Even if he ejected in time, hypothermia would kill him................
And he’s mixed nomenclatures too: P-8 Poseidon, P-3 Orion.
No it isn’t. Hope he’s found OK, but that’s not the way to bet. Thoughts and prayers for him and his loved ones.
Haven’t there been quite a few F-16 crashes, compared to F-15?
Having one engine on a warplane does seem like a basic problem. If the plane is worth $100 million, that means that every turbine blade, every bearing, every SPOF in the engine carries the value of the entire plane plus the life pilot, at least if its flying over water.
F-35 engine is very high performance, very advanced engine operating at the outer bounds of what a gas turbine is capable of. They’re pushing a lot of things to the limit in that engine. There’s simply no getting around that.
When you add to that the problem that if the aircraft goes down and the enemy gets hold of the wreck, you’ve lost the entire multi-billion dollar R&D effort that went into producing it. That means that every turbine blade, every guide vane, every bearing, every hot-section part, carries a multi-billion dollar investment on a single point of failure. Just doesn’t seem like a good situation to me.
The aircraft is the more important part. The pilot, unfortunate for his family, can be replaced on the line, but the technology cannot be allowed to fall in the wrong hands.
April waters off of Northern Japan, in early April:
Hmmm....I’d say he’d have a couple hours, if even that, assuming he could get into the raft.
I still think the pilot is sitting in a North Korean brothel, drinking Johnnie Walker Blue.
The “wreckage” story is BS.
At least North Korea doesnt have it.
How fast can we put a capable salvage ship and aircraft carrier fleet on top of the wreckage?