A Drag Chute for Canada’s F-35s – A Potentially Dangerous Situation Says One Former CF Pilot

Norway, Canada and the Netherlands want drag chutes installed on the F-35. Norway has decided to go ahead and fund the initiative.

But here is what one former CF fighter pilot wrote to Defence Watch regarding the issue of the F-35 drag chute:

“-At altitude, where the temperatures are minus 50 C,  they tend to freeze and turn into ice cubes.

-When you really need them they don’t work/deploy.

-They cause “weather cocking” into the wind and you then slide off the runway by the pull of the chute itself. When that occurs the pilot immediately needs to “emergency jettison” the chute, leaving the pilot is an even more dangerous situation.

-Who is there to “re-pack” them on subsequent requirements?  In the north, in particular.

-Destroys stealth design…why pay for stealth in the first place then?

-Little use in a “one runway only” environment resulting in a cross wind environment on landing and therefore of no use.

Bottom line:  Of no use in the NORAD and northern climates.  Simply cannot stake your life on its use.”