The whole point of the F35 was “youre dead before you even detect it”. The fact that the US hasn’t refuted the loss indicates to me that it did happen and it wasn’t a fluke.
Since I already got a reply about this, I’ll just copy-paste.
They hit one, out of how many that have been openly flying over Iran, day in and day out.
Probably, it managed to fly low over the one tiny patch of land that had a shoulder launched missile operator on it, and did so in broad daylight. That day, remove any of those variables, and the survivability goes from 99.9% to 100%, without even being careful.
It has a radar section like a large ball bearing, which is tiny, but not nothing, and not as small as a more “devoted” stealth aircraft. And, it’s not fucking invisible, you can still see it with your naked eyes! Literally impossible to shoot down was never the bar anyone set. Close to impossible, it achieves.
What, aren’t those two mutually exclusive? At least, if the F-35 has some way to fight back, and that’s a reasonable assumption for whatever shot this one down.
If always kills you before you see it, regardless of any measure of luck on your part, you can’t shoot it down. So, another way to put this, is it only kills you before you see it most of the time. And, almost all of the time vs. Iran specifically.
Iran shot an F35.
https://www.trtworld.com/article/98473554ec5e
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/23/has-iran-brought-down-an-unkillable-us-f-35-jet
The whole point of the F35 was “youre dead before you even detect it”. The fact that the US hasn’t refuted the loss indicates to me that it did happen and it wasn’t a fluke.
Since I already got a reply about this, I’ll just copy-paste.
It has a radar section like a large ball bearing, which is tiny, but not nothing, and not as small as a more “devoted” stealth aircraft. And, it’s not fucking invisible, you can still see it with your naked eyes! Literally impossible to shoot down was never the bar anyone set. Close to impossible, it achieves.
Agreed. Dunno why you’re arguing that.
What, aren’t those two mutually exclusive? At least, if the F-35 has some way to fight back, and that’s a reasonable assumption for whatever shot this one down.
If always kills you before you see it, regardless of any measure of luck on your part, you can’t shoot it down. So, another way to put this, is it only kills you before you see it most of the time. And, almost all of the time vs. Iran specifically.