Got it back this week. STORY HERE

I have been wondering what was going on with the crashed jet.

From 2.5 miles down no less.

I was part of the recover operations, but of course it's sensitive classified stuff, so I'm not really able to talk about it.






It wasn't easy holding my breath that long, I'll tell you that.






Luckily she started right up and I was able to fly her out.

Women drivers

Can anything useful be salvaged or are they just going to melt it down?

I heard sailors on the deck were hurt, hope they are doing fine.

The recovery wasn't for reusing parts. It was to keep anyone else from getting a sample of the technology.

Maybe there's hope for my new Porsche on that sunken cargo ship. 😂

Yeah, I understand that. But since we got it back anyway ...

i hear they got it for sale on craigslist

"Ran when parked"

China likely has the plans and made most of that gee whiz stuff they’re trying to protect.

Would you bet your life on any of the salvaged sh.it we got back anyway? LOL

It's gonna make a great YouTube "revival" video.

I wish they would release the name of the pilot. I wonder if it is the sister of Kara Hultgreen.

Well, let's break it down:

The computer/electronics systems are going to be toast after sitting in salt water. Any water tight compartments that might have protected them have probably been compromised. Plus they were almost certainly subjected to greater stresses than they were designed to survive.

The RAM is probably more robust that what we used on early generation stealth, but I doubt if it is in any usable condition after the stresses of the crash combined with the salt water.

Maybe some structural components, but they would have to be certified as still meeting spec. Anything in this category would probably be far cheaper to replace.

I just don't see anything that would be cost effective to salvage, except to melt down/recycle as scrap.

I see it as a total loss in terms of $.

It’s the Shell that they Wanted ..

lol.......the bright side is seawater immersion should get rid of any smoke smell.............

A friend of mine is waiting for his custom ordered Audi to be delivered. According to what he's found out so far his dealership has four cars lost on that ship, but his isn't one of them.

They don't care if it's scrap or not- - - -as long as it's not somewhere in China being reverse engineered. The Russians did that with a crashed B-29 back in the 1940's. I hope the Navy keel-hauled the pilot for that screwup, though! At least he wasn't named McStain!

Hotrod gets it.
Anyone remember the Glomar Challenger which was supposed to be deep ocean oil drilling? That was to pick up a Commie nuke boat for spying/status checking the Soviet nuke fleet.

I'd bet there was a stealthy attack boat on station within hours and the crash location sensored up so a plankton couldn't float by without being recorded.

As well as that New Car Smell.

China's too busy for that right now. They're busy reverse engineering all the latest and greatest military technology gizmos that we left for them in Afghanistan.

Bet that was a cool recovery. Watched this video about the recovery (theft?) of the Soviet K-129. Project Azorian I think. Fascinating stuff.

Yes the fallback plan for B29s that were bombing Japan was, if they couldn't make it back to a US base, was for them to land in our ally, Russia. And more than one did. The Russians began building their new fleet of bombers, an exact copy of the B29.

Did they salvage the pilot’s career?

Yep, the Russkies interred the ships and crews. Later they made a rivet-for-rivet copy at the behest of Stalin.

TU-4 (NATAO Reporting name Bull)


One of their biggest challenges in copying the B-29 was the differences in the metric size sheet metal they had available versus the English measure sheet metal in the original.

They did the same thing with an unexploded Taiwanese Sidewinder missile that got stuck in the tail end of a Chinese MIG during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1958. It became the Soviet AA-2 "Atoll", and the Chinese PL-2.

Still gonna smell like fish.

And by anyone else means the Chinese.

"If it smells like fish, it's a gourmet dish- - - - -If it smells like cologne, leave it alone!"

He's done.

I got out 21 years ago and he'd have been done then. I doubt it's changed now.

from the horse's mouth...

https://news.usni.org/2022/03/03/navy-recovers-crashed-f-35c-from-depths-of-south-china-sea

No, it’s a male. I had several of his simulator training events and ground school classes with him. He was a good student and did well in his training here. That’s why he got F-35s.
He’ll have a Fleet Naval Aviator Evaluation Board (FNAEB) and either,
1-keep his wings and continue as if nothing happened,
2-keep his wings and be moved to another unit or another aircraft,
3-lose his wings and be removed from a flying status.

My guess….first two are unlikely due to the high profile of this mishap.

Flying around the boat is very unforgiving of even small mistakes.

3 - forever be "that guy" wherever he is assigned

why not ,Chuck Norris did the same thing with a buried 4 X4 in Lone Wolf McQuade

Once had a battlestaff commander who was a naval captain. Rumor was that he splashed an airplane. When asked he admitted to the incident but declined to elaborate.

Hell, how many aircraft did McLame ding up?

There's a huge difference between bending an airplane on a combat mission versus doing the same damage on a training flight. In combat, almost anything can and will be forgiven. In training, almost nothing is.

Four or five, but when Daddy's the big boss, who's counting?