• The world’s most expensive fighter jet has a big problem.
• While lightning hits the average commercial airliner twice a year…
• … the F-35 can’t fly through thunderstorms.

Happy Hump Day from cool, sunny Asti!

I had been so content lately.

Micah is home from school for the summer. My in-laws have been great to have around. Pam’s been in a good mood. The house purchase is moving along.

I had been experiencing Alan Knuckman-like levels of optimism. I might have even gone to target practice to see if I could aim the rainbows I’ve been shooting out of my cornhole.

But then I had to do it. I had to hit ZeroHedge.

In times like these, I avoid ZeroHedge like the plague. I don’t want their gritty realism to get in my way. I don’t want their “conspiracy theories,” or, as I like to call them, “accurate prognostications,” to get me down.

But it’s one of my top hits, so it shows up on my Google Chrome page when I open the app.

Once I unconsciously clicked on the site, the first article I opened was “Poland Builds Up Troops On Border In Response To Alleged Belarus Combat Helicopter Breach.”

For the love of God, somebody remind the Poles that Jan Sobieski is long dead!

As I scrolled through the article outlining how Poland is in NATO and that Russia considers an attack on Belarus an attack on Russia, I reached the bottom.

In the advertisements for other articles, I saw this:

Credit: ZeroHedge

Then, I thought, “Nah. Can’t be.”

Beijing, October 2013

Pam and I had long wanted to visit the Great Wall and Forbidden City.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t been sent there to teach. (While living in Singapore, I had been to Shanghai twice on business.)

We decided to use some vacation time to head up there.

The Great Wall of China, snaking over the mountains; Credit: Pam Ring

That’s me, taking a break from climbing the Great Wall; Credit: Pam Ring

Mrs. Ring, at the gates of the Forbidden City; Credit: Sean Ring

For the first two days, it was clear and impressive. The following two days were unbelievably polluted. In the pic above with Pam, it looks like we shot that in 1971. But that’s how thick the dirty air was.

We couldn’t see out our hotel windows. Luckily, Beijing has cleaned up that problem to the point where the Chinese now expect blue skies daily.

As we headed to the airport, I remember thinking, “Thank heavens they invented radar. I have no idea how our pilots can see anything.”

We boarded the plane apprehensively.

Upon takeoff, we were already dribbling like a basketball. I knew this was going to be bumpy.

Not ten minutes into the flight, Pam was visibly frightened - and so was I. She was hanging onto my arm like it was a life raft.

And then, “BOOM!” The white light outside our window blinded me for a second. The sound nearly loosened my bowels. Pam’s polished fingernails were about 1/8th of an inch into my skin.

I’ll never be sure if the lightning hit the plane or just flashed past my window. But I was shocked to find us still in the air afterward.

We bounced all the way to Hong Kong before settling into a smooth, carefree flight over the South China Sea to Singapore.

Thank God and… science, engineering, and mathematics!

Please Invade on Clear Days Only!

I hadn’t thought about that flight for years until this morning.

But then I thought, “My plane ten years ago is better than the crap the US military-industrial complex produces.”

Because the F-35, under development since 1994(!), the plane to end all planes, is a piece of shit.

We just need to say it aloud.

It can’t even fly at supersonic speeds for long because it’s so poorly built.

From Defense News:

An issue that risks damage to the F-35’s tail section if the aircraft needs to maintain supersonic speeds is not worth fixing and will instead be addressed by changing the operating parameters, the F-35 Joint Program Office told Defense News in a statement Friday.

The deficiency, first reported by Defense News in 2019, means that at extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability.

The problem may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts.

That’s bad.

But it gets worse.

The F-35 is now prohibited from flying within 25 miles of a lightning storm.

Yes. I had to read that twice, as well.

Mike Fredenburg of The Epoch Times, who wrote the commentary ZeroHedge picked up, reports:

So far, the indefinite restriction has been publicly announced as applying “only” to the Air Force’s F-35A. But given the F-35 Joint Program Office’s history of hiding and “managing” bad news, it would not be at all surprising to find out that the same restrictions are in place for the Marines’ F-35B and the Navy’s F-35C, but have not yet been made public. That having this unpublicized policy in place could make sense was demonstrated in July 2021 when two F-35Bs flying out of their airbase in Japan were forced to execute emergency landings after they both suffered millions of dollars worth of lightning damage in the same storm.

He continues:

This restriction is even more crippling than the F35’s restrictions on supersonic flight, as not being able to fly within 25 miles of potential lightning activity will allow an enemy to use lightning proximity as cover for air, ground, and sea operations knowing that the F-35s will not be flying overwatch or be able to be scrambled to areas where lightning threatens them. That this is the plane that's slated to be the replacement for F-16s, A-10s, AV-8B Harriers, F/A-18E Hornets, and F/A-18F Super Hornets is a decision that needs to be re-evaluated.

Lightning hits commercial airplanes twice per year on average. They don’t just fall out of the sky. How is this even possible?

The F-35 Joint Program Office, the clown-car circus in charge of this project, won’t reveal what’s actually wrong because the information is sensitive.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the F-35 program costs $1.7 trillion (and the aforementioned 30 years).

This isn’t a joke. It’s the government utterly ridiculing the taxpayer.

Wrap Up

Where’s the congressional oversight?

Where’s the citizens’ demand for transparency?

This project has taken up nearly $2 trillion and three decades to produce a plane that can’t fly supersonically for too long and can’t go anywhere near a thunderstorm.

The U.S. Military better take some British elocution lessons.

“I say, old boy, would you mind invading us only when the sky is blue? It really isn’t cricket when the storm’s up. That’s a good chap.”

Have a great day.