Expensive F-35 Fighter Jet Program Suffers Its First Crash

Megalith

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The long-running, super-expensive F-35 fighter jet program suffered its first casualty Friday when one of the $100m aircrafts crashed in South Carolina for “unknown reasons.” While the pilot managed to eject without injury, the incident doesn’t look great for the Lockheed Martin effort, which has been criticized for lack of performance and safety.

The crash came on the same day that the Pentagon announced an $11.5 billion contract for 141 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed, which lowers the price for the most common version of the stealthy jet by 5.4 percent. The plane in the South Carolina crash was one of 245 F-35 fighter jets in the U.S. military, a Pentagon official said, and one of a total of 320 F-35 jets being flown around the world.
 
I can't help but imagine that they are milking the government for a lot of tax money on this project

on this project? nah its been going on for a long long time on other projects. This one is just such a cluster that even people not paying attention has noticed.
 
Wonder if it was pilot error or an actual problem with the aircraft. Everyone loves to bitch about it but the F-35 has done quite well safety-wise compared to the Harrier thus far.
 
Wonder if it was pilot error or an actual problem with the aircraft. Everyone loves to bitch about it but the F-35 has done quite well safety-wise compared to the Harrier thus far.

You can't compare the safety record of the F-35B and AV-8A & B. One has been operational for 47 years with 10's of thousands of flight hours plus experience in multiple conflicts. The other has been operational for 3 years. One used manual manipulation of the thrust vectoring nozzles and the other uses a computerized automated system. One utilized am initial training scheme of baptism by fire and the other has multi-million dollar FTD/sims to aid the pilots in the rag/FRS from the start.

I don't see what the big deal is, every fighter/attack aircraft had losses in their initial years of testing and operation. Plus as others have said, no one knows what brought the aircraft down. Losses due to design/equipment failures and pilot error are all underwritten into a program.
 
Mildly humorous considering the F-35 had it's first combat mission just a few days ago.

Whoops.
 
A crash like this doesn't mean didly until we know the cause. Compared to the Harrier, that this replaced, this is like an A-10. This is the first crash in the 12 years of F-35 flights and while I'm surprised it didn't require a patch update before the ejector seat went off, for the Marines this is the best thing they've ever had.
 
No Marine would be nicknamed Goose... too many letters. Common Marines pilots handles are Go, Ho, Oh, FU. These are all usually grunted while eating the complimentary box of crayons the maintenance crew left behind.
 
No Marine would be nicknamed Goose... too many letters. Common Marines pilots handles are Go, Ho, Oh, FU. These are all usually grunted while eating the complimentary box of crayons the maintenance crew left behind.

Well there's the problem, got a Marine flying an airplane. :wacky:
 
You can't compare the safety record of the F-35B and AV-8A & B. One has been operational for 47 years with 10's of thousands of flight hours plus experience in multiple conflicts. The other has been operational for 3 years. One used manual manipulation of the thrust vectoring nozzles and the other uses a computerized automated system. One utilized am initial training scheme of baptism by fire and the other has multi-million dollar FTD/sims to aid the pilots in the rag/FRS from the start.

The Harrier was/is not a particularly safe airplane. Up through 2005 the AV-8B suffered ~12 accidents per 100,000 flight hours, compared to around 3 for the F/A-18 Hornet. On top of that the USMC had higher-than-expected losses initially because they didn't require new pilots to have helicopter experience.

Well there's the problem, got a Marine flying an airplane. :wacky:

How does a Marine tell if he's flying straight and level?
The drool comes out both sides.
 
The Harrier was/is not a particularly safe airplane. Up through 2005 the AV-8B suffered ~12 accidents per 100,000 flight hours, compared to around 3 for the F/A-18 Hornet. On top of that the USMC had higher-than-expected losses initially because they didn't require new pilots to have helicopter experience..

And? That has nothing to do with my quote. I stated you can't compare the F-35B to the AV-8 aircraft. I didn't say it was safe. In fact the opposite due initially to the systems and training.

Helicopter experience has never been a requirement for the Harrier pipeline. The Harrier pipeline follows the other fixed wing fighter/attack aircraft (including the F-35). After completing advanced and your winging you get selected for a rag depending on the slots available at the time and the need of the Corps. If a Harrier slot is available you will go to VMAT-203 at CP. Harrier slots are very hard to come by and generally requires a rotation with Natracom through one of the VT's as an IP. The you go to the rag and finally out to the fleet. Never do you go to a HT or a rotor rag.

Rotor heads can move to fixed and vice versa but it doesn't happen often. You generally stay in your community.
 
"It was the first crash of an F-35 fighter jet since they became operational in 2006" That says a lot for the program.
 
This is the third Wad of Spooge that escaped the Military Industrial Complex.

The first was the Bradley, it was so bad Cary Elwes was in the movie about the shitpile. Sheep on fire, being hidden by the govt.

The second was the Osprey; it was in development so long that Everyone worked on it. eventually, it you worked for a contractor, lol.

And just like SoF in the 90's, shooting one thru the gearbox on the wing with a .50 or bigger drops one in a flash, lol.

This is just the new shit until they rape us for the space force.
 
from the story .. It was the first crash of an F-35 fighter jet since they became operational in 2006..... umm its 2018 for all we know it may have been a bird strike in the engine or pilot info overload that may have distracted the pilot for a few seconds ..that caused an error in his \ her flight path ..the good news is ..yes .................the operator of the vehicle ..SURVIVED ..why not focus on that ?

do you guys even have a clue on how fast these things fly ?
 
This is the third Wad of Spooge that escaped the Military Industrial Complex.

The first, The second was the Osprey;

This is just the new shit until they rape us for the space force.

That is funny...They already did that for many generations and used the cover of NASA to fleece trillions of $$$$$$ out of USA and convinced/showed other countries that they too could force the "sheep" to fork over massive $$$$$$$ to a "pipe dream" with all "information" a matter of "national security" not hard for them to control what images and such are shown, when they decide what is "good for people to see" and what "we need to make sure to hide this, or the gig is up"

^.^
 
Bird, rogue drone, pissed off deer hunter, granny with shotgun mad about the noise and bdos error in sector 4 are some of the possibilities at this point. If this is the first military crash, doing pretty good. Still think a few Generals and Program Directors should be fired over all the cost overruns.
 
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Remember the time they forgot to design lights that meet FAA requirements? OR the time they forgot to design a gun for the plane?

Yeah...
 
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