00:00Somebody on Reddit who said that, you know, we should not return the fighter jet until they return the Kohinu to us.
00:05What we've been given to understand is that on the 14th, that's on Saturday, sometime early in the morning, the aircraft reported, he reported an emergency that he was running low on fuel.
00:17What an opportunity to take a good look at the fifth generation fighter aircraft.
00:21The F-35 has had a horrible track record when it comes to either safety issues or, you know, incidents like this.
00:30Because it's been an aircraft in the center of a lot of things.
00:33It's a very, very expensive aircraft.
00:36You know, the whole program is estimated to cost, what, one and a half trillion dollars?
00:40But here's the thing, the longevity of this platform, I was just reading that it's going to go up to somewhere like 2070.
00:47That's 2070.
00:49Wow.
00:52It's been five days and counting that an F-35 fighter jet remains parked at the Tribandrum airport in Kerala.
00:58And no, it's not been sent by US President Donald Trump as part of his sales pitch for India.
01:02It's actually a British Royal Navy fighter jet that made an emergency landing at the airport after developing a technical glitch.
01:10The jet was flying over the Arabian Sea, having taken off from the HMS Prince of Wales.
01:15And it encountered what we now know is a hydraulic failure or a hydraulic glitch of some sort.
01:20And the pilot requested for an emergency landing access at the Tribandrum airport where it eventually landed.
01:26Since then, especially because it has been there for so long, it's become a big talking point in the aviation circles, especially among aviation geeks like me.
01:34And I have a lot of questions.
01:36For that, I have Sandeep Unnathan.
01:37Hey Sandeep.
01:38Hi.
01:38I don't know if you've seen the memes and the jokes surrounding this incident.
01:42You know, there's one I saw just before we began this recording where someone actually put out an OLX ad offering to sell an F-35 at the sweet price of $4 million.
01:51There's somebody on Reddit who said that, you know, we should not return the fighter jet until they return the Kohinu to us.
01:56And some men, people obviously saying that the Indian Air Force should take it apart and, you know, like rebrand it as a tege of something and it's like...
02:03Right, right, right.
02:04What an opportunity to take a good look at the fifth generation fighter aircraft.
02:08So, there is actually one fighter, fifth generation fighter aircraft on Indian soil at the moment.
02:14It's a terrible, terrible advertisement for Lockheed Martin.
02:17That aircraft sitting there forlornly on that runway in Trivandrum, my home state and city.
02:25So, it is bad PR for Lockheed Martin and, you know, all those jokes and those memes.
02:32The F-35 has had a horrible track record when it comes to either safety issues or, you know, incidents like this.
02:40Because it's been an aircraft in the center of a lot of things.
02:43It's a very, very expensive aircraft.
02:45It's a, you know, the whole program is estimated to cost, what, one and a half trillion dollars?
02:51But here's the thing.
02:52The longevity of this platform, I was just reading that it's going to go up to somewhere like 2070.
02:58That's 2070.
02:59Wow.
03:00That's a long-lived aircraft and that's typical of American fighter jets.
03:04They have very long lives.
03:05The F-16, for instance.
03:06Now, the Lockheed Martin product is more than 50 years old.
03:09Yeah.
03:10It's a half century.
03:10It's still flying.
03:11But the F-35, yeah.
03:13Lots of glitches.
03:15Yeah.
03:16So, what do you make of this episode?
03:17Because, you know, online a lot of people are kind of shocked that you have what is arguably the most advanced fighter jet in the world.
03:24And it's been more than five days.
03:25Five days at counting right now.
03:26And they've not been able to figure out what's wrong with the airframe because of which it's not taken off again from Trivandrum Airport and gone back to its battle group.
03:37So, what have you gathered from your sources in the setup about what exactly went down and what's going on right now?
03:44Well, it's a simple story.
03:46There's nothing much to it.
03:47The Prince of Wales was here in the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and was carrying out some maneuvers with the Indian Navy.
03:55And the F-35 was part of those maneuvers.
03:58And it was not in full stealth mode.
04:01That's the first thing that we looked at.
04:03You know, there was a lot of speculation when the IAF NCC put out that tweet saying we detected it and guided it and tracked it.
04:11And everyone said, hey, no, no, there's no stealth.
04:13Look, look.
04:13But then if you look very closely, Dave, at that aircraft, it has those Luneberg lenses on it.
04:18And those are meant to actually, those are counter stealth measures where the guy is not in, the pilot is not flying in full stealth mode for obvious reasons.
04:28He wants to be tracked.
04:29He wants to be, these are maneuvers.
04:31He's not in combat mode, right?
04:33And you also had those missiles there.
04:34So, an aircraft with missiles on its wings and Luneberg lenses is certainly not an aircraft that wants to hide or, you know, go in full stealth mode.
04:42So, what we've been given to understand is that on the 14th, that's on Saturday, sometime early in the morning, the aircraft reported, yeah, or was it late evening?
04:54Late evening.
04:54Yeah, possibly.
04:55He reported an emergency that he was running low on fuel.
05:00And Tiruvannathapuram is one of the diversionary airfields for the Royal Navy.
05:05That is, if they have any emergency while they're out at sea, this is one airfield that they can fly down to.
05:11And, you know, secure their aircraft.
05:14So, this is what the pilot did as well.
05:17And, well, they did fly, the Royal Navy did fly a helicopter with a couple of technicians.
05:25And very soon they looked at it.
05:28They looked at the problems there.
05:30And that is when this whole issue of the hydraulic failure came into play.
05:33And that was clearly something that six technicians in one helicopter could not fix, which is why they had to go back.
05:40And what I'm given to understand is that there will be another aircraft that will come, possibly a large one like the C-5.
05:47And they could look at taking this aircraft apart, even, the F-35.
05:52And, you know, do a CKD kind of thing.
05:55Right.
05:55Completely knock down the aircraft, put it into that big, okay, you know, heavy lifter, the C-5.
06:02The one that has its, that nose pops out, you know, those gigantic cargo aircraft.
06:07And they'll take the F-35, put it back in, fly it back to the UK, where they can get a good look at what actually went wrong.
06:14So, the hydraulics is obviously something that can't be fixed on the tarmac.
06:17That's like the fighter jet version of roadside assistance, if I'm guessing.
06:20Which is call-up-sat-y.
06:21You got it.
06:22The truck will come and pick up your car and then take it to the service center.
06:25In case of an emergency call, just call-up-sat-right.
06:27So, that's exactly what.
06:28Yeah.
06:29A couple of more points on this.
06:31Quick ones.
06:32We will never, ever join a military alliance.
06:34And we have said that the quad grouping also is not a military alliance, it's more of a geopolitical sort of a setup.
06:39So, when you have something like this happening then, this is not a formal military ally of yours and your plane ends up on its soil, on the country's soil.
06:48How does the logistics of it all work?
06:51Is that that trust factor issue?
06:52Will they be scared of perhaps the Air Force might, or the Indian authorities might send a couple of people just to like, you know, see, look around, kya ho, rass.
06:59Well, Dave, interesting question.
07:02And I can just tell you that the British would perhaps be more, you know, comfortable with the F-35 on Indian soil than they would if it were on Pakistani soil.
07:12You know, on Pakistani soil, they'd probably be worried about the Chinese coming and, you know, grabbing the aircraft and taking a close look at it.
07:21You know, I've heard really funny stories from our intelligence guys who've been monitoring the Pakistani communications many years back.
07:28And they were talking to me about the absolute utter paranoia that the Americans, especially from Lockheed Martin, have.
07:35They have guys on the ground in one of these air bases that we hit, Jakobabad, where they, their only job is to monitor the F-16 Block 52s, the front line, the latest variant of the F-16.
07:48They do not want the Chinese to get hold of it.
07:51They don't even want them to look under the hood, as they say.
07:53So, there was one instance a couple of years back where a Pakistan Air Force F-16 Block 52 took off and did not land where it was supposed to.
08:02And then there was minor panic.
08:04And they discovered that it had been diverted to another air base.
08:07Immediately, the American guys on the ground flew that air base to find out what was on.
08:12You know, and they did, they were afraid that, you know, this might be a pretext to get the Chinese in to look at it.
08:18So, I mean, an F-35 on Indian soil, I don't think anyone has an issue with it.
08:23Neither does India have a problem with it.
08:26And the US or the UK, whoever, you know, operates that aircraft, they'd be completely happy with having it on Indian soil.
08:34So, it's a, it's a, a, kuch deno ka mehma.
08:37It's going to go off in a few days.
08:38Yeah, yeah.
08:39Last point and sort of take that forward and the analogy of, you know, having your car breaking down in the middle of a road.
08:45Do fighter jets have locks?
08:47As in like, you know, the pilot after coming out will be like, I need to lock the plane to make sure no one else goes in the cockpit now.
08:52Well, that's a good question, yeah.
08:54So, it's not a lock in the conventional way.
08:57It is, the cockpit is secured and you can't break in and you can't, you know, fly off with a fighter jet.
09:05Which is why I think the CISF has put a, you know, a cordon around the aircraft.
09:10There's even a light bulletproof vehicle there to tell everyone, tell the world that, look, we are here on the ground.
09:16Your aircraft is safe.
09:17It's a million, a hundred million dollar jet.
09:20So, it's safe.
09:21So, there's no danger of anyone trying to, you know, pop the cockpit open and fly off with the thing.
09:27There are protocols to ensure that that kind of thing does.
09:30Right.
09:31Cool.
09:31Thanks a lot, man.
09:32Great chat and I think a very rare instance of something that's happening.
09:36Yeah.
09:36But look what's happening in the world around.
09:38Exactly.
09:39Right.
09:39Thanks and thank you so much.
