The reg have the video of a pilot ejecting from an F35 taking off from a British carrier. That is one unlucky/ lucky fella!
https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/30/f35b_ejection_hms_queen_elizabeth_video/

Edit: plane rolls down and over takeoff ramp, pilot ejects just on time, chute is caught, pilot saved.

Lucky boy.

Getting run over by an aircraft carrier would be quite a way to go.

looks to my eyes like the chute lands in the water past the bow, no? if it was caught it would go long and thin, it goes flat and spreads out on the water

That’s nothing – what about the unsanctioned use of a mobile phone on the cctv system of a carrier? Just wait for that to unroll!

That’s nothing – what about the unsanctioned use of a mobile phone on the cctv system of a carrier? Just wait for that to unroll!

And the suggestion someone left a cover in place, so causing the incident….

Again, that’s relatively trivial compared with the security issue.

Mind you, rumour has it that a current very very senior naval bloke may have lost a briefcase full of stuff in the 90’s. So it may just all blow over… ;p

Clearly the pilot was planning to send it off the jump, bottled it and slammed on the anchors, this resulted in a £100m jet version of ‘over the bars’.

I think most of us can sympathise with that.

Piece talks about recovering the plane before an ‘enemy’ can get hold of it, but I’m guessing that £90 million warplane is scrap or would anything be salvageable?

They’ll be able to reuse the intake covers that were left on the engines I expect.

that £90 million warplane is scrap or would anything be salvageable?

I’m sure that the Chinese and Russians would love to get hold of the electronics from thing, even after being trashed by the sea water.

Piece talks about recovering the plane before an ‘enemy’ can get hold of it, but I’m guessing that £90 million warplane is scrap or would anything be salvageable?

Scrap but very informative scrap, they’re not worried about the Russians actually flying it, just reverse-engineering its capabilities.

You mean the Russians aren’t buying “ the F35 iS RUbBisH”??

The embedded stealth materials would be of immense value to the Russians and Chinese who’re apparently still using pure coatings which need extensive maintenance and repair. Similarly, the F35s engine is immensely powerful for its size and the Chinese are having difficulty creating reliable, powerful counterparts to western engine designs. I’d imagine the Chinese already have most of the software and systems information…

The real crime here is that someone filmed a landscape cctv video in portrait!

Bet the Russians and the Chinese are worried about our new multi billion pound front line defence systems if thats the standard operating procedure
Throw the planes into the sea before the wheels leave the ground.
Mind you, with the Chinese new hypersonic lr cruise missiles big, slow, floaty targets are basically obsolete if you go to war
All that money could have insulated Britain
Post colonial posturing and thousands of jobs for uk workers building the boats but at some poimt this level of expendure to not stop humans killing humans needs reassessment

Had he gone underneath the 65,000-tonne Queen Elizabeth or been caught in one of her two 33-tonne, 6.7m-diameter propellers, he may not have survived.

Do you think?

Bloody hell, the intake covers were left on? Someone’s not getting many Christmas cards this year…

I’m inclined to agree with singletrackmind, carriers might soon become as irrelevant as battleships soon.

(I have read speculation of a new age of the battleship but I don’t see it.)

People have been saying that carriers will become irrelevant for years. I think they are right, especially if, like the UK ones, they do not have the ability to project power or, more accurately, bomb a small country back to the stone age all on their own.

If the Chinese or Russians do manage to get proper hypersonic missiles working, then it will change the balance of power in that sphere. Whether it will stop carriers being used is doubtful; I’m not sure that either Russia or China will want to kick a war off just to prive that they can take a US carrier.

I’m inclined to agree with singletrackmind, carriers might soon become as irrelevant as battleships soon.

I agree that we should be looking at different things to spend money on, but carriers (and battleships for that matter) are probably far from obsolete in the way that the US wants to keep using them, and that’s not going to be a war with China or Russia anytime soon.

^^ I believe by going non nuclear our carriers are also limited in what can be fitted in the future, lasers/ rail guns etc.

lasers/ rail guns etc.

lasers is still the stuff of science fiction. There’s a US navy ship: the remarkably named USS Ponce that has a laser weapon fitted to it, it continues not to work.

^^ Wow. Not at the laser not working but at the name.lol

I think rail guns are coming along a bit better though?

I believe by going non nuclear our carriers are also limited

They are nuclear propulsion though?

Edit – my mistake looks like they have gas turbines.

Didn’t realise the F35 just fell off the carrier ! Yikes. It’s now been located though – quite deep water I believe.

I watched an article about the MIG 25 Foxbat – everyone crapped themselves with this aircraft as it was so fast. It wasn’t until a pilot defected in one did they realise it wasn’t all that it was ‘feared’. Very heavy stainless steel, big wings just to keep it airborne, and the engines didn’t last long, and it couldn’t do Mach3 for very long due to engine damage. would have been crap in a dogfight.

Mind you, rumour has it that a current very very senior naval bloke may have lost a briefcase full of stuff in the 90’s. So it may just all blow over… ;p

Longish story..

I drank in the Florence Nightingale pub, in the late80s/early90s – just off Westminster Bridge. There would be a mix of hospital staff, builders, accountants, MPs, workers from the Houses of Parliament, all sorts. Just after I left London, my mate got mixed up in a bit of a sticky situation, where someone had been offering around stolen computer stuff from the Houses of Parliament. I think my mate had been interested in buying some of it. The police turned up at the research unit where he worked and eventually interviewed him. Shortly after, the thief was found hanged – a genuine suicide apparently – in the HoP, leading to pub discussions about how he died, and whether he was entitled to a state funeral. (The rumour was that anyone who dies in the HoP is meant to have one. I don’t think that’s correct but it was a memorable conversation.) To my knowledge, nothing ever made it into the press about any of this.

Clearly the pilot was planning to send it off the jump, bottled it and slammed on the anchors, this resulted in a £100m jet version of ‘over the bars’.

Mint! I’ll gi-ya a clap for that frank and your very own gif

My guess is brake failure, its happened before and there was nothing the pilot could do about it in the time available.

I watched an article about the MIG 25 Foxbat – everyone crapped themselves with this aircraft as it was so fast. It wasn’t until a pilot defected in one did they realise it wasn’t all that it was ‘feared’. Very heavy stainless steel, big wings just to keep it airborne, and the engines didn’t last long, and it couldn’t do Mach3 for very long due to engine damage. would have been crap in a dogfight.

Was EMP proof though, on account of a lack of complex electronics IIRC

Rockhopper
Free Member

My guess is brake failure, its happened before and there was nothing the pilot could do about it in the time available.

This was take-off rather than landing though, unless you think he had a catastrophic engine + brake issue. Are you thinking of the F/A-18 crash where the arrestor cable snapped and he rolled off the deck?

In my considered opinion, definitely a brake cable failure. What a way to spend money.

I read about this on the BBC website a few days ago – Video appears to show UK F-35 fighter crash after take-off – BBC News

As others have suggested I suspect that whoever provided the video to the commentator who shared it on Twitter is in for a stern talking to (the BBC article suggests that the video comes from the carrier’s own surveillance system as presumably constitutes a fairly major breach of security).

I have just re-watched with the ‘plane on a conveyor belt’ question in my head…

Talk about compounding the cluster fudge, if that video came from the carriers own surveillance systems and was leaked.

Carriers are so obselete the Chinese are still building them

Carriers aren’t there to take on the Chinese or Russian mainland, there’s plenty of the globe where they can successfully operate.

As for lazers they are line of sight weapons, that limits their effective range

big_n_daft
Free Member
Carriers are so obselete the Chinese are still building them

Just to be devil’s advocate here but the west is easy behind China and Russia in hypersonic middles so Chinese carriers have less to fear on that regard.

That said, your point is valid in reality, plus our subs are superior and a definite threat to their carriers.

This is starting to sound like that old ad on tv, “you sunk my battleship!”😁

that limits their effective range

And paint, and clouds, and warm and cold air, and dust and power and cooling and refraction and so on and on and on. There’s a reason it’s mounted on the USS I’d Forgotten We Had This, and not the USS Showing Off The Extremely Effective Weapon System.

In my considered opinion, definitely a brake cable failure. What a way to spend money.

Huh? No arrester cable on those. There’ll be a crash barrier presumably, but they’ll be there for crashy landings.
I’ve read that it was an internal engine bung, so the engine was able to breathe enough to override the brakes but not enough to soar majestically into the sky. Someone basically forgot to pull the bungs out and this one was hidden by the shape of the intake.
Absolutely inexcusable.
I did once check a Cessna out when training and one of the access hatches under the tailplane was open. Only fist sized, and it was held in place by one of the bolt in “open” position. It got the maintenance guys into a spot of bother, and the guy who’d just flown it was proper bollocked!

He was moving out ready to take off then attempted to stop for whatever reason, no wheel brakes but still a certain amount of forward thrust applied. I don’t think he was ever close to take off speed and the engine wouldn’t spool up quickly enough to get him airborne in that short amount of time.

He was moving out ready to take off

Looks a bit speedy for just moving out (before then slowing on the ramp)