The newest F-35C aircraft at the price of $ 100 million at the beginning of this week fell into the sea, failed to take off from the US Navy Aircruite “Karl Visson”. This happened in neutral waters, and therefore the plane, stocked by secret equipment, can formally be considered “legitimate production” for anyone who will get it first. Who will be the first until it is not clear. Americans do not say exactly where the plane drowned and how much time it will be needed to raise it. It is reported by the Russian BBC service.
Military experts are confident that the Chinese will try to get to the sinking American aircraft. The Americans have a rescue vessel that a plane can lift is, apparently at least ten days. “It’s too long,” says the EBI Austin Defense Consultant, “because the batteries of the black box of the aircraft are already sitting, and it will be difficult to find it.”
Austin explains that the F-35 is essentially a flying computer that takes from other participants in hostilities, processes and gives them information. China has no such technologies, and if they get F-35, they will probably be able to make a jerk.
The operation of lifting the fighter from the bottom of the ocean is likely to look something like this: American fleet engineers attach inflatable pillows to the fuselage, then slowly pump them with air – and the whole design pops up. They will have harder if a 16-ton aircraft broke into parts. Engineers will have to take into account the fact that the plane had rockets – most likely no less than two, or on an external suspension, or inside the fuselage.
Theoretically, the American military may not lift, but destroy the drowned F-35C. “The simplest thing is to torped him,” said BBC one officer. But this option, according to military experts, until it is seriously considered.