Yea, but are they ADSB Equipped? Better be......:cool:
 
The pilot probably defected to Russia. From where the aircraft disappeared it's about 537 nautical miles to Vodvizhenka Air Base in Russia.
 
Unit74 said:
Yea, but are they ADSB Equipped? Better be......:cool:
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Not sure if they ever got a waiver for ADS-B or not. I remember it being a security issue but not sure if it’s been fixed.
 
TCABM said:
I’m curious if they track off IFF only. If your RCS is <1m squared, it starts to get lost in the noise pretty quickly.

But maybe solid state RADARS handle that better.
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Off topic but speaking of a low RCS, just reading about the F-105 the other night. Had such a low RCS, it had a radar reflector on the nose gear so GCA could pick them up. Amazing that they had problems getting radar on an aircraft that size...especially on a PAR.
 
Velocity173 said:
Off topic but speaking of a low RCS, just reading about the F-105 the other night. Had such a low RCS, it had a radar reflector on the nose gear so GCA could pick them up. Amazing that they had problems getting radar on an aircraft that size...especially on a PAR.
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If you think about it, the nose aspect doesn’t really present a lot of reflective area.

Very few, if any, hard angles.
 
Unit74 said:
"The advanced single-seat jet was flying about 135 km (84 miles) east of the air base in Aomori Prefecture at about 7:27 p.m. (1027 GMT) on Tuesday, when it disappeared from radar, the Air Self Defense Force said."


Uhh.... Isn't that what is friggin designed to do? :sosp:
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Not when radar reflectors are installed, which is typical in peacetime for all stealth aircraft.
 
TCABM said:
I’m curious if they track off IFF only. If your RCS is <1m squared, it starts to get lost in the noise pretty quickly.
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For the F-35, I believe the cross section is a couple of inches or so. Barring intentional reflectors, of course.
 
deyoung said:
For the F-35, I believe the cross section is a couple of inches or so. Barring intentional reflectors, of course.
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I actually saw a documentary on skunk works last night and they said that when they pulled all of the antennas in and went dark, the F117 had the radar cross section of a bb. There's a lot of bugs bigger than that.
 
Hmmmm. Lots of O2 issues with that airframe in the past years.

I believe there was even a stand down of an entire squadron because of hypoxia issues.


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k9medic said:
Hmmmm. Lots of O2 issues with that airframe in the past years.

I believe there was even a stand down of an entire squadron because of hypoxia issues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I know there were O2 issues with the F(A)18. I wasn't aware of O2 issues with the F35.
 
JASDF report lists spatial disorientation as the cause of the mishap. From his last transmission to water impact was only 35 seconds. His flight was given a turn and descend request from ATC for separation from a US military bird at 37,000' getting close to their operating area around 31,000'. The pilot was already in a slight turn and high descent rate and made the turn and increased his descent rate. Impact was at over 600 kts and 1000+ FPM descent rate. Partial remains of the pilot have been found.
 
JOhnH said:
I know there were O2 issues with the F(A)18. I wasn't aware of O2 issues with the F35.
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F-35 has had OBOGS issues as well. Several pilots have had to go to the backup LOX for emergencies.
 
Craig said:
JASDF report lists spatial disorientation as the cause of the mishap. From his last transmission to water impact was only 35 seconds. His flight was given a turn and descend request from ATC for separation from a US military bird at 37,000' getting close to their operating area around 31,000'. The pilot was already in a slight turn and high descent rate and made the turn and increased his descent rate. Impact was at over 600 kts and 1000+ FPM descent rate. Partial remains of the pilot have been found.
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Sounds like a pretty flat impact angle, 600kt = 60000+ ft/min vs 1000 ft/min descent.
 
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