Free Republic

I have come across a very hard to find WW2-Europe video documentary called 'A Fighter Pilots Story' and would like to chat with history buffs on the subject. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you.

U.S. military officials are searching for a missing F-35 jet after a "mishap" caused its pilot to eject on Sunday afternoon. Joint Base Charleston said on Facebook that the aircraft was a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II belonging to Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. The pilot ejected safely and was transported to a local medical center. The base is working with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to help locate the missing aircraft. Emergency response teams have been deployed to find the jet.

Those F-35 stealth fighters must be even closer to invisible than I thought because the Marines lost one on Sunday and nobody can find it. A Marine piloting the special vertical takeoff and landing version, the F-35B, suffered some kind of “mishap” and was forced to eject over South Carolina. He ejected safely. He’s fine. We can go on and laugh. The plane, however, was nowhere to be found. Weighing in at over 32,000 pounds even when it isn’t filled with jet fuel, you’d think the missing jet would be easy to find, but no. There was genuine concern that...

Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem endorsed former President Donald Trump’s 2024 White House bid on Friday, calling him “the fighter that our country needs.” Noem’s endorsement came during a South Dakota GOP rally headlined by the 77-year-old, intensifying speculation that the 51-year-old governor may be at the top of Trump’s list of potential 2024 running mates. “You made America great again once, let’s do it again,” Noem said as she introduced Trump at the Rapid City rally. “He has my full and complete endorsement for president of the United States of America. I will do everything I can to...

Canada And Germany Are The Latest NATO Nations To Join The F-35 “Club” – The debate over whether the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the world’s best fighter is finished. (Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here. 19FortyFive publishes original videos every day.) The decisions by two “holdout” major Western powers, Germany and Canada, to acquire the F-35 leaves no doubt regarding the unique contributions that this aircraft can make to both national and NATO security. Multiple analyses and flyoffs by these two countries and others have ended with the same conclusion: the JSF is the best choice with respect...

Japan announced Friday that it will jointly develop its next-generation fighter jet with the U.K. and Italy as it looks to expand defense cooperation beyond its traditional ally, the United States. The Mitsubishi F-X fighter jet will replace the aging fleet of F-2s that Japan previously developed with the United States. The nations will merge their current plans for development of next-generation planes – the F-X and Britain’s Tempest, a successor to the Eurofighter Typhoon – to produce the new combat aircraft for deployment in 2035. The deal will give Japan greater support in countering China’s growing assertiveness and allow...

In TV and movies, a fighter pilot ejecting from their jet comes across as a cut-and-dry procedure. Although it occurs in only a few seconds, ejecting is a complex and violent process that relies on a lot of luck. Even for fighter pilots who successfully eject, around 20% to 30% of them suffer some sort of spinal fracture. We spoke with Air Force veteran Lt. Col. Pete Smith, one of the few fighter pilots who has actually had to eject, to learn what really happens.

Let's consider the following hypothetical scenario. It's a sunny morning at Mar-a-Lago and Donald Trump is going through the morning papers as he sips a cup of coffee when Melania arrives with a ‘we need to talk' look across her face. Trump places the papers down and offers her his undivided attention. Melania tells Trump that she after some serious contemplation over the past few days, she is sick of the hate and persecution from the media, government agencies, and depraved FBI agents rifling through her personal wardrobe. She beseeches Trump not to run for president in 2024 for the...

<p>HONOLULU (KHON2) — An F-16 fighter jet’s landing gear did not deploy upon landing on the 4R runway at the Daniel K. International Airport in Honolulu, according to the Hawaii Department of Transportation.</p><p>As of 8:45 p.m. the runway was still closed from the incident which happened around 2:45 p.m. Monday, June 6.</p>

The USAF wants to retire the F-22 beginning around 2030 mainly due to two reasons: the F-22’s high operating costs, and the F-22’s obsolescence in a number of areas, with the latter being the primary reason. With regards to high operating costs, the F-22 fleet was not produced in sufficient quantities to replace the F-15, and therefore its logistics and supply chain do not benefit from economy of scale as much as jets like the F-16 and F-35. The F-22 also uses legacy stealth materials that increase maintenance costs; properly retrofitting the F-22 with the F-35’s more durable full material...

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said on Sunday that she doesn’t want the United States to rule out an arrangement with Poland to send fighter jets to Ukraine amid Russia's invasion. During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Dana Bash asked Klobuchar if it was a mistake to not send fighter jets to Poland. Klobuchar referred to remarks from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who said the aircraft could become a target for Russian forces.

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was honored on Friday at a memorial service in Las Vegas, attended by President Biden, former President Barack Obama and other former colleagues who spoke of Reid’s integrity and humility. Biden described his relationship with Reid, who was his long-time colleague in the Senate, as both a decades-long partnership in public service and a close brotherhood.

The United States Navy just dropped a big hint about its newest F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter in a recently-released U.S. Navy document. U.S. Navy document, titled Navy Aviation Vision 2030-2035, sheds some light on the Navy’s newest fighter, the 6th-generation Boeing F/A-XX. Although there is only a single, small, grainy image of the F/A-XX in the document, we can nevertheless glean a few details about the airframe. The design is unlike any previous U.S. Navy aircraft design. The fighter features canards just to the rear of the cockpit and a novel hybrid delta-lambda wing shape. In contrast to previous F/A-XX concept...

Russian President Vladimir Putin inspected the country’s newly unveiled "Checkmate" warplane on Tuesday. The prototype of the Sukhoi fifth-generation stealth fighter was revealed at the MAKS-2021 International Aviation and Space Salon, Reuters reported. The show opened Tuesday in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow. Fifth-generation refers to the jet’s stealth characteristics, a capability to cruise at supersonic speed as well as artificial intelligence to assist the pilots, among other advanced features. "What we saw in Zhukovsky today demonstrates that the Russian aviation has a big potential for development and our aircraft making industries continue to create new competitive aircraft designs," Putin said in...

Loose lips sink ships, so discussion of location not necessary, BUT..On a DAILY basis I usually hear fighter jets (mostly F-35's) flying around my area. For more than a week I haven't heard ANY. NADA, ZILCH!

www.https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3786668/postsWe can't spare this man, he fights! The media is up in arms, the democrats are up in arms, the Congress is up in arms, the CIA/FBI/DOJ/DOS is up in arms, the Pentagon is up in arms, the military/industrial complex is up in arms--they have the president surrounded six ways to Sunday. And Trump says to the people, we have them right where we want them. We'll divide our forces six ways and fight in all directions.

Air Force researchers are designing an autonomous aircraft that can take down a manned plane in air-to-air combat, with the goal of pitting the two against each other in July 2021. Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said the Air Force Research Laboratory team is pushing the boundaries of what the military can build, compared to the aircraft that already fill the service’s squadrons. “[Team leader Steve Rogers] is probably going to have a hard time getting to that flight next year … when the machine beats the human,” Shanahan said during a June...

A Butler County girl currently fighting cancer received the surprise of her life courtesy of the Butler County Sheriff's Office. Naomi Short, 8, was surprised this weekend when she got to meet and ride a unicorn. The animal, named Anna Marie, is part of the Sheriff's Office's mounted patrol. "I'm obsessed with unicorns," she said. "I've always wanted to meet a real unicorn in real life. It was so pretty and magical." Short was diagnosed with stage 4 pineoblastoma, a rare brain cancer, in October. The sweet but sassy third-grader just completed radiation and starts chemotherapy Friday at Children's Hospital....

In 1971, Indian Air Force Gnats fought Pakistan’s Sabres in ferocious bloody dogfights. Despite only weighing the same as a a Dodge Durango, the tiny jet fighter proved a formidable machine. We spoke to IAF Wing Commander Sunith Francis Soares about flying and fighting in the Gnat. The Gnat was conceived by the British designer, ‘Teddy’ Petter. One of the greatest aircraft designers was lived, his other creations included the Lysander, Lightning and Canberra. Countering the trend for ever larger, more costly, fighter aircraft the Gnat was a ‘pocket rocket’. It first flew in 1955. Though relegated to training duties...

India’s Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) has detailed a number of improvements for the planned Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) Tejas Mk2 fighter. The Mk2 benefits from Indian Air Force experience with the Mk1, says an ADA official. A prototype of the new aircraft, which features the addition of canards behind the cockpit, will likely fly in late 2023. Key changes the Air Force asked for were additional range and the ability to carry advanced standoff weapons, he adds. The maximum all-up weight will grow to 17,500kg, up from 13,500kg for the baseline Tejas, and the aircraft is 1.35m longer. The longer fuselage...