Posted on 01/23/2011 5:02:45 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
China's new stealth fighter may use US technology
SLOBODAN LEKIC and DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press
BRUSSELS Chinese officials recently unveiled a new, high-tech stealth fighter that could pose a significant threat to American air superiority and some of its technology, it turns out, may well have come from the U.S. itself.
Balkan military officials and other experts have told The Associated Press that in all probability the Chinese gleaned some of their technological know-how from an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999.
Nighthawks were the world's first stealth fighters, planes that were very hard for radar to detect. But on March 27, 1999, during NATO's aerial bombing of Serbia in the Kosovo war, a Serbian anti-aircraft missile shot one of the Nighthawks down. The pilot ejected and was rescued.
It was the first time one of the much-touted "invisible" fighters had ever been hit. The Pentagon believed a combination of clever tactics and sheer luck had allowed a Soviet-built SA-3 missile to bring down the jet.
The wreckage was strewn over a wide area of flat farmlands, and civilians collected the parts some the size of small cars as souvenirs.
"At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers," says Adm. Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of staff during the Kosovo war.
"We believe the Chinese used those materials to gain an insight into secret stealth technologies ... and to reverse-engineer them," Domazet-Loso said in a telephone interview.
A senior Serbian military official
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Clinton failed to bomb the wreckage. A gift to his socialist handlers.
They probably have such advanced access to our ‘secrets’ that they don’t need to study plane wreckage.
I was going to ping you on this, but you beat my post by one minute.
They had a senior engineer on the B2 program.
um I dont believe so. I think I remember we “Accidentally” bombed the chinese embassy in serbia about a week or so later. Rumor was they had this stealth fighter stored there and we took care of it then.
That bears repeating. I remember it distinctly. Disgusting, along with his gift of space technology through Loral to the Chinese.
Hard to imagine Clinton giving that order, though.
The new “Slick Willy” fighter was sold for campaign bucks back in the 90’s. Democrats trying to level the battlefield.
The F-117 is also where the Russians got the stealth technology for the SU-50 Firefox fighter.
I dont think he gave that order. I wasnt there though.
During World War II, the U.S. had anti personnel artillery shells with radar fuses, that would blow up a precise altitude over the heads of exposed infantry. They were not used because of fears that if they fell into German hands they would be reversed engineered and turned against us. (The Panzerfaust was a reverse-engineered -and much improved- bazooka.) During the Battle of the Bulge, they were released for use, with devastating effect on the unprepared Germans. Some German infantry units mutinied, refusing to attack after they had witnessed the effect.
That's the lesson of the Balkan War. We lost a key technological advantage in a conflict with absolutely no strategic value to the United States.
You can just imagine the bed-wetter Free Trade Commies now....”See, China is using American stuff...”
I guess with all the American wealth redistributed to Communist China via Free Trade....the Communist Chinese were eventually going to use some American parts for their military...
...the Chinese gleaned some of their technological know-how from an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999...
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