The South Korean Air Force has recently been bitter about the permanent loss of an F-35A fighter jet, dropping from 40 to 39. This F-35A crashed in 2022, and the South Korean Air Force was expecting to be able to repair it and then send it into space, but when they looked at it, they gave them an unbearable **.
According to the South Korean Air Force, the F-35A fighter was forced to make an emergency landing this year due to a collision with birds, which hit the South Korean Air Force very hard, and the F-35A fighters have a total of forty, two of which were designed for modification, and now there is one less, and the rest is 37.
The F-35A is a fighter aircraft that has been forcibly retired by the 17th Fighter Squadron at Cheongju Airport in South Korea.
On January 4 of this year, when the F-35A was returning from its daily flight Xi, a giant eagle of about 10 kg crashed into the left air intake of the aircraft, and debris passed through the aircraft's fuselage and cabin, causing damage to some lines and equipment, including the landing gear.
At that time, the pilot could not lower the landing gear after repeated attempts, and had to try to land on the belly.
Although the South Korean Air Force had sent a rescue team to sprinkle the place where the plane had landed with soapy water to extinguish the fire, the plane's abdomen was still hit and rubbed a lot.
In view of the fact that the F-35A fighter is a fifth-generation ** fighter and the mainstay of the South Korean Air Force, the South Korean Air Force decided to repair it and invest 10 billion won ($90 million) in it, and introduced Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35A, to South Korea for technical support.
However, after the team of the Loma company investigated and evaluated the scene, it was a great disappointment to the South Korean Air Force, and Loma believed that the F-35A was too badly damaged, involving many important systems such as the fuselage, engines, and avionics, and the most important parts were damaged in more than 300 places, and it would take a lot of energy and financial resources to repair it.
The company provided 140 billion won. This figure clearly exceeded South Korea's expectations.
Due to the shortage of funds and the long maintenance cycle, the South Korean Air Force finally chose to "cut the meat" and no longer maintain the F-35A.
According to the plan, the F-35A will be used as a base for maintenance personnel training, while some other complete parts will be disassembled to replace the other F-35A.
The reason for this is that South Korea's scientific and technological level and aerospace industry are weak, and it is difficult to meet the needs of the F-35A.
During this period, South Korea did not receive the repair equipment needed for the F-35A, and all of its repair and maintenance was provided by Loma of the United States.
Loma will definitely not let go of this good opportunity, and will definitely open its mouth.
In fact, the U.S. Air Force has also encountered a lot of F-35 fighter failures, but they will repair capable fighters, and the Loma company has provided technical support for the U.S. side, and the U.S. side's own maintenance troops have also participated, so that the maintenance cost and time have been greatly improved.
For example, the Lo Ma Company, the Ogden Air Force Logistics Center, and the F-35 Specialized Group 388 Fighter Squadron are all engaged in a program called the Franconian Bird.
The program focuses on the repair of F-35A fighters, but instead of regular maintenance, the mission is to assemble a complete part from each of the two F-35A fuselages that were damaged in an accident.
The head of the plane was an AF-27, which crashed in 2014 in a fire, and most of the fuselage was burned out, only the head part was still relatively intact.
This is an aircraft similar to the AF-211, and in an accident in June 2020, the aircraft's landing gear went wrong, causing head damage.
For the first time in the operation of the F-35, such patching work took place, so the project was named the "Franconian Bird", meaning that it was an artificially assembled fighter.
Even if the South Korean F-35A does not have to replace its head, it cannot perform a difficult "operation" like the "Franconian Bird", and the South Korean Air Force does not currently have the strength to repair the F-35A.
The U.S. Air Force is deeply involved in the F-35A program, and Lo Ma belongs to the U.S. military company, which South Korea does not have.
In fact, it is not known exactly what the F-35A provided for the South Korean Air Force.
The current condition of the South Korean army's F-35A fighters is very bad, and the South Korean media have also revealed that the F-35A fighters often encounter major technical problems, resulting in low combat effectiveness.
In the last 18 months, there have been more than 270 groundings, some of which have occurred only minor and without real operational capacity.
From 2021 to 2022, the South Korean Air Force F-35A completed only one flight in 12 days during its service, which is really incompetent.
Not only South Korea, but other countries with F-35 fighters also realized that the fifth-generation fighter was too squeamish, and the United States and Lo Ma had stricter requirements for the aircraft, so that the appearance rate outside the United States was very low, and the cost of an hour was more than double that of the F-16.
Denmark and Norway have identified the F-35A as uneconomical when performing escort, verification, and dislodge cruises.
The problems encountered in the process of mass production of the F-35A have also given people a new understanding of the fifth-generation aircraft.
In order to use advanced, sophisticated, and even expensive fifth-generation aircraft, funds alone are sufficient, and a security system, a reliable logistics support system, and even the development and production of fifth-generation aircraft are indispensable.
From this point, it can be seen that the fifth-generation aircraft is indeed not available to any ordinary country, and the fourth-generation and a half-generation fighter still has a place in the future world.