No radar reflectors?
When I was looking over the images of the Lakenheath F-35s taken over the two days I visited in mid May a rather important detail suddenly struck me. The Luneburg radar reflectors had been removed from the five aircraft I saw. The four aerials are normally mounted on the aft fuselage, two above and two below. The upper left attachment point can just be made out in this image forward of the left vertical stabilizer. These are virtually always carried, even when operating in a potential combat theatre like Korea and Eastern Europe and all these airframes had previously been fitted only a few days before these photos. Interesting I have also heard that many at Hill AFB have recently been seen with the aerials removed.
No radar reflectors?
When I was looking over the images of the Lakenheath F-35s taken over the two days I visited in mid May a rather important detail suddenly struck me. The Luneburg radar reflectors had been removed from the five aircraft I saw. The four aerials are normally mounted on the aft fuselage, two above and two below. The upper left attachment point can just be made out in this image forward of the left vertical stabilizer. These are virtually always carried, even when operating in a potential combat theatre like Korea and Eastern Europe and all these airframes had previously been fitted only a few days before these photos. Interesting I have also heard that many at Hill AFB have recently been seen with the aerials removed.