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UK Demands Sourcecode for Strike Fighters
An anonymous reader writes ""The UK has warned America that it will cancel its £12bn order for the Joint Strike Fighter if the US does not hand over full access to the computer software code that controls the jets"
Lord Drayson, minister for defense procurement, told the The Daily Telegraph that the planes were useless without control of the software as they could effectively be "switched off" by the Americans without warning."
The best explanation I've read is that they cannot adapt their weapons for use on the JSF w/o Lockheed/US Govt help. It has nothing to do with the US being able to *turn off* their JSF's.
I've also read that the French giving the Brits more than they were asking for with the design of their new carriers notes a possible side deal, that being them buying French Rafale's. If this is the case, the JSF issue has already been decided, and what we're seeing here is simply public posturing. Never seen a politician do that before :-)
"US Congress looking at cancelation(sic) of plans for a Rolls-Royce engine equiped(sic) version"
Not quite. There are two engine versions right now. The primary version, F135, is by Pratt-Whitney. It uses Rolls-Royce LiftFan (c) components for the F-35B STOVL. After the first several dozen engine/fan sets, GE was supposed to be able to bid with its F136, which has slightly greater RR partnership with the core turbojet and still uses RR LiftFan components. In other words ALL F-35B aircraft will use the LiftFan components.
RR gets a large slice of the engine pie regardless. It is just slightly larger with the possible GE participation. One of the ideas here is with a competitor's version as an option, there can be a bidding war in the taxpayers' favor.
And, until they mount bayonet lugs on the F-35B pitot tube, it won't really be a close ground support aircraft.
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When Finland bought F/A-18's from USA they were the top-of-the-line planes back then (and they are very, very good even today). Now, fighter-aircraft have a system which transmits data between the plane and the ground and integrates the plane in to the greater whole, and the Hornet is no exception. One of the first things we did was to rip the US-designed system out, and replaced it with a Finnish design, for the sole reason that the US system was just plain inferior.
Europe and their Eurofighter Typhoon? Like it or not, that is a VERY capable aircraft. F-22 might be a bit better, but F-22 also costs a lot more. And according to the only pilot that has actually flown both, they are neck and neck. He does say that F-22 has supercruise, but The Typhoon has it as well.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
If you have to criticize the French, you should at least pick a different subject. Here is the beginning of the Wikipedia article -- and I can confirm most of it, since the cooperation described was well known in France at the time:
/.
French president François Mitterrand gave full support to the UK in the Falklands war. As a large part of Argentina's military equipment was French-made, French support was crucial. France provided aircraft, identical to the ones it supplied to Argentina, for British pilots to train against. France provided intelligence to help sabotage the Exocet missiles it sold to Argentina. In her memoirs Margaret Thatcher says of Mitterrand that "I never forgot the debt we owed him for his personal support...throughout the Falklands crisis". Sir John Nott, who was Secretary of State for Defence during the conflict later acknowledged: "In so many ways Mitterrand and the French were our greatest allies".
Sad to see traditional knee-jerk anti-french feelings are alive and well on
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