I don't have stats, but I've worked on risk assesments for this and the majority of crashes with single engine aircraft, particularly bird strikes, occur during take-off and landing. As a matter of fact, take-off and landing is the most dangerous portion of any flight.
After that, you have to look at ACM flights, low level nav's, etc. Long patrol flights are the most mundane and uneventful flights known to mankind. Talk about a red herring.
Also, an F-35 engine could swallow a very large bird and the only way the pilot would know is if he saw it go in the intake or saw the smear in the intake after the flight. It would take a condor to knock out most of todays engines.
Allowing politicians and public opinion to dictate what fighter jet DND should buy is such a horrible decision.
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