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

Is that for real?

[those.numbers]

Well, that's completely reasonable (note the sarcasm). It's insane to believe that we're even trying to withhold the code. I mean, would you buy a tv from a neighbor if they kept the remote? Chances are they'd hit the mute halfway through a Farscape rerun.

Re:Is that for real?

[Austerity Empowers]

You can use them against anyone but us. And uh, anyone else we don't want you dicking with.

This is a good reason not to offshore defense technology.

Re:Is that for real?

[w42w42]

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 :-)

Re:Is that for real?

[Stephen Samuel]

I'd say it's more like buying a car from your neighbour, and his crackhead son gets to keep the alarm control that runs a kill switch for the motor and can pop the locks on demand.

I mean, it's not like there's any real proof he'll use it (besides, he's in rehab right now and he's got a crush on your daughter), but....

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).

Re:Is that for real?

[drgonzo59]

Or, would I buy something as critical as an operating system without having access to its source code...oh...wait, nevermind.

Re:Is that for real?

[modecx]

If that's the deal, this ordeal has got to be mostly bullshit. All US/Europe/Japan fighters use NATO armaments, and it's my understanding that most every US armament that's designed to be carried by a fighter should also be compatible with any NATO fighter that has the avionics to support it, be they Gripens, Rafales, Eurofighters, Mirages, whatever. JDAMs, AMRAAMs, and AIM-9 missiles were all developed with NATO cooperation, it would be surprising to me if each weapon was built to support only one aircraft. And then in another way it wouldn't be very surprising to me, what with all the polotics.

The UK is an ally--since they're bringing so much money to our (remarkably depressive) economy, we should give them the code for any auditing or modifications they wish to undertake, AND we should help them solve any problems they perceive with the deployment of these aircraft, and just be done with it.

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:Is that for real?

[eericson]

Defenseindustrydaily.com had a pretty good article on the situation with the UK involvement on the JSF B variant and how it ties into their carrier project. The real driving force behind the Rafael deal is the French military. The short version is that since Dassault hasn't been able to find any export customers for the Rafael, the incremental cost has been driven up. As such, they want to find another customer in order to keep the production lines open longer. (Plus it means additional commonality between their carriers)

I don't see the RAAF or Royal Navy choosing the Rafael, it's half a generation behind the JSF and it also means having to add catapult and arrestor gear to their next gen flatop.

Re:Is that for real?

[Mutatis Mutandis]

Weapons are by no means that standardized. Britain, France, Germany and some other NATO countries still develop their own missiles, and also various electronic and intelligence-gathering equipment, which is equally important.

The USA doesn't really like NATO weapons programs unless it can supply the weapons itself; its attitude is fundamentally protectionist and contains a lot of "NIH" syndrome. It has, for example, pulled out of the development of the ASRAAM missile and substituted its own AIM-9X.

For the UK, not having the source code might not only mean that it cannot integrate its own weapons, but also that it cannot sell its products to other JSF users. For example, ASRAAM has been sold to Australia for use on the F-18E. If JSF is a closed system, the USA could lock out any such competition and force buyers to purchase everything from US suppliers.

If that sounds paranoid... US officials have occasionally admitted that one of the goals of the JSF programme, at least it multinational aspect, is to drive other suppliers of combat aircraft out of business and ensure for the USA a monopoly on the supply of advanced defence equipment.

Of course one of the other reasons is to make foreigners pay some of the bills for US weapons development. The system is charming: participating nations have to pay a large fee upfront for allowing their industry to compete for JSF contracts. Then they are sold downrated equipment that is not as capable as the F-35 as operated by the USAF, USN and USMC (if it ever gets that far). One of the reasons the UK wants the source code, I assume, is that it wants to ensure that its aircraft will not be downgraded too much. (Nobody would take Washington's word for it... not any more.)

For the UK, JSF will be a bad deal. If the two planned RN large carriers are indeed completed, there is no real reason left to buy the F-35, and the British government may indeed be looking for a way to cancel its commitment to JSF.

Re:Is that for real?

[PC-PHIX]

So let's assume that the US does cough up the source code rather than risk losing the sale.

Just like if I gave you the code behind my website or program so that you could have peace of mind and/or integrate other systems with mine.
Check it, recompile it and compare it... Satisfied? Good. Sale goes ahead.

Sure, it does everything that it is supposed to according the owner's manual...

.....It also has several undocumented features that allow me backdoor access, remote control and /or streaming statistics, GPS co-ordinates. You get the idea.

The key here is trust. Can they trust the US to document the complete inner workings of the aircraft they are buying? Maybe.

If it is a matter of national security, should you be buying your weaponary and vehicles from another country as opposed to developing everything domestically? The answer of course is yes - if you want to share in a good concept and for your defences to be as good as theirs.

But unless they can be absolutely sure the source code provided is complete or unless they plan to recompile the known code that they can trust and overwrite the current version installed on every piece of equipment, they are going to end up having to trust them (the US) just as much as if the source code isn't given up to begin with.

This is one of the ultimate privileges and power of being the creator or programmer of a piece of technology. Lawsuits for contradicting a disclosure agreement of some sort are nothing against what that control is worth.

If you can't live with that, then I agree, "This is a good reason not to offshore defense technology.".

Australia wants it too!

[narkotix]

linky

We can fix it!

[SEWilco]

Gee, give us a few jets and we'll get right on writing Open Source Software for them...

Re:We can fix it!

[Comatose51]

I hate to be around when the emacs vs. vi and/or KDE vs. Gnome flame wars erupt. This time, it's going to be a literal flame war.

Re:We can fix it!

[Y-Crate]

"Gee, give us a few jets and we'll get right on writing Open Source Software for them..."

And the first time a pilot requests a feature, you guys will sigh heavily, roll your eyes and tell him there is a free terminal running emacs that he can get to work on immediately if it's so important. ;)

Come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Well after 1776 and 1812, can ya blame America for a little fail-safe? /tongue_in_cheek

The real reason.

[gklinger]

America's reticence to hand over the source code has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with embarrassment. Why? The plane's control software in Visual Basic.

The F-22 Under GPL!

[flyingrobots]

Maybe they'll post it on Sourceforge ;)

Not quite an alarmist reason for the software

[Anonymous Coward]

With all that code, they don't want to buy this plane and then find out that it'll cost them a SIGNIFICANT amount of money later down the road to integrate a new weapons system or sensor onto the aircraft. The US can't 'turn off the software', the software doesn't have a 'Windows Activation'-style system to tell it whether it can run the aircraft or not!

Command Navigation Program

[Swifti]

More info about the Joint Strike Fighter's navigation software here.

No order yet

[El Cabri]

I don't think that the UK has ordered any JSF yet. What they did is pay part of the development costs, in return for the promise of a share of the industrial pie when the plane enters production. Their high level of financial participation was also supposed to buy them some input in the specification and some sharing of classified technologies, but the Americans largely didn't carry out that part of the deal, which has provoked transatlantic tension lately.

The JSF is supposed to equip the RNs future carrier ships around around 2015. However as a response to the US Congress looking at cancelation of plans for a Rolls-Royce engine equiped version of the JSF, the British have hinted that they could very well start developing a naval version of the Eurofighter Typhoon, or even consider the already operationnal naval version of the French Rafale.

Re:No order yet

[gurudyne]

"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.

Nice to see...

[Black Parrot]

Nice to see how much confidence we inspire in our closest allies.

Small wonder our enemies don't trust us.

Nothing to see here

[lhoriman]

Lockheed's chief scientist, Dr. Gaius Baltar, stated last Friday: "There is absolutely, I repeat, absolutely, no way that the Joint Strike Fighters could be shut down with a software instruction".

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[j. andrew rogers]

I don't know why we keep going back.

Probably because the US has an aggressive R&D program that routinely produces superior combat aircraft systems. In the case of Australia specifically, they also get access (being old steady allies) to really fancy avionics and electronics packages which have no peer in the world of weaponry. The airframes and powerplants are extremely good too.

The airframe and powerplant is only modestly important in modern combat aircraft, though the US is very good at this type of design. The real selling point to countries like Australia is that they get more advanced versions of the software, electronics, and sensors -- the parts responsible for lethality and survivability to a very large extent -- which are one of the real strengths of US military R&D. The US will sell stripped down fighter jets to just about anyone, but they are very selective about the avionics as that is where the real capability lies in modern combat aviation. JSF is being sold with some very slick capabilities built-in; not quite F-22 level, but pretty close in many respects. Nobody else is selling anything comparable, and the closest competitor is the Eurofighter.

Australia buys US aircraft because the US is willing to sell it very advanced avionics and electronics for those aircraft. The US has no competitor at the very high-end of the quality/effectiveness market, which for military purposes is pretty important, particularly if you are a non-populous country like Australia that cannot rely on quantity to make up the difference.

As far as real security goes

[stox]

Having all the source code, and being able to trust it, is only one facet of what is needed. Unless you can trust the entire tool chain, all the code embodied in silicon, etc., you can not fully trust the system. This brings up an interesting issue. Systems are geting so complex, there is simply not enough time to audit them to build real trust.

Watching Too Much StarTrek?

[Black Copter Control]

Of course, if the USA Military didn't have the idea before this, they do now.

"OK, Kahn. Here it comes....."

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

[CountBrass]

The US did something similar with atomic research: took all the work the UK had been doing on the understanding they would share the result (the A-bomb) and then refused to.

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" with the US: the only special relationship we have is the one where we bend over and drop our trousers on demand.

Re:Similar to USA-Japan Technology-Sharing Dispute

[Skinkie]

You probably forgot to mention that the resources (Marshall Plan) could only be spend in the USA. So there was a big benifit for the US economy aswell.

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

[nickos]

"there is only one special relationship in Washington, and that is with Israel" - one of Blair's advisers as quoted in "The Accidental American"

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:Smoke screen?

[csirac]

I don't remember hearing that any of the software associated with those programs was being denied to the end user.

Wrong, Australia was burnt with both the F/A-18 Hornet and F-111.

A Big Deal: Australia's air combat capability:

There are a number of lessons to be learnt from the experience of industry involvement in the F/A-18 program...

... A further significant hangover from the F/A-18A program was caused by the unsatisfactory handling of technology transfer and of intellectual property. Australia had expectations that, as a consequence of our large capital outlay, significant technology relating to manufacture and support of the aircraft would be transferred to Australia and access would be granted to software source code. Australia's expectations were not met, although when considered against our ability to usefully exploit the software code they may have been unrealistically high. Perhaps the core of the software issue was our lack of access to the source code needed for a full understanding of the aircraft radar, and an inability to reprogram the electronic warfare system in accordance with Australian requirements.

Countries generally want to be self-sufficient, or at least don't want to be trapped into being dependant on others.

Also important is that instead of the government allowing native defense contractors to take on upgrade projects, we are forced into using (expensive) US ones. So that expense goes into a black-hole, it doesn't stimulate our own economy or develop our own aviation industry.

This is not comparable to desktop software at all.

They're right. Do we care? If so, then what?

[eagl]

The issue is very valid. The question is twofold - Is the US willing to fully share ALL of our military technology with any other country during a period of relative peace (even as strong an ally as the UK), and what price are we willing to pay to keep our most advanced military capabilities to ourselves? Security vs. the budget. A military expert will say that it's stupid to spill all your secrets to ANYONE because mere knowledge of a capability is enough to allow an adversary (or potential adversary) to begin defeating that capability. A budget planner will say that without sharing the technology with partners who will share the program costs, we can't afford to build the hardware so those capabilities would remain purely theoretical (worthless).

Maybe it's better to do the basic research ourselves but not go that final step to building the hardware until we actually need to use it. This seems to happen a lot, holding back expensive upgrades and hardware purchases until a conflict kicks off, then funding/fielding the new stuff immediately as the budget expands when a conflict arises. But the JSF is such a massive project, it may not be possible to back-burner the program as a US-only effort. That means we may have to compromise some very unique capabilities in order to be able to actually field them ourselves. Tough choice.

Can't blame the JSF partners for playing hardball though... The JSF is almost entirely software driven as almost every single system is operated via a touch-screen interface instead of traditional switches, so not having the source code means that when something breaks, fixing it is somewhat more problematic than replacing a defective hardware switch. If you don't have the code, you have a really expensive flying Xbox that could quit working without warning and can't possibly be repaired.

You can't even replace busted hardware without the required software, because the hardware is all operated and tested via software. You can't just flip a switch to test the radar, because the switch is controlled by the computer which (should) report system status and troubleshooting data if it quits working.

A sensible approach would be to distribute an export version of the software, but I'm pretty sure that the original contract did not include parallel-but-equal lines of code development. To duplicate a multi-million-line codebase at this stage in the program would be cost prohibitive. You'd think they would have thought of this before... Like 15 years ago...

absolutely sane thing to ask for

[nickgrieve]

absolutely sane thing to ask for

Its a weapon of war, so if your going to use it when it counts, and not just a few flybys at an air show, then your going to be at war. Who knows what state of war that will be, it could be a few sorties to bomb a wedding party or two, or it could be full nuclear MAD, lines of communication could be down, satellites down etc etc...

If you can't update an modify the software when you need it, those planes could be as good as craters in the runway.

Sounds reasonable - take the Israeli example

[horacerumpole]

As far as I'm aware, the F-15I (the Israeli version of the F-15) has its entire software built in Israel. I heard that all versions of F-15's have at least some of their systems built by Israeli sub-contractors.

You can take an example from the commercial world - I worked for startups which had to put their source code in escrow as part of pilot agreements with Fortune-100 companies.

So I don't think it's unreasonable or even extra-ordinary for the Brits to want the source too. Just prudent.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[TubeSteak]

The US has no competitor at the very high-end of the quality/effectiveness market,

Ummm... the Ruskies?

I'm sure they'll get around to developing a stealthy aircraft one of these days. And when they do, it'll be able to land on a dirt strip w/gear up not destroy itself.

The F-35 just got downrated in it's stealth capabilities & now countries (UK, Aussies and others) are saying "WTF, why should we buy that when it can't even compete with the Sukhoi Flankers.

Here's the article I read a few days ago It's on the end of page 1 & beginning of page 2 that they explain why exactly the JSF is going to suck.

The airframe and powerplant is only modestly important in modern combat aircraft, though the US is very good at this type of design.

Actually, everyone and their cousin is worried about the sole engine design for the new F-22 and F-35. The military types think it'd be a disaster if Pratt & Whitney is the only company that sells a suitable engine. GE & Rolls Royce have a joint program to design an alternate turbojet and they're lobbying hard to maintain their funding.

So, I'm sorry to directly contradict you, but the powerplant is absolutely critical. So critical, that the DoD is willing to pump billions into making sure there is a completely separate engine design that can be used. Not to mention that if you read the linked articles above, the F35 got downrated because the airframe design is less stealthy when you're looking up the exhaust.

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.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[j. andrew rogers]

The F-35 just got downrated in it's stealth capabilities [google.com] & now countries (UK, Aussies and others) are saying "WTF, why should we buy that when it can't even compete with the Sukhoi Flankers.

The F-35 was designed from inception as an exportable combat aircraft. It is the replacement for the F16/F18, does not have all the features and capabilities of the F-22, and is intended to be "strippable". On the other hand, it is a lot cheaper than the F-22. It can properly be placed somewhere in between Cold War era combat jets (F14/F15/F16/F18) and the current state-of-the-art (F22).

As for the Russians, they can produce good airframes and decent powerplants, but they lack sophistication in the high-end electronics/software/sensors that pretty much make or break a combat aircraft today. The Russians are not producing anything better than western Europe these days, and are slipping further behind because they cannot afford to spend the kind of money required to keep up. A Sukhoi Flanker would be dead right around the time it even knew it was being engaged. The only comparable jet to the F-35 is the Eurofighter platform, though the capability mix is different.

While I understand why the F-35 was developed, it is kind of an ugly and unremarkable jet. It is still very capable, particularly with the smashing avionics/software the US can put in the thing, but was never designed to be the "ultimate" anything. Of course, the F16 has a similar history but turned out to be an extremely successful combat aircraft.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[digitalchinky]

I wouldn't be so quick to say the russians are not producing good product, one example is the slotback radar in the Mig 29 - it is easily as good as anything built in recent times by any other country. (I'm an ex ELINT weenie so I can speak with some knowledge on the subject)

The Russians are as good as anyone else. This whole stealth thing is rendered fairly useless by using multiple ground receivers in ones radar system anyway.

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:Folks, the Cold War is over

[10Ghz]

The real selling point to countries like Australia is that they get more advanced versions of the software, electronics, and sensors -- the parts responsible for lethality and survivability to a very large extent -- which are one of the real strengths of US military R&D.

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.

The US has no competitor at the very high-end of the quality/effectiveness market

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.

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).

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

[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:Not really...

[Noryungi]

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 /.

Re:Folks, the Cold War is over

[10Ghz]

Not so neck and neck.

Well, yes:

"One advantage of having flown the Eurofighter, General Jumper said, is that it allows him to get first-hand knowledge of technology U.S. allies use and to see how America's handiwork stacks up. He said he believes the two aircraft are running neck-and-neck, but America must always be vigilant to ensure it stays on the cutting edge of aviation technology."

So he clearly disputes your claim of "they are not neck and neck". What you are doing is that you are looking at some paper-specs. He has actually flown both. Have you flown either of them? No? Then what makes you the expert on this field?

Here is the quote by the only pilot who has flown both.

I don't see any indication of "F-22 is better than Typhoon" in that quite. I see him saying that they are two different planes with different design-goals, so comparing them is difficult.

In March 2003, during a combat training flight, 1 F-22A went against 5 F-15C Eagles. During the exercise, the F-22A shot down all F-15's without being damaged

Two F-15's tried to ambush Typhoon during joint exercises. The Typhoon outmanouvered them both and shot them down. Of course, it wasn't 5:1 engagement, but it was an engagement where the F-15's started from behind the Typhoon, and the Typhoon-pilot didn't even know that they were planning to ambush him.

In addition, the F-22 has a superior radar to the Typhoon in the Raytheon and Northrop Grumman AN/APG-77 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar

Of course you can find individual mareas where F-22 is better than the Typhoon, and vice versa. Typhoon has superior man-machine interface and the AA-missile being developed for it is clearly superior (faster, longer range, more agile) to the AMRAAM that is used in the F-22.

What is this, a pissing-match? I quoted a pilot that has flown both. And he said that they are "neck and neck" (of course there are differences, since they have different design-goals). Then some Random slashdotter pulls some specs and claims "no, he's wrong. Just look at the specs!". While F-22 is usually placed before the Typhoon in AA-effectiveness, it should also be noted that F-22 costs over twice as much as the Typhoon does (F-22: $152M, Typhoon: $74M)

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

[1u3hr]

So tell me, who is going to be attacking Australia? Who is going to attack them from the air

Look at a map for God's sake. Do you notice a large archipelago just over a narrow strait? A nation with 10 times the population of Australia that has invaded neighbours several times in my memory. They could ship troops over by the million without a strong air and naval capacity to stop them. If Muslim fundamentalists came into power it could get very hostile overnight, considering our PM has sent out trops into Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention putting tropps in East Timor when it seceded from Indonesia (that was the right thing to do, though it pissed off the Indonesians).

Re:Licence agreement?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Why not just return the missiles? Saves on postage and packing, and has a very low rate of vendor complaints afterwards. ;-)

Re:To be fair

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

We are at peace with the Brits; We have always been at peace with the Brits. =)