Getting Rid of Spare F-35s


This one is not well-sourced but it’s F-35y news so I’m going to push it.

Dated in 2018 there is an article [navy times] regarding some FA-18 hornets belonging to the USS Carl Vinson that were accidentally treated to a big fire-suppressant foam-bath:

Although the Naval Safety Center classified the dousing as a so-called “Class A” mishap because the initial damage estimate could surpass $1 million, the severity could be downgraded.

I did not know that mishaps are classified in the Navy. Gosh, I wonder if someone got yelled at. Details like that are not available to the public. If I recall correctly, I was watching footage of the Harry Truman losing FA-18s off the deck; 2 in as many weeks. That sort of thing is normal, but exceedingly embarrassing. I wonder what class of mishap it is to lose a $60mn strike fighter into the ocean? Since the FA-18 is no longer super state of the art, they might not have to spend a bazillion dollars recovering it, like they do whenever a stealth aircraft winds up becoming a submersible. [youtube] There is some newsy pablum about it, but I don’t see any actual footage of them chumming with the FA-18s. Nobody in the Navy should worry, though, since they’re getting budget increases as usual, even though they don’t know what they actually spend the money on, anymore.

I don’t think that’s an aircraft carrier hangar deck; looks more like a maintenance facility, to me. So I am inclined to think that this is the same incident as described above. Except that looks a lot like an F-35. The whole video is rather poignant. [youtube]

The noses of F-35s and F-22s are pretty similar from that angle, but F-22s are not carrier aircraft and F-35s are. So it may have been hangar-queening about and then gotten a sudden bath that would have almost certainly done no good to its stealth coating (considering that water can ruin the stealth coating, soapy foamed water is likely to really do the job) I mean, look at the picture, you can actually see the plane.

Comments

  1. Reginald Selkirk says

    that were accidentally treated to a big fire-suppressant foam-bath…

    Super-hero origin story

  2. says

    Reginald Selkirk@#6:
    The crashed jet was an F-35C, one of three variants of the F-35 Lightning II, designed for use on US aircraft carriers.

    Yeah, that’s the pop-up vent behind the pilot’s seat, that can apply downforce. Imagine sitting with your back 4″ from a jet engine…
    Apparently the failure was in the downforce jet engine. Have I mentioned that this is really hinky design? If you have a failure when you’re doing a VTOL landing, you’re going to smash like a bowl of eggs. Pilots that eject that low often suffer horrific injuries because sometimes they are embroiled with their chair, or hit on their sides, or other highly non-optimal things to which Lockheed Martin says: “look, so what if you’re paralyzed for life, at least you’re alive!”

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