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.
Wait, but I thought these things are invisible…
Stealth is not invisibility, it’s a combination of technologies that make planes hard to detect by sensors such as radar.
The video the Iranians released showed an F-35 that was within visual range of an anti-air asset before being hit.
No confirmation if that video is legitimate. We’ll just have to wait for more information.
Trump literally thought they were invisible during a meeting in his first term.
Trump can barely grasp that the sun is bright. Remember Trump is quite possibly the human incarnation of the words fucktard.
Because he bought 200 of them off some guy.
Centcom doesn’t seem to be denying it. Tho the video I’ve seen going around has an abrupt cut when the plane was hit. So likely it was hit but not taken down.
They can also be flying with extra munitions under the wings. At which point they stop being stealthy.
Also stealth aircraft are notoriously difficult and sensitive on maintenance. So might be a case of stealth degrading after a few weeks of intense operation.
And the theory I see floating around on forums is that it was a QAEM-118 missile. Since it has IR and optical guidance that could ignore sheath at shorter ranges/low speed. And some US missions might be flying at low altitude to make use of terrain masking.
I guess Whiskey Leaks intelligence got it wrong when Chat GPT said that all Iranian soldiers had their eyes replaced with radars.
Sneaky. Beaky.