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.
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.
Given how many thousands of sorties, and there was 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