Just now, the US media exposed the scene photos of the US Naval Aviation F-35C stealth carrier-based aircraft suspected of having previously crashed into the south China Sea. Although the authenticity of the photos has not been officially confirmed by the U.S. Navy, from the details, the F-35C fighter jet that fell into the sea was not seriously damaged, and the pilot has successfully catapulted, which can be distinguished from the disappearing cockpit glass.
Secondly, from the perspective of the fighter landing on the sea surface, it should be in accordance with the US media report, that is, the F-35C in the process of landing, the tail hook directly pulled the blocking cable to break, and then the F-35C that lost its containment continued to deviate to the right side of the aircraft carrier deck, and after the pilot catapulted in time, the F-35C fell into the sea in a flat manner, the belly of the aircraft was down, and did not dive into the sea at a high speed and large angle. The state of the fuselage looks relatively complete, but there are also many fragments belonging to the F-35C fighter scattered around the nearby sea, and for the US Navy, these scattered debris fragments are doomed to be all caught.
After all, the incident was sudden, and the U.S. Navy did not expect that the aircraft would crash into the sea because the strength of the blocking cables on their aircraft carriers was insufficient. Therefore, in addition to aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, destroyers and cruisers participating in the exercises near the South China Sea at that time, there was no special deep-sea salvage equipment and ships. So they can only sit and watch the F-35C slowly sink to the bottom of the sea, which can make the US Navy anxious, they are afraid that the Wreckage of the F-35C will let the Chinese Navy preemptively salvage, so that the technology of the top US fighter will be mastered by the Chinese. But americans now have nothing to do but dry-eyed.
It should be known that the sea depth of the US Navy crash exceeds the average depth of the South China Sea by about 2000-3000 meters, while the average depth of the South China Sea is about 1200 meters. It can be argued that the F-35C crashed into the sea in a deep sea area of 3,000-4,000 meters, which made the Search and Salvage Mission extremely difficult for the Americans. Moreover, at present, in the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet does not have large dedicated vessels that can adapt to this task of salvaging the wreckage of warplanes. Therefore, only from the United States 8,000 kilometers away, seconded large fishing vessels and professional equipment to support, from the United States mainland to calculate, the fastest ten days and a half months to come to the South China Sea, follow-up search and salvage work, but also take less than half a year.
In fact, this is the most optimistic estimate, the reality is that the F-35C that fell into the sea will most likely be affected by the deep ocean current, and it is uncertain where it will be washed away. In addition to the tidal movement caused by the tidal force, there is also the presence of ocean currents, the upper and lower seawater flows in a certain direction on a large scale, and the wreckage of the F-35C is wrapped away as soon as the sea flows, and no one can be sure where the F-35C will run away in the end. Therefore, the error between the water entry point and the sinking point of the F-35C is estimated to be possible in the last ten kilometers to hundreds of kilometers, which makes the search difficulty of the US Navy a lot, considering the depth of the falling sea, it may not even be possible to find the main wreckage of the fighter. As for those small pieces of debris, don't even think about it, if you can find the remains of the main body, burn high incense.
Of course, there is also a possibility, that is, in the process of falling into the sea and sinking to the bottom, under the action of strong water pressure and ocean currents, the polymer synthesis of lightweight materials in the fuselage of the F-35C fighter cannot withstand it, and it is gradually peeled off, torn, and even disintegrated little by little during the fall, and finally becomes a wreckage area scattered in an area of tens of kilometers, so that even if the US Navy is discovered, it is impossible to continue to carry out salvage operations, because the energy, manpower, and material resources expended are unimaginable Nor can the U.S. Congress endlessly allocate funds to the U.S. Navy to do this kind of needle hunting in a haystack.
But taking a step back, this is also an opportunity for us. For the F-35, even if we get a piece of aircraft fragment, we can obtain the information value of composite materials and invisible coatings, and at this stage, china's military equipment is able to analyze the F35 fragments from a materials science point of view and obtain useful information from them. In other words, the average country has not started from the material science to analyze and decipher this skill, which is a high-end technology only in large countries. A small piece of debris is still like this, not to mention the whole machine.
From another point of view, China's salvage advantage over the US Navy is obvious, China has 10,000 meters of advanced submersible vehicles, and several large professional detection and fishing vessels with a diving depth of more than 6,000 meters, which can conduct a large-scale detection and search for the crash site. Second, our grasp of information in the South China Sea is far from being comparable to that of the U.S. Navy, and various types of deep-sea monitors and fixed-point monitoring networks throughout the south China Sea can monitor the U.S. Navy's every move in the South China Sea in real time, including the F-35C that crashed into the sea.
Therefore, we have more means of detection and fishing than the US Navy, as long as we want to fish for the wreckage of the F-35C, there is no technical problem, and the speed is definitely much faster than the US Navy from afar.
Of course, at present, the US Navy has not confirmed the authenticity of this photo, and there is no official release of any photos of the scene of the incident. But it does not prevent us from analyzing it, anyway, the US Navy itself is hiding, do not know whether it is afraid of losing people or what, and do not want to say more, then it can only rely on external analysis and speculation.