F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread

SteelBird

Colonel
Have they recovered the lost F-35C in South China Sea? I heard they plan to use deep charge to destroy the aircraft in case recovery is impossible. So far as I know, South China Sea has an average depth of 300m. That's shouldn't be too difficult to recover, right?
 

tiancai8888

New Member
Registered Member
Have they recovered the lost F-35C in South China Sea? I heard they plan to use deep charge to destroy the aircraft in case recovery is impossible. So far as I know, South China Sea has an average depth of 300m. That's shouldn't be too difficult to recover, right?
Not that fast, it usually will take several month, and average depth of SCS is 1200ish meters
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
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So much copium in that article. China won’t try to salvage the F35 because it ‘doesn’t have the stomach’ to increase tensions.

The pilot ejected, so it’s a derelict, which makes it much easier to claim salvage rights. Especially if the carrier and escorts have since fucked off, because as soon as the owner stops actively trying to recover the plane, it becomes a grey matter of judgement on whether the owner has ceased recovery efforts.


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A ship or a cargo sunk, is considered derelict; but not if the
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had not lost the hope and purpose of recovering his property, and had not ceased his efforts for that purpose.

In that context, it is still massively significant if the carrier and all escorts left the area because it’s one thing to send in salvage ships if there is a USN destroyer parked on the F35, but if it’s just open water than it’s either Chinese EEZ or international waters depending on where this happened, and the US would have zero legal power to force Chinese ships already in the area to leave once its own salvage ship gets there.

I think the main issue around China successfully salvaging the F35 is going to be on locating its resting spot on the sea floor. And that is why the USN left the area, so as to not give China an easy bullseye to zero in on.

However, the USN almost certainly would have been using a lot of active sonar at the time of the crash to pinpoint the location of the plane themselves, so it is still possible for China to have a good idea of where it might be. Whether that is good enough to make a salvage attempt worthwhile in terms of likely chance of success is the big question.
 
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9dashline

Senior Member
Registered Member
Like i said it went straight to bottom of ocean, will take weeks if not months to recover....

See example this F14 that was used in filming Topgun, the plane was flown by America first female navy fighter jet pilot, in training excercise off coast of san diego she ejected upside down into water and instantly killed herself, the plane wasnt recovered for weeks and both plane and pilot where at bottom of ocean


China probably has equal or better odds of getting to it first
 
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