F-35 disappears from radar
 

Quite a headline!
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2...ific-govt.html
Lets hope they will find the pilot and aircraft in safe condition.

I've already posted this in the F-35 thread... :)

-RP

Your post disappeared to :ok:

RP's post would appear to still be there. In any case, let's hope the pilot is OK.

It didn't show up on my scope. Might have something to do with where I looked...
Agree, lets hope the pilot is safe.

They are supposed to disappear from rader.
The more troubling bit is that they can't establish radio contact with the pilot.
(Hope they find hiim)

Salute!

I can join the conspiracy folks now, and as Wolfie states, they are "supposed to disappear" from radar.

You can see the training "blisters" that are attached on top and bottom near the vertical stabs, They allow for decent radar signatures, but I am not ure if they electronically enhance returns or act completely passively. I suspect they are active and the pilot can turn the things off. Sure, even if passive you might have an RCS the size of a crow versus a hummingbird, but still real hard to detect and track.

So my conspiracy group hypothesizes it could be a defection to some foreign power. That plane has amazing legs with only internal fuel. so let the myths begin!

Gums sends...

Confirmed wreckage apparently

https://japantoday.com/category/nati...e-F-35-fighter

Hope it doesn't have MCAS fitted or we shall have to get the Tornado's back out!

Paranoia as usual. The plane crashed east of Japan, not near Russian or Chinese waters. Also, "super-technologies" used in F-35 are often overestimated. All this stuff is known for years and pieces of wreckage can hardly be of such a high value to be hunted for.

Hope the pilot survived, but as the time runs....

Gums,
I think you're referring to "Luneburg Lenses" which are fitted to the F22 and F35. In effect, they increase the RCS by a factor of several hundred IIRC. Useful for ATC prime radar returns and, of course, for masking the actual RCS from prying radars….Sadly it seems they've found wreckage, but no sign of the pilot.

The wreckage has been found.. No news of the pilot.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47876128

F35 crash Japan
 

Wreckage of crashed Japanese F-35 fighter jet found

• 10 April 2019

Wreckage from a Japanese F-35 stealth fighter jet has been found, a day after it disappeared from radar over the Pacific.
The pilot of the plane, still missing, Japanese military officials said.Parts of the plane have been recovered during search operations at sea.It is not known why the plane, which is less than a year old, lost contact and crashed."We have collected parts from the jet fighter's tail fin so we [believe] it crashed," Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya told reporters.The fighter jet went missing at 19:27pm (10:27 GMT) on Tuesday as it was flying 135km (84 miles) east of Misawa, a city in NE Japan.It lost contact about 30 minutes after taking off from the Misawa Air Base.

According to Iwaya, the pilot had sent a signal to abort the mission. All communication with him was lost shortly after.Rescue teams are continuing their search for the male pilot who is in his 40s, according to news site Kyodo. No problems with the aircraft had previously been reported, according to Japan's public broadcaster NHK.

Japan has been deploying F-35s, which cost at least $90m (£68m), to replace its ageing F-4 fighter jet. The country has now grounded its 12 remaining F-35 fighter jets at the Misawa base temporarily, said Mr Iwaya. This is only the second time an F-35 has crashed since the jet began flying, according to Reuters.

+

Not a type of accident for Pprune per se, but wonder if it will deliver some insights in the present FBW/automation/glass cockpit discussions.

Why do you say that?

Military Jet crashes into the sea...Pilot is still missing.....why would we here not be interested in a new Jet Fighter crashing especially when the UK, USA, and other nations are or will be operating that Type aircraft?

What sort of data recorder are we talking about on an F-35?
I'm just thinking, if people are worried about wreckage falling into the wrong hands, the DFDR could be a gold mine to the wrong people. Do they remove them before combat missions?

Salute!

@ tdracer
The F-16 and later have a solid state recorder on the seat. Dunno what and how much it records for the F-35, but maybe try the F-35 forums on F-16.net.
Funny thing was that we didn't know about it until a few jets crashed. So made it real hard to lie to the accident board. Heh heh.

Gums sends...

I've worked a few of these on the bottom of very deep oceans, Where needed you could tell a lot from the wreckage even with only photos

Or even Canberras . . .

Unusually, the US has sent B52s from Guam to highlight the search.
Background article in Japanese, my translation provided if this news is not available elsewhere. Click on the internal Twitter feed.

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/obie...0410-00121847/

Salute ProPax!
Where are the factual basis for :
The helmet is working very well or we would have had numerous crashes when the folks are doing things you have not thought of or can imagine. Have you seen the optical and other sensor systems that dwarf anything previous fighter/attack planes have? You can actually look thru the floor using that : helmet toy".
Makes it real easy to land on a small carrier like the Marines do. Awfully nice to "check six", ya think? The radar is an orderr of magnitude more capable than existing attack planes anyone has flying.
Please see the many topics at : F-35 Lightning II

And then this
:Where is that news breaking headline coming from?

This plane has had a lower crash/loss/whatever in its first few hundred thousands than we have seen since the F-106 in the 60's, and maybe the USAF A-7D in the 70's.

There is a lotta difference between "falling outta the sky" and "hitting the ground when you do not want to". The only in-flight loss of the F-35 was a Bee model that USMC flies and it had a fuel line failure. We had one takeoff motor failure here in Florida, no "crash", and USAF plus P&W motor folks figured out how to cure the problem.
And then,
Price is now less than the $100 million unit cost, and remember that military unit price includes "x" years of repairs, modifications, upgrades and the amortized amount that the whole program costed from concept to contract to testing to tooling up to all the training and such. Hell, even Boeing sold the 737 Max, with its fatal flaw, arguing that no additional training costs or such woukld be required of the buyers. Explain that to the families over 300 folks such as yourself, the " Professional passenger ", from your profile. Oh yeah, your small SUV would cost a million dollars if the company only made 1,000 of them and tacked on a percentage of the design, development and such of your cost. SO it's more a basic economis lesson than a political assertion.
++++++++++++++++++
I flew three planes within one year of when they were adopted by USAF ( although one was not declared "operational" for the military mission for another year). So my opinions of the F-35 safety record is not without a few thousand hours of experience.
And then.....
If I told you that the F-35 looks like a small bird on basic air traffic control radar or various air defense radar systems. I would not be bragging. It is not completely invisible, but so small that it can be too close for you to react.
The jet has a transponder for "peacetime" use when training and to allow civilian ground radar to "see" it. Otherwise, go to the military websites and see what the opposing pilot reports are when encountering the beast. Oh yeah, go to other sites and see how much of a "dog" the thing is at an airshow. See:

Gums sends...

What about the missing pilot? Or isn't he important?

Salute Far East
I have a feeling he went down with the jet.
We know the seat works from the USMC crash. And the associated chute, raft, etc and pilot in his gear would have been the first thing the SAR forces found. They had a great location to start serarching, and we have yet to hear from his wingmen.

Gums sends...

I have moved the various bits of the thread digression to the main F-35 thread; please, let's keep this thread about the plane and our military flying colleague whom we have likely lost.

Salute!

Thank you, T-28B
+++++++++++++++++++++++++=
Hard to get details on the mishap, but here's one link that seems reasonable.

https://sputniknews.com/military/201...h-japan-facts/

Reuters seems to have best coverage and I quote from a Japanese briefing :
That last statement from the ASDF official is the mystery, so the pilot knew something was wrong, then things got worse.

The reason I take particularly keen interest in this, is that I was a USAF Major and highly experienced single seat troop with over 3300 hours when I was assigned as a cadre member for the first F-16 squadron in the world. You have to start someplace with the new planes and pilots and maintenance troops and......, So 60 hours would be about right for the more challenging training missions if the flight lead was very qualified. And remember that we were helping other pilots learn to fly the plane when we only had about 20 or 30 hours.

There must be keen interest in recovering much of the plane's avionics, The airframe design for a low RCS is one thing, and even it has some secrets not readily apparent. But the avionics and codes on some of the boxes are even more vital to the air frorces operating the planes.

Gums sends...

Incoming.

Press conference. Just picked up in the Japanese news that the ship 'Kaimei' is reporting a US chartered ship as having found highly damaged parts of the aircraft, but not the pilot yet. 135 km out and 1500 m deep.
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=2...00036-jij-soci

This article says that have found the 'windshield' (cockpit canopy?) and parts of the flight recorder, but not the specific memory that records height and speed.

Reuters article here, again in Japanese, clarifies that the ship Van Gogh found part of the rear of the cockpit canopy, normally located behind the pilot's seat.

https://jp.reuters.com/article/idJP2019050701001147

And at last one in English, with video.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190507_27/

Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya has revealed that officials may have found pieces of a missing Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-35 fighter jet.
The advanced stealth combat aircraft, which was procured from the United States, went down in waters off Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan, on April 9. It and the pilot are still missing. Iwaya told reporters on Tuesday that what appear to be pieces of the cockpit and flight recorder were found on May 3 or later on the seabed near the supposed crash site. A Japanese Self-Defense Forces ship and a US military-chartered vessel have searched the undersea area, which is up to 1,500 meters deep.
An ocean research vessel from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology has also joined the search.
Iwaya said officials are checking whether the pieces that were retrieved came from the missing plane. He added that the flight recorder's data storage unit has not been found. Without it, it will be difficult to determine what happened to the plane.
The defense minister said the government will continue to search for the missing pilot and plane.

https://japantoday.com/category/nati...japan-in-april

The U.S Navy said Thursday it has suspended its search for a Japanese air force F-35A stealth fighter that crashed off Japan's coast last month, after the allies scrambled to locate the aircraft filled with military secrets. The pilot is still missing. Japan's Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said his country would continue its search.

The Navy said in a statement that it was withdrawing after its salvage vehicle, CURV 21, found unidentified debris from the aircraft. It crashed in the Pacific off the eastern coast of Aomori in northern Japan during a night training flight April 9. It went missing about half an hour after taking off from the Misawa air base with three other F-35As. The Navy was unusually quick in the salvage effort amid air and maritime activity in the region by China and Russia. It dispatched the guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem and P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft to join a Japanese search and rescue team. From April 9 to 17, the U.S. search covered more than 5,000 square nautical miles (17,150 square kilometers) before deploying the remotely operated vehicle CURV 21, which is capable of salvage operation at the maximum depth of 20,000 feet (6,000 meters).

Iwaya told the Upper House Diplomatic and Defense Affairs Committee that the U.S. salvage vehicle recovered parts of a flight data recorder but the flight data were missing. The joint effort using sonar search by the Japanese deep undersea vehicle Kaimei also located and recovered parts of a canopy and other equipment, he said.
Iwaya said Japan's deep sea research vehicle has also withdrawn, but the surface and underwater search was continuing with the participation of Japanese Air Self-Defense Force vessels as well as a private salvage boat. "We will continue our search and recovery of the pilot and the aircraft that are still missing, while doing utmost to determine the cause," he said.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, and findings could affect Japan's F-35 purchase plans, though officials say there is no change. Japan started deploying the expensive F-35s last year as part of the plan to bolster its defense spending and weapons capability to counter potential threats from North Korea and China. Under guidelines approved in December, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government plans to buy 147 F-35s, including 105 F-35As, costing about 10 billion yen ($90 million) each.

Strange timing, when just yesterday they announced that the search for the ditched F-35A by the remaining parties has been called off 'for all intents and purposes'.
Today they summarize the search so far, mentioning for the very first time, as far as I know, that they found part of the pilot, changing his status from missing to deceased.
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=2...000-abema-soci

4月に青森県沖で墜落した航空自衛隊のF35A戦闘機について、岩屋防衛大臣は行方不明になっていたパイロットの遺体の一部を発 見したと発表した。岩屋防衛大臣は、F35Aの部品が散在していた海域から、パイロットの体の一部とみられるものを発見したと明 らかにし、死亡と判断したということだ。最新鋭のステルス戦闘機F35Aの墜落事故を巡っては、自衛隊が周辺海域で捜索を続けて きた。これまでにエンジンや主翼の一部を発見したが、フライトレコーダーは見つかっていない。機体の捜索は事実上打ち切りとなっ ている。
（AbemaTV／『AbemaNews』より）It adds that they found part of the tail, and the engine, but not the flight recorder. (Yes, the Japanese is not clear about whether they found the whole engine or part of it. Possibly the whole engine. I have kept the ambiguity in the translation.)

Just placing the gist here in case the news self-destructs as usual. Complete translation provided if anyone requests, though we will be little the wiser.

So, disoriented pilot, and nothing wrong with the aircraft itself, is the conclusion. (Video link should work for a while.)

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20190610_21/

Japan's Air Self-Defense Force says a stealth fighter pilot who crashed off northern Japan failed to detect the jet's rapid descent because it is highly likely he was disoriented. The state-of-the-art F-35A went down off Aomori Prefecture during a training mission in April. The pilot died.
The ASDF says in its report that it analyzed the plane's flight route using data from other F-35As that took part in the training mission. The report says analysis shows the fighter jet descended at a speed of about 1,000 kilometers per hour from an altitude of more than 9,000 meters for roughly 30 seconds just before the accident. The report also says the pilot sent a message that appeared to tell the other aircraft to proceed to the next part of the training, but he did not signal any problems. It says there are no signs that he attempted an emergency evacuation.
The ASDF says it is highly unlikely the accident was caused by mechanical failure and it is considering resuming flight operations of the remaining 12 F-35As.

Read somewhere that this aircraft was built in Japan, under license.
The BBC article below says it was less than a year old, so presumably it had the oxygen-system tweak incorporated.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48578178

Potential stupid question
 

But does the aircraft not have an automatic self preservation system if the computers detect a rate of descent and proximity to the ground/sea that doesnt compute?

Or is it more of a G-LOC related feature which relies on stick pressure being present or not?

Good reminder there ORAC. Pilot error, spacial disorientation whatever....yeah...