this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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Because putting a beacon on a stealth aircraft is like installing a flashlight onto an invisible car.
Even if people can't see the rest of the invisible car, they'll see the flashlight and track that instead. At a minimum, such a feature would be 'default off', and never default on.
A stealth aircrafts literal design is to be invisible to enemy radio waves. The last thing you wanna do is you know... Emit a radio beacon.
I agree, buf why is it not "default off but in the case the pilot is doing impromptu skydiving and the plane currently on the way to becoming acquainted with the ground, give us a little update"
You know most aircraft, when shot down, were traveling over enemy territory right?
Airplanes don't get shot down over friendly territory.
Except this one, apparently...
If the aircraft is already without pilot and will crash soon what can the enemy do? shoot it down?
Steal it, study it, make copies of it.
The F35 is the result of Billions of research and development dollars. And the adversaries we have (ie: China) are very, very good at copying technology.
Stealth aircraft spend a lot more time flying training missions over friendly territory than combat missions over enemy territory. They use transponders on training missions, such as this one, because they want to be easily visible to other military and civilian pilots.