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Posted on 09/20/2026 6:22:38 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Sensitive F-35 fighter jet technology was unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong this summer, sparking an inquiry on Capitol Hill and raising the possibility that China could have access to key components of the highly classified weapon system.
A shipment of F-35 parts bound for the United States for repairs was rerouted as it transited the Pacific Ocean from Australia, according to three people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The Pentagon confirmed the disappearance of some components.
The parts, which an intermediary was transporting on behalf of F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin, instead wound up in Hong Kong. It’s not clear why the equipment was rerouted or who has possession of it now.
The incident, which has not been previously reported, triggered an ongoing series of briefings for congressional staff on key national security committees. State Department and Pentagon officials first briefed staff in June, according to the people, and multiple additional briefings are expected in the coming weeks.
The shipment included one of the jet’s canopies, which covers the cockpit and contains stealth technology that only the U.S. and its allies have access to, according to two of the people. An adversary could study the parts and potentially reverse-engineer the prized technology if it had one of the canopies.
The canopy, a critical component of the F-35’s stealth capabilities, is an acrylic bubble that tops the cockpit and is coated with a thin layer of transparent radar absorbent material that helps hide the plane from enemy radar.
...that layer of stealth protection can degrade over time, prompting the repair or replacement of canopies among the more than 1,300 fighter jets that have been produced for the U.S. and its allies.
The Chinese Embassy said it was not familiar with the incident.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
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Perfect.
Australia is a vassal state of China. We should not have them anywhere near sensitive components or info. They are as owned as Canaduh.
The purity and uniformity must be perfect. To anyone who's ever replaced your phone screen glass cover, that's the stuff. Flexible, yet like glass. It's extremely difficult and expensive to produce.
Chyna has not purchased those companies??
Tariff China into the poor house
No. And I am sure that any sale would need Pentagon and DOD approvals. The State Department would approve selling China the rope to hang us with.
Someone call Jack Ryan...
Why would sensitive parts be casually shipped such they could be diverted somewhere else? Why not through controlled military transport channels?
Because Australia.
Even within the USAF and within the USA, cargo gets lost. It's the nature of the beast.
Many years ago at Hanscom AFB, MA, we received a set of Hamilton Standard propellers for a C-130 in Alaska that had to be there "yesterday".
We sent them on the Logair plane the next day.
This was an L-188 that flew from Wright Patterson to us, Pease, Loring, Plattsburg, Griffis and back to Wright Patt.
A week or two later I got a call asking where the propellers were? They seemed to have vanished. Folks in Alaska and Wright Patt had been trying to track them down with no luck.
I told the Grand Poobah who called me I'd check around.
I figured I'd start by random calling folks I knew from when I was stationed on other bases.
As luck would have it, the first call was to Sgt. Railsback, I knew from Guam, then at Davis-Mothan AFB in Arizona.
He said they were wondering where they belonged, the shipping labels were so badly damaged they couldn't read them.
They were on their way to Alaska on the next flight.
A few years before that I worked in in-transit packing and crating at Travis AFB.
You wouldn't believe how much wayward cargo showed up that we had to try to figure out where it was going.
UPS=Unexpected Present Service.
I don’t know if it was UPS, but when I track my shipments, they can go through pretty much anywhere.
The technology built into the F35 canopy is incredibly sophisticated
This is a big loss
That is a funny story! And I do understand that things get misrouted and wind up in the wrong place. But my bigger point is that the F-35 parts would wind up as the propellers in your story: misrouted to another friendly base and not to some facility in ChiCom territory.
By their very nature, Communist economies produce little or no innovation, as the onerous oversight by the paranoid leadership restricts it. They must rely on theft, espionage, and the corruption of their adversaries to gather innovation.
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