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."

Comments

Australia wants it too!

[narkotix]

linky

Nuclear reactors

[ghoul]

I wonder if India is insisting on the source code for the control software for the new nuclear reactors to be sold under the new nuke deal. If not America could switch off the reactor control at any time and nuke India without even having to launch missiles

Re:Nuclear reactors

[StandardDeviant]

There's huge, huge, huge differences between a nuclear power plant and a nuclear weapon. Nuke plants are not and will never be capable of the same level of destructiveness as a bomb. This is not to say that a meltdown doesn't release very crappy pollution, but it's not an explosive on the same level as a designed weapon.

(The specifics of why X != Y far overflows the capacity of the /. comment system. Suffice to say that even if the isotopic mix was right [it isn't, not by a loooooooooong shot], the configuration of a plant is all wrong in an area where tolerances are quite intolerant. [More info than you could ever want to know here.])

Probably the absolute worst that could be done with remote software would be a chernobyl-type event. And that assumes the target country's engineers blithly accept any plans given to them without taking a single look at fail-off safety measures (i.e. plant shuts down when critical failures occur rather than heating up further like the soviet design did). More likely you'd have either a minor three-mile-island type thing or a passive shutdown (no lights, but no harmful releases either).

Maybe Ballmer was right

[rsborg]

When he said that the Microsoft way was the "American way"... I mean, lets look at the facts:

• The US always says "trust us", and then acts in a manner to prove why you shouldn't... just like some folks from Redmond.
• The US is all about coercive power... kind of like a coercive monopoly we all know.
• The US built it's fortune from land stolen from the Native Americans... just like Microsoft built their fortune on someone else's code.
• The US spends a vast fortune spinning each bad thing that comes their way, and never admitting they did any wrong... because to do so would look weak. Sounds very familiar indeed.

Ultimately, this proves one point... you should never trust any group to do the right thing... not the US, not Google, or Microsoft, and it was foolish in this case that the UK trusted a US company (part of the US military industrial complex)... there should have been a demand for this openness in the contract and at the first sign of secrecy the UK should have threatened to stop payment.

Don't know why Australia keeps going back...

[inflex]

After the disasters that came with the F1-11 and the F-18, I'm astounded that Australia is -still- going back for another beating. I've got a brother-in-law who works with the F-18's and there's absolutely no end to the 'critical failures' that they're seeing. Given the technical 'superiority' of these JSF's, I'm expecting they'll barely get out of the maintainance hangers. I can't even see a tactical purpose for the JSF in this sun charred, massively open country.

To be fair, after a lot of overhauls and modifications the F1-11 actually turned out to be a good plane, the F-18 on the other hand...

Re:Don't know why Australia keeps going back...

[inflex]

The F18's here are having to have total center barrel replacements - mostly because we've used them for roles where the US uses F16/15's. Good case of using the wrong tool for the job.

The F18's precision bombing ability has only been a recent addition in -our- fleet. Perhaps you guys got some better stuff first up.

The F18 has insufficient range, speed or strike power to make it ideally practical here in AUSTRALIA. A little different no doubt in the US.

The F18 isn't really suited for independent action across our gulf to areas such as Indonesia, even more so now with our "opponents" having purchased the Sukhoi's

The JSF, with about 2000km (vs F111's 6000km) range falls a bit short too. We're a big and SPARSELY populated country here and we don't have the budget to realistically put a nice squadron of JSF's at every bay.

Basically, Australia is trading its independence ability in and leaning more on the US to support us in the military role.

Mostly, I'd say it's more a case perhaps of politics causing poor choices, than the planes themselves being implicitly bad.

Feel free to browse over - http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-FAQ-2005.html

Re:Is that for real?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is for real. Unfortunately, the current administration seems to feel that it does not have to abide by its agreements in letter or in spirit. It's kind of the Darth Vader thing: "I'm altering our deal ... pray I do not alter it further."

This arguement with the UK has been stewing for sometime, and I think the UK is right to pull out. Canada is the only country with an ITAR waiver at present -- to the best of my knowledge. Since you can't *give* the Canadians weapons, it is a largely meaningless agreement in their case. And the Bush administration probably wouldn't give the software to the Canadians either (although they might hire them to help write it).

Future upgrades

[csirac]

Aircraft have lifespans measured in decades.

It is inconceivable that a country would buy combat aircraft and expect to use its stock-standard factory installed avionics, weapons systems, sensors, etc. unmodified for 25 years.

Australia has been burnt badly in the past cost-wise with the F-111 and F/A-18 hornets with respect to the USA failing to even think about the transfer of necessary intellectual property that would allow our own contractors to take on upgrade projects.

Instead, we had to use expensive US defense contractors (Boeing? Honeywell? Raytheon? I forget).

AFAICT the F-111 turned out to be a nice plane, but keeping it and the hornets up-to-date could have been MUCH cheaper if the USA weren't arseholes about it all.

I never understood the F-18 thing

[caitsith01]

When we could have had the vastly superior F-16 or F-15. It's not like we need the naval capabilities of the F-18.

The US is scrapping their Tomcats, maybe we should just pick some of those up on the cheap.

In any event, I think you will find the JSF program participation is more to do with the AUSFTA and related political maneuvering and less to do with any inherent characteristics of the plane.

Smoke screen?

[Rank_Tyro]

I can think of no real reason other than research and development for this attitued. The UK would need the source in order to develope new weapons systems, and to intergrate current weapons systems onto the aircraft.

  Modern fighter/bomber aircraft are extensivly intergrated. The flight controls, the radar, navigation and cockpit displays all interact with each other in order to put munitions on target.

It is more likely that the UK wants to be able to develope new munitions without having to pay the USA in order to get a new weapon online. I can also understand that the Brits might not want to buy all of their munitions from the US when they can develope and manufature their own.

It is an entirely resonable request to make. F-18s F-16s F-4s are sold throughout the world, and even built under licence by foreign governments. I don't remember hearing that any of the software associated with those programs was being denied to the end user.

As long as you have the required diplomatic connections, a production license, and an end user certificate, it becomes your airplane. There may be some bs reason about the stealth technology but that is more hardware than soft ware.

I can't help but think that this is political posturing in order to get something else

Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[reporter]

The current dispute between London and Washington is similar to the dispute that arose between Washington and Japan over the development of Japan's first indigenous fighter, the F-2, in the 1980s. At the time, Washington adamantly objected to the idea of Tokyo developing its own fighter aircraft without participation from American defense companies. Following years of exaggerated fears of Japanese hi-tech domination, Washington feared that this new fighter would be superior to anything that American companies could develop. So, Washington wanted access to the development program. Tokyo relented, and Washington basically forced Tokyo to use an existing American fighter as the basis of the development program.

Once the agreement for joint American-Japanese development was reached, Washington had a change of heart. It refused to give, to Tokyo, the source code for the fly-by-wire computer program that controls the flight of the F-16.

The following summarized the American hypocrisy in 1985.

1. Washington did not want Tokyo to develop its own, possibly superior, weapons system.

2. Once Tokyo agreed to work with the Americans on the weapons system, Washington wanted to ensure that Tokyo would not have access to critical technologies: e.g. fly-by-wire computer algorithms.

That attitude from the 1985 is alive and well in 2006 -- in the form of the current dispute between Washington and London. Washington seems to want its allies to be permanently dependent on American weapons technology.

What kind of BS is that?

Both London and Tokyo should ignore Washington's hypocritical position and should promptly lock Washington out of English and Japanese fighter-aircraft development. Once Washington sees that both the English and the Japanese can develop fighter aircraft that is actually superior to American jet fighters, then Washington will treat London and Tokyo as allies on equal footing.

Right now, Tokyo is deliberating on the fighter to replace its aging F-4 Phantoms. Hopefully, Tokyo will not succumb to American pressure and will design a 100% all-Japanese interceptor.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[Yaztromo]

Following years of exaggerated fears of Japanese hi-tech domination, Washington feared that this new fighter would be superior to anything that American companies could develop.

The history of the US doing this goes even further back than the 1980's. Well, at least as my grandfather told the story.

My maternal grandfather was a mechanic on the Avro Arrow project here in Canada, which, as the Wiki article quotes, was "...the biggest, most powerful, most expensive and potentially the fastest fighter that the world has yet seen...".

Now my grandfather was a consumate story teller, and certainly told his share which held dubious claims, but he had also done a number of remarkable things in his lifetime, and was long a very close follower of politics, so it was sometimes hard to differentiate between what was true, and what was just a good story.

Still, the way he told the tale, a major reason why Canada cancelled the Arrow program was due to pressure from the US, which didn't like the fact that Canada had developed a significantly more technologically advanced interceptor than the US contractors were able to develop. According to him, it was direct pressure on Ottawa from Washington to kill the project and instead buy a huge number of BOMARC missles from the US that brought on the end of the Arrrow programme.

Looking at the Wiki article, he may not have been that far off. The BOMARCs were purchased as soon as the Arrow programme was cancelled, and the US did pressure Ottawa to cancel the programme (although perhaps not for the reason Grampa cited). The engineering talent from Avro was quickly poached off by the US Government for the US space programme. Most experts believe that this single act set Canada's long advanced aerospace industry back by decades (during WWII, for example, it was a Canadian company that started making planes with standardized parts, so they could easily be interchanged).

Sadly, the BOMARCs were eventually phased out because they were expensive and completely ineffective. The Arrow could have been re-purposed, or even re-designed, but even this was not to be -- for reasons never explained, all of the plans for the Arrow were destroyed, alone with all of the working prototypes. The Canadian Government poured all of that money into the Arrow, and didn't even bother to store the blueprints for future use or defense research.

Whether it was my grandfathers "keep Canada down" conspiracy theory, the "interceptors aren't useful in the age of nuclear missles" official line, or a combination of the two, the end result has been the same: the BOMARCs sit in a warehouse in North Bay (last I heard at least...", the great bulk of which were copletely faulty and worthless, and we lost a symbol of national pride, and perhaps worst of all, lost some of the greatest brains behind our aerospace industry of the 1950's that put us at the forefront of aerospace research.

As an interesting aside, some years ago my grandfather showed me the some of tthe specially designed tools that were created to work on the Avro Arrow which he kept in his garage. He passed away nearly 5 years ago, and I have never been able to find out what happened to those tools (and am not sure if I could identify them anyhow -- the one I remember looked like a long piece of metal rod with a hook on the end, which could be easily confused with any number of metal rods he had in his workshop). If they could be identified and separated from the rest of his old tools and bits and pieces from over the years, they probably belong in a museum somewhere (heck, so far as I know, the rods he told me were "tools" could very well have been "parts", such as control rods of one sort or another).

Yaz.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should harken back to the mid 1940's when the British were developing a jet engined plane to exceed Mach 1... Washington suggested a joint venture, and Britain agreed. Once Britain had sent them all their research and plans Washington decided it'd didn't want to do a joint venture anymore, but thanks for doing all the research. Then followed by chuck yeager breaking the sound barrier in a plane that looked strangely like the British one.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[Venik]

I fail to see any similarity between the F-2 dispute with Japan and today's siatuation with the F-35. Brits and the US have been involved in numerous joint aerospace projects for many decades. One of the results of such joint work was the most successful VSTOL fighter to date.

Regardless of why the UK wants source code for the F-35 - be it the fear of backdoors or weapons integration tasks - for the amount they invested in this project the Brits are entitled to get the complete package.

Without Britain's participation and without its 135-unit order the price of the F-35 will skyrocket. The UK is the only Tier 1 partner on this project. Withdrawal of the UK from F-35 development and procurement will delay the project and would likely scare away the remaining smaller partners, like Norway, which is seriously considering pulling out of the JSF consortium.

Most importantly, however, should the UK go through with its threat to drop F-35, the plane's export prospects will be destroyed. The F-35 will become another limited-edition fifth-generation fighter a la F-22.

I find it hard to believe that the US reluctance to share the source code with the Brits is solely due to export control concerns. There has to be more to it than just red tape.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[hernick]

It has been a while since anybody other than the USA had the top fighter plane. You claim that either Britain or Japan has the ability to build a twin-engine fighter superior to the F-22 or a single-engine fighter superior to the F-35; I think you're wrong.

Current American fighters have had decades of research put in them. It cannot be denied that the American aeronautical industry is years ahead of Japan's. The Japanese do not have the ability to design and build a rival to the American planes, nor would they attempt to antagonize Washington in this manner.

As for the British, they might be able to contribute to a pan-European fighter development project, but Britain no longer has any significant national aeronautical design and construction facilities. It merely hosts parts of the European aircraft industry, which could not operate solely in Britain. And Europe doesn't have the military budget to develop fighters capable of matching the American birds.

Maybe Europe alone can build a match for the F-22, in a 10-15 years, but by then the USA will have something better. So, if neither Japan nor Europe can do it, is there anybody who could develop fighters superior to the American ones, before the USA has a chance to improve theirs and secure their top spot?

Yes. A European-Russian-Ukrainian alliance with a few hundred secure orders from financial backers such as China, India, Pakistan and Japan. Only then could they start a program to develop a fighter that will be unmatched, the top fighter out there. And in ten years, maybe they'll have succeeded.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[Runefox]

There already is, or at least, was, a superior fighter to the Raptor and JSF, developed by Russia ten years ago, but probably never to see the light of day. It's called the Su-37 Flanker, and it outperforms the F/A-22 in every aspect but stealth.

A modified Su-35, it has no angle of attack limitation, and its thrust-vectoring nozzles, in addition to its unstable integral triplane layout, allow it to perform maneuvers that allow the aircraft to, for a moment, literally fly backwards in controlled flight, and can outmaneuver any Western fighter, including the projected/declassified performance ratings of the F/A-22, in close range combat, as seen in the Farnborough air show in 1996. It has a forward pulse-doppler array radar and rearward-facing radar as well, and as such can target and fire upon targets at its six o'clock with rearward-facing missiles. It also has advanced infrared sensors that can most likely target and track an F/A-22 in supersonic flight (since it would light up like a christmas tree to IR due to air friction).

So while the USAF stresses BVR combat, and do it well (though most situations don't allow BVR engagements, especially without AWACS), the Russian design bureaus favour supermaneuverability, and do it well. Besides, if the USAF really thought that BVR combat was all that was required to survive in the air, why would they equip their F/A-22 with a cannon, short-range missiles, and thrust-vectoring nozzles? The long and short of it is, close-range air engagements are far from history. The USAF knows it, and so do the Russians. While the Russians are allies, they provide exports to countries that could oppose the USA, and therefore this kind of technology should not be taken lightly, even if it isn't out there yet.

After all, the thought that technology and technological superiority could win air wars was what almost decimated the US Navy fighters in the Vietnam war, where their F-4 Phantoms didn't have internal guns - But rather relied on missiles, which are limited in supply and have a good chance of missing. Rules of engagement also required visual confirmation before firing, and the Phantoms were almost completely slaughtered by the North Vietnamese MiG's and their cannons, only finding reprieve when gun pods were fitted to their aircraft.

Anyway, fortunately for the F/A-22, it's not looking like Su-37's will be along any time soon, unless an export market opens up. Even so, I wouldn't call the F/A-22 or F-35 infallible, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take global collaboration or a decade of research to top it. The F/A-22 is already a dinosaur of an aircraft, having been in development since 1986. It's not the glorious alpha-and-omega of the aircraft world, and it has its share of problems, not the least of which is payload limitations due to the concept of carrying only internal stores (external stores would allow the aircraft to be detected on radar). And if any 'opfor' nation were to build an analog of the Jindalee Over the Horizon radar system, conceiveably every US stealth aircraft would be rendered useless.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[Anonymous Coward]

Harold Wilson, Memoirs: 1916-1964 (1986)>>

Lend-Lease also involved Britain's surrender of her rights and royalties in a series of British technological achievements. Although the British performance in industrial techniques in the inter-war years had been marked by a period of more general decline, the achievements of our scientists and technologists had equalled the most remarkable eras of British inventive greatness. Radar, antibiotics, jet aircraft and British advances in nuclear research had created an industrial revolution all over the developed world. Under Lend-Lease, these inventions were surrendered as part of
the inter-Allied war effort, free of any royalty or other payments from the United States. Had Churchill been able to insist on adequate royalties for these inventions, both our wartime and our post-war balance of payments would have been very different.

The Attlee Government had to face the consequences of this surrender of our technological patrimony, but there was worse to come. Congress had voted Lend-Lease until the end of the war with Germany and Japan and no longer. When the European war ended, most people expected the conflict with Japan to last for another year or so. The atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima ended that assumption. Almost within the hour, President Truman, unwillingly no doubt, but without any choice in the matter, notified Attlee that Lend-Lease was being cut off. At that time it was worth £2,000 million a year. There was no possible means of increasing our exports to the United States to earn that sort of sum. Britain was in pawn, at the very time that Attlee was fighting to exert some influence on the postwar European settlement. The only solution was to negotiate a huge American loan, the repayment and servicing of which placed a burden on Britain's balance of payments right into the twenty-first century.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[Lumpy]

What constantly amazes me is. given the way the US constantly screws its allies is that a) it still has any and b) the UK still has the fantasy that we have a "special relationship"

and people wonder why people and other countries hate us to the point that when i travel abroad I wear a "I Love Toronto" and other Look he's canadian eh? clothing. Hell being from michigan I sound like a kanuk already. Now if a friend can get me that fake Canadian drivers license that I can keep in my wallet when overseas I will feel better.

Americans are hated because we heppily allow our government to screw everyone else on the planet for our own gains.

The only real allies we have anymore are there for 2 reasons. A) they are as corrupt as ourselves and want in on a piece of the action. B) My government has threatened them in one way or another than they do not dare change their relationship status.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[tmortn]

Very good points. The Russian Mig and Sukoi designs are very very capable fighters. In fact one on one they may well be the best figters in the world. Heck with the 37. The Mig-29 and Su-27 were both capable of the full range of acrobatics you describ in the 37 they just did not have the directional thrust ability or tri-plane config.

But when you start talking one on one there are many capable fighters in the world and I would argue the US designs hold no particular advantage and in fact with all designs except the F-16 probably hold a general disadvantage. The Euro Fighter and Rafale are both highly capable designs and the top level Mig and Su designs are as well. Proper training is the key then. Stick comparable trained fighters in those planes and they will have an odds on chance of winning a one on one engagement with anything. The next key then becomes the overall air power system. And that is where US dominance lays. The US supremacy is almost entirely wrapped up in our air control system as a whole. Nobody else does cordinated air power as well as we do. AWACS is the heart of it and why BVR today is not what BVR was in Vietnam. Pilot training comes next and last comes the technology.

The F-22 and JSF designs are not particularly impressive performers in terms of one on one dogfighting, they are adequate and thrust vectoring does a great deal to overcome their bulk that has arisen from internal warloads and stealth aerodynamic dictates. JSF in dogfight trim might be able to out turn an F-16 but only with directional thrust. Retrofit a similar capacity to the F-16 (which has been done and would be much cheaper) and its much more manouverable than the final JSF design. The advantage of the new US designs relies entirely on the stealth aspect. IE highly visible but un-reachable active search radar in AWACS vectors the US planes around in such a way that they can deal with threats before they know they are there.... not just BVR. Actual chase into ideal 6 o clock firing position to visually id an enemey before they even know they are there and then have control of any resulting engagement before it even begins for the other pilot.

If someone neutralizes stealth then the US designs are in a heap of shit in a matchup against a comperable air power. But then.... who is comperable any more? About the only time any single nation could claim higher capable numbers any more would be when just facing our naval assets. If we have access to forward deployment of air force assets then we are kind of head and shoulders above anyone other than a full NATO turnout or China. Russia fields only a shadow of its former strength.

AWACS, super cruising, AMRAAM, decent air combat manouevering capacity and highly trained pilots is a pretty devestating combination if all the pieces of that puzzle are there. The weakness of the US system lies in the fact we probably could not currently sustain a major air war level of munitions expenditure for very long and if someone could force us off our game plan... IE contest control of the skies (AWACS deployment) then we would be hurting in an old school scrap for control of the sky. The current thought is that with the next gen design if we got reduced to that then stealth would proove an advantage in dogfighting.

In other words, the US designs are all about winning the fight before you even get in knife range and even when they reach that stage they are far from uncapable. That is just not their top design priority. If they are right about that advantage then the designs are everything they have said they are. But to date there has not been a real test of it. Knocking down the excuse of an Air Force that Iraq had in Gulf War I dosn't really count and thats about as close as we have come to a modern air combat war (and that was before any of the designs were in production). Yes they had numbers, but they had shit for training and almost zero air born radar capacity. We knocked down their command and control system in the first wave and at that point the Iraq air f

Falkland Islands

[JeffSh]

Let us not forget the lesson learned in the Falkland Islands incident. Britain demanded unlock codes for missiles that the French sold argentina.. brits disabled argentina's exocet missiles and all that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War#French_ involvement

Re:Falkland Islands

[Anonymous Coward]

The argentinians in fact won the war, but for a minor and very primitive technical glitch. Their pilots flew well enough to match the legendary nazi aces like Rudel who trained them, their A-4 planes hit almost all british ships with gravity drop bombs thrown from ungodly low altitudes. However, the security pin of those US-made bombs was a threaded rod with a small drag propeller at the front that winded out and away during some 120-150 meters of freefall. The argentinians seemed to forget about that and often flew as low as 30-60 meters to avoid AA fire, so when they dropeed the bombs the unlocking and arming sequence did not have time to happen and most bombs impacted briton ships as duds. If they just saw off an inch or so from those safety pins before the sorties, today it would be the Malvinas Islands uncontestedly. More than a dozen dud hit 500 pounders were found embedded in british ships by the end and in fact one ship sank when a dud exploded while bomb disposal crew were trying to disarm it. It was not the Exocet missile which decided the war, but the above glitch.

sendmail model could work

[mr_burns]

We could do like sendmail and have the version we have for the US fighters and the version we give to our partners.

GPL would actually work really well for the partner version. We already set terms in our contracts about who arms can be re-sold to or a right to first refusal. And GPL says you only have to reveal source to people you distribute to. If we hold partners to only releasing source to those they distribute to, the security through obscurity knobs are placated while the partners have an open codebase they can collectively hack on.

This helps everybody involved. Our partners can imporve upon their investment and more eyes fix bugs faster. And the hawks in the US can settle their nerves because they can choose to participate in the partner codebase yet still have their 'commercial' version to fall back on if they all of a sudden don't trust the open version.

The clincher of course is controlling who the planes and associated software are distribited to. You can't put a genie back in a bottle. But then again, if source being leaked breaks the security of your product... it was never secure to begin with.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[TubeSteak]

The days of fighters swooping around locked in a dog-fight-to-the-death are long gone.

People are pissing all over the F-35 (another JSF stealth fighter/bomber/everything) because it can't go toe to toe with the SU-35.

People are also worried that these planes won't be able to win against 'new' planes. The Ruskies have been sitting on the designs for the SU37 and SU47 because they haven't been able to find anyone to buy it from them.

The next Gen of Sukhoi fighters are going to be every bit as mean as anything the West turns out, and they'll probably have better flight characteristics too.

It doesn't matter much - they still use Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the US where you can see some use of other platforms like Linux (same reasons, you can look at the code and the NSA has been good there too), the UK is hell bent on using Windows.

I'm pretty sure the top brass has been sold on the total control idea of Windows DRM, without anyone knowledgeable being able to penetrate the thick MS sales exec layer to get it through to these guys that it amounts to the biggest handover of control since they left Hong Kong.

If you want to know how MS does it, it's very easy: go and count the ratio of MS people to clients in a top presentation, it's about 1:1. As an experiment, try and challenge some of the (usually undated and unqualified) statistics - you will immediately be engaged by an MS suit in conversation, thus allowing the selling to go on undistracted. And believe me, these guys are good.

It's *very* educational to come in late and stand at the end of the room - try it if you can. Oh, and don't forget the fact finding missions - it doesn't matter if it's sponsored or not: if not the taxpayer will pay for it instead.

Been there, seen it, know the risk. And yeah, occasionally you mention it but nobody really cares. Decision makers rotate compulsory every couple years or so (via promotion), so they're only really concerned with keeping the predecessors' skeletons long enough in the closet to move on.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[killjoe]

"I'm not saying they would invade, but two countries that come to mind with the potential to attack are Singapore and Indonesia."

Are you an aussie? Let me presume for a while that you are.

You are paying taxes, if it's like most other european countries you are paying hefty taxes. So is it worth paying all these taxes to get new fighter planes just on the off, off, off, off, off chance that singapore will attack you in a manner which will neccesitate the use of fighter planes to defend yourself?

In the US we spend money on the military because we wage war every election or so. We love war, we engage in it constantly, and as a result lots of people hate us and want to kill us. Australia is not like that as far as I can see. Sure howard has his nose up GWs butt like blair does but that's more of an exception then a rule.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[j. andrew rogers]

Time after time in aviation history has shown that every time "dogfighting" was supposed to be dead, and designs were advanced, that it wasn't quite as dead as they thought, and people died because of the mistake.

I do not disagree with this in general; the demise of many things have been prematurely anticipated. However, most of those things *did* eventually meet their demise, albeit not on the timelines of the prognosticators. The analog to this is armor. The US is field-testing several weapon systems now that will obsolete all types of mobile armor for the foreseeable future -- the operating parameters are such that no normal molecular material of any type can withstand the weapons as a matter of physics. Armor/anti-armor has been an arms race for a very long time, but it looks like it will be settled shortly. The US military research is dealing with the situation by switching strategies: rather than carrying armor that is worthless anyway, develop active defenses that can intercept incoming weapons so that you do not get touched. And so it goes on.

The reality for combat aircraft is that beyond-visual-range (BVR) weapon systems have become so advanced and so effective today that dogfighting really is largely dead when using these systems. Note that the US has very advanced BVR capability, most other countries are still seriously limited in this regard and so would be dogfighting quite a bit in their conflicts. The US saw the future as it developed the first effective BVR guided missile systems, but the platforms at the time could in no way deliver the future that they were seeing. Several decades later that future is actually here as originally envisioned, as the lethality and effectiveness have incrementally improved. Slow evolutionary steps.

Speed, range, situational awareness, and seeing the other guy before he sees you are crucial capabilities. The F-35 primarily exploits US capabilities in the last two categories for its advantage, which provides a huge amount of bang for the buck in modern warfare. Systems like the F-22 have a remarkable array of really excellent capabilities, but it costs a lot of money to produce a combat aircraft that is that good in so many dimensions that may be effectively preempted by other capabilities in practice.

Re:Is that for real?

[NecroPuppy]

It may in fact be reasonable.

When a military branch funds any program, especially an ACAT I, ACAT II, or ACAT IA program, it has to decide what data rights it needs.

The data rights it is allowed by law to purchase depends, in large part, on how the program was funded.

For Unlimited Rights, the government must have funded the entire development effort of the item, and then they can do whatever they want with it, including give it to other contributing nations.

Under Limited Rights, where the contractor has funded the effort entirely, the Government is prohibited from sharing the information with anyone outside the US Government.

With Restricted Rights, which are similar to Limited Rights, the software may have even further restrictions, such as a limited number of systems it may be installed on.

And finally, there is Government Purpose Rights, which happens when the contracted firm and the Government have jointed funded the development of a program. Under this data rights type, the Government is allowed to use the technical data for Government purposes as described in limited rights and for other purposes such as competition, but not for commercial applications. Government purpose rights are automatically effective for five years and revert to Unlimited Rights upon expiration of the five-year period.

There have been multiple programs where the wrong type of rights were purchased, sometimes because the contract was written badly, sometimes because there were mistakes made about what rights were needed.

This article doesn't go into that kind of depth, so it may be a case where the lead contracting authority (Again, the article doesn't go into who that is. It could be the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines) messed up, or it could be JITC issue.

Yes, I work for the government these days. Can't you tell?

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[j. andrew rogers]

This whole stealth thing is rendered fairly useless by using multiple ground receivers in ones radar system anyway.

Very true, for first generation stealth technologies. By most accounts, the US is currently using a third generation stealth technology that bears little resemblance to early capabilities and shares little engineering -- arguably apples and oranges. It is easy to dismiss US stealth capability, but the US has an unparalleled amount of (highly classified) institutional knowledge on stealthy design that spans many decades which continues to evolve rapidly. In practice, US military design tends to prove competent and with very few weaknesses that did not occur to the designers.

A few different countries are producing UWB radars of a type similar to current versions common on existing US aircraft, which have a lot of really nice characteristics. I expect the F-35 will use a similar type of radar, at least on the export versions, and I would assume the US has a lot of capability for dealing with this type of radar given their experience with it. The F-22 is rumored to have a radar that is a generation ahead of these systems which has some spectacular properties, a nearly ideal implementation of the concept.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[dbIII]

Australia buys US aircraft because the US is willing to sell it very advanced avionics and electronics for those aircraft

It's a lot simpler than that - as the obsolete and no longer manufactured submarine torpedo deal which required the Australian submarines to be modified showed. In a lot of cases it's just simple political pressure from elements of the US government to buy things from specific US companies even when some of the competition are other US companies.

As for the UK wanting the software - there's a story purported to be true that the US radar system used in a destroyer in the Falklands war tagged an incoming missile as friendly because it was made in France and it didn't show up on the radar display. Useful feature in an exercise - but not when Argentinians are sinking your destroyers with them.

Backdoors in military hardware are foolish

[Opportunist]

I mean, be serious. Imagine there's a shutdown backdoor in the plane software (or whatever) that allows remote controlled shutdown. Key question: What if that code falls into enemy's hands?

And it WILL. No matter how tight security is, there are human beings who know the necessary details. Think it's hard for (insert terrorist group or anti-US government) to shell out enough money to convince someone to betray his country? They only need to find ONE person willing to trade patriotism for money. Take your average politician and it's even rather cheap.

Do you think the US government is stupid enough to let something like this happen? Ok, let me rephrase that question: Do you think a company who wants to make deals with the feds in the future would actually build something like that? Because one thing's for sure, even if the gov demands a backdoor in their planes, once it gets out (not if, when), who'll be the one to blame?

So the claim that they need to know if there's a backdoor is a frontend for the real threat: That they'll be forced to use US weapons and ammo on those planes, too, because they cannot adapt their tools of destruction to the controlling software without knowing how it works. And if you actually plan to do something with your shiny new military hardware other than showing it off, that's where the real costs are hiding.

Similarly, the TSR-2

[MROD]

In the 1960's pressure from the US caused the cancellation of the british TSR-2 programme. The government cancelled the TSR-2 and ordered F-111's.. which were then cancelled a few years down the line. A total fiasco.

Similarly, all the plans and prototypes for the TSR-2 were destroyed.

Re:Similarly, the TSR-2

[Chris Mattern]

> Similarly, all the plans and prototypes for the TSR-2 were destroyed.

No, the Conservative government in 1981 actually considered reviving it. There was some consideration of necessary upgrades (including the use of carbon fiber composites in the construction), but it was dropped fairly quickly. Still, I don't see how they could've even begun to discuss it if they didn't have the plans.

Chris mattern

Re:Similarly, the TSR-2

[Mutatis Mutandis]

This was at a time when the development programmes for advanced combat aircraft (and other military equipment) were successfully expanding into truly phenomenal cost overruns. The TSR-2 development cost estimates first doubled, and then tripled. The F-111 was so attractive to the UK government because its estimated unit price was about half of that of a TSR.2.

Of course, the UK had no monopoly on cost overruns, and McNamara's pet project went through the financial roof as well. The F-111 became even more expensive than the TSR.2 would have been. The TFX project that produced the F-111 tried to be all things to all people, actually rather similar to today's JSF project, and predictably it failed to do that. (You can easily guess my opinion of the JSF project.) The F-111B version for the US Navy was cancelled outright.

Besides, both the TSR.2 and TFX projects were arguably too far ahead of their time. The F-111 did not become a really effective combat aircraft before its first generation of pilots had retired, and its fragile 1960s electronic systems replaced by more modern and reliable ones. There is every reason to assume that TSR.2 would have suffered from the same problem.

Re:Is that for real?

[Wyatt Earp]

They would need the code to change the aircraft's envelope for various weapons. I was reading in an industry magazine about the software for the F-22. It's about to be upgraded so that the Small Diameter Bombs and 500 pound JDAMs can be dropped from the internal weapon bays in supersonic flight. Right now they can drop them both, but only at subsonic speeds.

So if the RAF had JSFs and say down the road wanted to use some new anti-armor weapon like the sucessor to Brimstone, they'd have to be able to change the fight software for them.

Weapon/pylon links prob an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

US companies lacks slihtly behind in missile desing (also like supersonic ramjet-cruise like sunburn is not avail, if PAC-2 is not accounted for). Like russian R-77 or european BVRAAM Meteor.

Hughes/Raytheon enchanded AMRAAM variant, FMRAAM - lost competition bin against Matra/BAe Meteor as advanced AVRAAM solution.

Perhaps UK would want the F-22 talk with non-US missiles via it's two-way datalink bus, and not to be limited into raytheon/boeing desings.

Re:You'd be insane not to allow for doing that!

[Goth Biker Babe]

Hey, I think the Brits want it so that they can shut down US planes...

In the first Iraq war we lost far more to US forces that the Iraqis. I notice that for the second war they trained your guys in "how to recognise your allies".

Not really

[WindBourne]

The economy has limped along over the last 6 years. IYR, When bush first came into office, they made some quick adjustments to how unemployment, and the economy is calculated. They said that it was a "truer" measure of the economic health. It was not. It was designed to make things look better than what it is. And BTW, there are pockets that do well, as in every econs (during a depression, forclosure experts boom relative to normal time). Housing is a good one that was doing good due to the very low interest. Most of the other segments that are not real estate or federal spending related related, have limped along. And with the high federal and trade deficits it is hard to believe that we will make it back to where we were say during the 80's, let alone what we had in the 90's.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[Anonymous Coward]

>As for the Russians, they can produce good airframes and decent powerplants, but they lack sophistication

Just for the record, the F-35 is essentially a licence produced version of the russian Yakovlev Yak-141 fighter plane!

The original Yak-41 supersonic VTOL fighter interceptor plane had two prototypes that broke all world records for VTOL jet aircraft in 1988 with Mach 1.8 speed, but the demise of USSR stopped its funding for series production for small aircraft carrier ship use. In circa 1992-1994 the plane was redesigned by Yakovlev bureau as Yak-43 to feature land-based fighter-bomber functionality and dihedral sides for almost stealth level low radar-observability to compete in a state tender for the next-gen russian military aircraft. This is its outline of the Yak-43:
http://www.aviation.ru/Yak/Yak-43.jpg

It was disqualified for higher costs compared to traditional runway-based derivants of the Sukhoi-27 family and so only a static prototype mock was made of the Yak-43.

In 1995-1996 the Lockhead company purchased for several hundred million dollars of cash the blueprints, parts and technology of the Yak-41/43, including the revolutionary swivel afterburner turbojet engine.

They reworked the plane somewhat (replaced the vertical lift-only turbojets with a huge cardan-driven lifting fan), added more stealth and started to call it the USAF X-35 prototype. It won in comparison against the fat Boeing X-32 Mantaray plane and became designated as the F-35, but it is still essentially the russian plane. Credit is due where it is due.

Re:Is that for real?

[slashbart]

Hi our little Space Station project. Maybe your project isn't mission critical, but mine is at least pretty high on the list.
:-)
Bart

Bit of politics....

[supersnail]

Could be that us Brits are deeply uncomfortable with any deal involving the US at the moment.
The current US adminisration is deeply unpopular in Britian with almost everyone except Tony Blair.
Now Tony is on the way out the US is losing its British cheer leader.
None of the potential new leaders see any politcal adavantage in a "special" relationship with the US, to the extent that even a closer alliance with the hated French is the now prefered option.

Considering centuries of mutual hate and loathing there is between the Glorious subjects of her Brittanic Majesty and the unwashed garlic chewing frogs it is one of the great acheivments of the Bush dynasty to get the US rated below the French in British public perception.

Re:Is that for real?

[Runefox]

Actually, the British Royal Air Force is probably planning to use the same armaments as the EF-2000 is primarily going to use - The MBDA Meteor for BVR combat, and the AIM-132 ASRAAM for short. It would only make sense to use a common armament across all operational aircraft, and having the F-35 carry Sidewinders while the EF-2000 carries ASRAAMs would be fairly costly. However, I can see both the JSF and the Typhoon using Sidewinders and AMRAAMs during the early introductory stages, as they're "tried and tested" weapons. As more Meteors and ASRAAMs are put into production, Europe as a whole will see the Sidewinder and AMRAAM/Sparrow phased out.

So, again, it would be costly for the RAF to stock both ASRAAMs and Sidewinders, or both AMRAAMs and Meteors when they only really need one from each category - More likely the ASRAAM and Meteor. If they're not given the source code to the systems on the JSF, they won't be able to adapt newer versions of the missiles to the weapons system.

Mind you, work is supposedly underway (as it's still in development anyway) with regard to fitting the Meteor into the weapons bay, since it's supposed to work out of the box, and I believe that the ASRAAM is already programmed to work. Problem is, if any new armaments or radically different variants come along (think AIM-9B versus AIM-9X and you get the picture), the RAF has to call on Lockheed Martin / US. Govm't to program it. Either that or contract with Microsoft for Automatic Windows Update for the JSF's OS.

So they're really getting a raw deal the way things are, and asking for the source is definitely within reason. It's not as though the source code would then be leaked onto the internet for script kiddies to make their own next-gen fighter jets out of or anything.

Re:Is that for real?

[Jesus_666]

The UK can always ditch the JSF in favor of the Eurofighter. Maybe it won't work as well for them as the JSF would have, but OTOH the Eurofighter is not a security risk capable of crippling the RAF.

I heard an Aussie RAAF F-18 pilot say...

[Shanep]

in a documentary...

That parts of jet fighters that the US had sold to other countries can be controlled remotely. He claimed that the US could disable the fire control computer of an enemy jet fighter from a US AWACS for example. Anyone know any more about this?

I've also heard that a certain big American corp that makes lots of things, including crypto hardware, puts backdoors or weaknesses in their products to be sold to other countries. Why on Earth would nations like some of those in the middle east and other nations less friendly to the US, buy computerized military hardware from the US!? Seems crazy to me.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[InfinityEdge]

Of course it all ends in how your government wants you to know, as, you will swear that North America and South America are two different continents because you saw it in your basic school but then again who do you thing is in control of that?.

Um, I swear that North and South America are seperate continents because THEY ARE DIFFERENT TECTONIC PLATES!

Do you not believe in tectonic plate theory? Even without tectonics, North and South America are seperated by water on all sides (with a little help from a canal), that alone should warrent seperate continent status. Maybe you think Africa and Eurasia are one continent. Maybe you think there is no such thing as continents. Tell us the truth, are you an Intelligent Drifting proponent? A flat earther? An anti-continental? How do you define "continent" such that North and South America are one?

Re:Is that for real?

[JediTrainer]

Since you can't *give* the Canadians weapons

Right. And when Canada buys weapons from another country we get used pieces of crap that nobody else wants. We don't buy new - we take the mothballed junk.

Brits with our tech?

[stlhawkeye]

I'm wary of giving the Brits that code. This is the same government that bought Westinghouse, the private storehouse for American nuclear technology, and then turned around and sold it to Toshiba which is going to leverage the technology in China.

Re:To be fair

[skogula]

Always been at peace with the brits? Who was it that burned the Whitehouse around 1813.

Yes, ITAR is annoying

[default luser]

It's thanks to lovely things like ITAR that I can't even CALL CANADA to get tech support.

Like many defense companies, we make use of many Dy-4 products (now owned by Curtiss-Wright). The only problem? Dy-4 is a CANADIAN company.

So, in order to get tech support with Dy-4, I have to go through a specially-designated contact who has an export license for just this sort of thing. This wouldn't be a problem, except he is the only person with said export license, and has to serve all sorts of people.

I can't even EMAIL these people about a technical issue without someone holding my hand, even if I know it's not critical information.

Re:Assembly???

[general_re]

Quite so, but it's still more or less a de facto standard for avionics. And for this project in particular:

http://archive.adaic.com/docs/reports/ajpo/transit ion-support/html/3.htm

Liberation of USA

[Anonymous Coward]

British need the source code to be able to help Liberate America from the Bush dictatorship in a few years.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, Australia isn't a European country, as a quick look at any terrestrial globe would tell you.
Second, Indonesia is our near neighbour, and Indonesia happens to be the largest Muslim country in the world. Not far from Indonesia is Pakistan, another Muslim super power, this one almost certainly with access to nuvlear edevices. Alongside Pakistan is India, with one of the largers military forces in the world - not Muslim, but also expansionist by nature.
Third, a lot of our hardware (and wetware) is employed in Dubya's crusade against the Muslims in the Middle East (notice the similarity betweeen the beliefs of our near neighbours and the people our boys are shooting at?), and that hardware is largely sourced from the good ol' US of A.
Fourth, and most importantly - how dare you, presumably a citizen of the most heavily armed country in the world, tell me, a citizen of one of the most lightly armed countries in the world, that my tax dollars shouldn't be spent on defence equipment? I tell you what. You ditch all your weaponry, and THEN you will have the right to tell me that we don't need weapons. Until then, you stick to your knitting, and I'll stick to mine!