From the chans via X. Dont know if it is true..but SOMETHING happened.
(media.greatawakening.win)
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It's poppycock... Didn't happen.
100%. "Small arms fire" is not going to hit an F35 at 2500 feet in the air with enough accuracy to not have collateral damage.
.50 BMG may pack a punch, but is it enough to go through titanium plating at 760 meters, upward while competing against gravity and drag? Obviously it would be enough if it were straight on (depending on the thickness of the titanium, but I would imagine the titanium around an F35 would not be very thick for aerodynamic reasons) but there are a lot of factors that would slow a large round like that down, and when speed goes down, penetrative force goes down.
I guess in theory it's possible, but while I don't have personal knowledge about being on the receiving end of that type of fire in an F-35, I would expect it to be noticeable if you were taking .50 BMG fire. Not just small "pings".
Small arms fire absolutely can hit a hovering F35 at 2500. Lots of shooters regularly practice 3000' shots with smaller caliber rounds like .308. Their targets are much smaller than an F35. Completely reasonable. Not necessarily easy at all but totally within the realm of very possible that someone with hobby experience in firearms could hit something as large as a hovering f35 at 2500 feet.
What is your point about collateral damage? A hit is a hit. A .50 bullet hitting an aircraft can absolutely still have enough kinetic force to cause some serious damage to an aircraft. Aircraft are not tanks, this is not an A-10. They are susceptible to damage from small arms fire. They are a multi role jet including close air support but are not built like an A-10 and might be susceptible to small arms especially something as large as .50 cal. If you're referring to the pings, watch some videos with cameras around targets getting hit like car frames or washing machines. Hits are like pings. An airfarme is very rigid design with a connected structure. Although im sure the cockpit is loud, you likely have a known "normal" noise signature and when something smacks the frame of your aircraft at 2500 feet per second at 650grains your going to hear that ping resonate through the frame. Ping is probably exactly how it would be described. At 2500 feet, .50 velocity should still be around 1500fps (based on some quick research). If you mean it should results in parts flying off, well that completely depends on what gets hit, I'm sure there are spots that will just cause fly through impacts. The post says alerts starting showing up. If your expectation is hollywood fireball and flames, it's not always like that.
I think collateral damage meant the rounds that missed had to land somewhere. Another question in my head, the official accounts talk about the transponder being off and then pretend that makes it invisible. Stealth tech has to be turned on, it's not automatically always on, so that plane was not invisible. If it disappeared from radar without the tech being activated, does that not mean it had to have dropped out/down? If the tech was activated, why, and why not say so? Why pretend that the transponder is what makes aircraft visible to radar?
Radar stealth is essentially a passive affair, established by the shaping of the fuselage and wings, and by special absorptive coatings. Active systems light you up, but may be necessary to dodge an air-to-air missile by using ECM. Transponders make the airplane "visible" to the transponder tracking system, which is not a radar.