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15 Mar 2006
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 defence 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.
Further reading
"We do expect this technology transfer to take place. But if it does not take place we will not be able to purchase these aircraft," said Lord Drayson.
The problem stems from strict US guidelines on the transfer of technology to other countries. Under current rules any British requests for the use of US technology can take 20 days to go through, obviously limiting the usefulness of a jet strike force.
Lord Drayson is currently in Washington to speak to members of Congress. His tough talking on the project includes the fact that Britain has a 'Plan B' if the Joint Strike Fighter deal falls through.
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Do you agree?
uncle sam
Hey Uncle Sam The AV8-B was fine after British pilots taught your guys how to fly it properly. pull back on stick - houses get smaller ...etc
Posted by: david 28 Feb 2007
Joint strike fighter
When every country outside U..S..A is treated with contempt by the present and past leaders then I see no reason why they should have our technology. GB has and will always have leaders in their fields and I see no reason why we should always go in with our under-dog attitude
Posted by: Sentinel 06 Jan 2007
Concorde?
Not all European aircraft designs are 'crap'. Concorde was (and is) a technical marvel. It was profitable when it was retired and only suffered when it was introduced due to a global economic downturn and the oil crisis. Other European-designed aircraft that are good: Eurofighter - delayed by politics but definitely the second best aircraft in the world behind the far more expensive (and limited mostly to air superiority) F-22. The Tornado - superior to any US strike aircraft in the USAF inventory. The RAF Lightning -faster climb rates and acceleration than any other fighter *ever*. There are plenty of great European aircraft designs, unfortunately bad project management and politics often get in the way. The US make plenty of great warplanes as well, such as the F-14,-15 and -16. But they also make stinkers (like the F-18 Super Hornet) too. The JSF/F-35 by the way is a compromise design which please few in payload etc. Without the technology transfer buying the JSF would be suicidal and would tie us to using American weapons only etc.
Posted by: Ben M 05 Jan 2007
Let them have the euro fighter
Sorry to say, but if the brits want to jump ship and buy a worthless aircraft, by all means. Europeans cant design aircraft worth a crap. Lets see, concorde flop, A-380 flop, and the plane that the JSF is replacing, the AV-8B, has killed more american pilots then any other. Hell when I lived on base i used to here about them going down all the time. And to say that your military comes in and saves us is a load. If it wasnt for us you be speaking german. Haha, ze brits are wankers, no? About the only good british plane was the spitfire, maybe they should spend 12Billion on remodeling those.
Posted by: Uncle Sam 11 Dec 2006
macaroni-feather
umm.. before anyone gets all conspiricied up, perhaps the military-types want this to go through, but they are trapped in beurocratic red-tape, and the politicians that set the deal up, being politicians, had no clue about the technical details of this possibility
Posted by: macaroni-feather 10 Dec 2006
Britain should go it alone without the US
As an American reading the comments on this board I for one would be ecstatic if you all went your own way and did not require anymore U.S. aid or assistance. Way too many American "cowards", according to a poster here, have died pulling Britains chestnuts out of the fire when you could not extricate yourselves from situations that you made. Good luck.
Posted by: Jeff 10 Dec 2006
Check out the movie "Deterrent"
The movie esssentially ends with Iraq having Nuclear bombs it purchased from France which they succeed in launching but they were pre-programmed not to explode on NATO targets. The nukes hit the ground as expensive duds. In the movie, I would suppose Iraq did not get access to the source code to the nukes they bought. In this scenario, not divulging strategic source code to protect NATO countries makes sense. Extrapolating this to the fighter planes is not so far-fetched if we consider "What if Britain or the U.S. sold JTF/X-35 Fighter planes to potential enemies?" Not divulging the source code in this scenario is probably a good thing considering having massively superior technology is probably the most important ingredient to submit any hostile country's will and have the hostile country refrain from attacking any NATO country. That said both Britain and U.S. trust each other concerning Nukes. I don't understand the reluctance to cooperate on JTF source code. Both are guarded with security measures I am guessing. Considering most of the U.S. presidential candidates are almost all blood-related with their British NATO allies I don't understand what the problem is. I don't foresee Britain doing anything to damage the U.S. and vice-versa. It would make no sense to sell JTF's and Nukes to their potential enemies, but hey I may be naive on that point.
Posted by: anonymous 10 Dec 2006
software codes
all the software does is run the systems. its nothing like a desktop, you cant hack it or upload patches that shutdown the plane!! it will be available, just not as soon as they want it (20 days).
Posted by: lameo 10 Dec 2006
all about the rules
"Under current rules any British requests for the use of US technology can take 20 days to go through, obviously limiting the usefulness of a jet strike force." The big fuss is about a 20 day period they have to wait. how is waiting 20 days going to make 12 billion worth of jet aircraft less useful. is the real reason they are buying them to attacking another country early next week? thats the only reason i can think of the 20 day wait being a problem. even they have export rules and policies. id doubt they would overstep their rules for us.
Posted by: mos7wan7ed 10 Dec 2006
Keep our dominance
It always makes my heart sink when I hear that the US is letting other countries have our brand new technology. I'd prefer that we don't even sell the F-35 period. If you want the best fighter plane, go build your own. That's what we do. Do you really think you can just flash $12bn in our face and convince us to give up our air superiority? You'd do the same thing if you were in our position.
Posted by: PlanBIsSecondBest 10 Dec 2006
EP is a DB.
Erwin Peters is a douchebag. Thank you.
Posted by: Erwin Peters 10 Dec 2006
Corporate take over of democratic governments
What our US people or our friends across the pond fail to understand is that this is not about the US vs.UK. This is about the multi-national keiretsu giving up trade secrets to another. In this case it is Locheed/Northrop/BAE against Panavia, etc. If you don't believe this then think about this, BAE is one of the prime contractors in the JSF project. This is a british born company. There is no national government anymore just the bottom line!
Posted by: David 10 Dec 2006
Two Faced Yanks again.
This is typical ! Use our country as a base, clutter up our airspace and give sod all in return. Have we never learned from the Chinook "Joke" they played on us??? Tell them to stuff their plane and their avionics. We should develop our own! They are jealous because we invented the Harrier and they didn't, had Concorde and they didn't, won the Falklands war while they lost in Vietnam and everywhere else too. Tell them to stuff their plane!!
Posted by: Mike 07 Dec 2006
The Rafale?
Is the Rafale Paln B or Plan C?
Posted by: Alastair Warren 30 Mar 2006
Plan B Please!
I can't believe we're here again! Do we never learn? Hasn't anything been learnt from the debacle of the 8 Chinook HC.3 helicopters bought at a cost of £259 Million? These Chinooks are currently restricted to flying above 500 feet in clear weather, and where the pilot can fly them using only external reference points without using the avionics systems. This means they can only be used for limited flight trials. I understand that five of them are anguishing unused in a hangar at Boscombe Down. Access to the software should have been one of the first issues discussed before even browsing the brochure. I really wish Lord Drayson would tell the Americans what to do with their JSF! The US Government who are keen to halve their budget deficit by 2009 now wants all of the engines for the JSF to be supplied by Pratt & Whitney reneging on a £1.36 Billion contract awarded to Rolls Royce last year. Regarding an earlier posting that mentioned the P-38 Lightning, the P-51 Mustang (the type that Christian Bale shouts 'P-51 Cadillac of the Sky' at towards the end of the film Empire of the Sun) was half the aircraft it was before it was fitted with US Packard made under licence versions of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine.
Posted by: Alastair Warren 23 Mar 2006
New Harrier
It wouldn't be too difficult to use the propulsion hardware from the old P1154 as the basis for a new generation of supersonic Harriers, using control systems from the VAAC and other avionics from the Typhoon. BAe already has all the technology it needs: its just a matter of putting it all together. Much of the airframe design work was also done years ago - partly from the GR5K project
Posted by: JS 22 Mar 2006
Defence uses of Windows
Certainly the US Navy use Windows, with predictable problems: http://www.applelinks.com/articles/1999/04/19990429124515.shtml There are all sorts of uses of Windows which are critical to UK security and anti-terrorism operations: police computers, MI5 laptops (as occasionally left on trains), and the proposed national biometric identity scheme.
Posted by: Pete 21 Mar 2006
Source code
If they are that afraid of the US maybe they should invade and get it over with. When I buy an item I decide if it is worth it or not, if they do not like the plane with the installed software then for gods sake buy something else.
Posted by: keith 19 Mar 2006
These people make HOW MUCH?!
For a country whose arms industry grosses in the billions and whose government and various military branches are all obsessed with having the bigger, better, gun they don't seem know what they're doing at all. Who in their right mind would buy or use aircraft that A: Need a code to be transmitted to start them up or B: Can have a code transmitted to them to shut them down in mid air that C: They don't control in either case. And given the current situation you'd have to be twice as stupid. Anybody buying these planes either failed to read the fine print or isn't cut out for their job. If affordability really takes priority over both reliability and performance then you might as well arm the infantry with sharpened sticks and give them old potato sacks as uniforms, because that's what you planned to do to your airforce, except that sharpened sticks and old potato sacks wouldn't be rigged to fail or explode on whim by an ally of ill repute.
Posted by: As Confused as I am Sarcastic 19 Mar 2006
It wouldn't be the first time
Feel free to correct me, but I believe the US has the ultimate choice over whether the UK can use any of its Trident missiles already, and has a policy of never selling military technology to another nation without including a backdoor off switch. Hence the need for an independant European alternative to GPS. However, this practice isn't exactly unique to the US, for example, following the sinking of HMS Sheffield during the Falklands war, France stopped supplying activation codes for Exocet missiles to Argentina, denying them the use of this system. I'd blame our governemnt for buying any military technology which requires the cooperation of another state to use, rather than the producers of the technology (I also remember the diffuculties the UK has had getting its very expensice new Apaches into service thanks to US technology transfer laws preventing them supplying the Pilot training programme for several years, costing us several hundred million in the process...)
Posted by: Charlie 17 Mar 2006
What about Iran?
This subject is germaine to the Sunburn and Exocet missiles in Iran. I wonder what the "real deal" is between Russia and Iran over the fire control systems for the Sunburns and also with France over the use of vastly improved Exocets against the US duck shooting gallery of capital and ancialliry naval forces in the Gulf?
Posted by: Tim C 17 Mar 2006
Stupid political posturing
1. The US has not declined to give this code. Most likely we just need to confer with legal to see if we can transfer it (the govt has contracts to honor too). 2. Try to imagine any scenario in which the US and Britain would let our relationship sour to the degree that you would legitimately fear America shutting off your aircraft. 3. I have a hard time believing that the US would allow this sort of back door that is alluded to exist in these posts. It is far better to not include one at all then to include one and risk it being used against you. 4. Nothing personal, but try to imagine any scenario in which shutting off the computers on a few aircraft would be the deciding factor in such a silly "war".
Posted by: Dan 17 Mar 2006
n00b
Yeesh, You are forgetting something. Freedom is not only for countries but also for people. If you say that your computer will not help you dominate the world... it might just help someone else dominate the world.
Posted by: cyrax 17 Mar 2006
difficult call
giving away the technology behind the weapons system is risky in a number of ways, Years ago Israel was allowed f16s to look at, they proceeded to dismantle and reverse engineer an made their own version. they did the same thing to the French building the Kfir "borrowing" mirage Technology. The early Migs were built with a "borrowed" technology fro the British...Rolls Royce engine copies. A few examples of prior problems in this area. Problems can be overcome, I don't see the US giving away F22 software, but in the joint fighter I would think something can be worked out. FWIW in a parallel situation Britain's Nuclear submarines carried a US Officer with the keys, as the nukes were US technology. That was and maybe is the way we've worked together before. I'm not sure, I retired 15 years ago, and am not in the military business anymore.
Posted by: B. Melvin 17 Mar 2006
re: no jsf without the code??!?!
i DO have acces to the OS-source code i execute every day on my machine, which is Debian GNU/Linux, and OpenBSD. And its more about the fact that US forces can take me out of the sky if my country cannot rewrite the code. Its a cowardly thing to do and typicly american. Your post made actually NO sense what so ever. And my amd system is not gonna keep me from being captured behind enimie lines as much as those 3 Cron supercomputers will. I will never fly a jet that can be taken out of the sky something as stupid as an american that pushes a button. I'd rather stick to the F16-A. Or DRAF should get eurofighters wich we intended to do so in the first place, or the SU-31 like the chinese do. agian: THINK BEFORE YOU POST.
Posted by: Erwin Peters 17 Mar 2006
Much ado about nothing
Come on, people - the "hardware" that comprises the JSF is just as advanced and export-restricted as the software that drives it. Yet it's still being shipped across the pond. The stakeholders in this multi-billion-dollar deal (both the US and the UK, both private and public entities) aren't going to let it fall through over source code. This story is nothing more than an attempt to get people riled up, and it looks like it succeeded. Time to move on.
Posted by: Helixx 16 Mar 2006
To the American "Patriots"
I'm sure you'd agree to give someone else an "off"-switch for your pacemaker, too, hmmm? And I presume you'd think it's OK for the UK to be given an off switch for our weapons, too? Golden rule. Someone writes: Well, you trust Microsoft.... Who trusts Microsoft? Only idiots. I may use Microsoft, but only because they dominate the market -- that doesn't mean I _trust_ them.
Posted by: blog responder 16 Mar 2006
watchout!
Plan B = throw boiled meat at the enemy!
Posted by: spam in a can 16 Mar 2006
JSF For Aus is a bad idea also
The whole JSF project is turning out to be a bad joke as far as partner nations are concerned....the Royal Australian Air Farce also has a contract to purchase the a compliment of JSFs. This despite the facts that a) according to the manufacturer's website, the JSF has been downgraded to "flashing red light" on the radar signature front and b) it lacks the range ans strike potential of the F111 fleet that it is replacing, despite the fact the the F111 was designed in the 1960s!!!
Posted by: Julian Doyle 16 Mar 2006
eurofighter typhoon
they can just stick with eurofighter typhoon for dogfighting and clearing out enimies, or write their own software for the plane. im not gonna get into a jet thats controlled by americans. i might even switch to a cooper or a apache. no jsf without the code.
Posted by: erwin peters 16 Mar 2006
Same old song and dance
As an American, I am appalled. But of course this is not the first time... In 1942 or so the US sent some of the first P-38 Lightenings without the superchargers that would have made them a match for the Axis planes. These "castrated lightening" were never used if I recall. D
Posted by: D 16 Mar 2006
Linux is better
They should just run Linux on it.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward 16 Mar 2006
no jsf without the code??!?!
You say 'no jsf without the code,' yet you use an operating system without the code. Do you trust Microsoft that much. What assurances do you have that they can't switch off your computer at any time?
Posted by: flashbck 16 Mar 2006
Thats Cool
Let them use Plan B, Why should we care? They are only hurting themselves and risking thier own pilots lives with the subgrade equipment that they design.
Posted by: Jason 16 Mar 2006
Finally... the UK comes around
Did the UK really think that the US would not include a 'kill switch' in the software? Well my friends across the pond, I'm happy to see that you've come around to the devious tactics that the US government has up it's sleve. By all rights you should protect yourselves from what the New World Order here in the states is all about... either get the code, or scrap the purchase.
Posted by: Concerned US Patriot 16 Mar 2006
Typical Septic Tanks
When will you guys learn that you are dealing with the most effective army in the world. Yes the US army is bigger and splashes the cash at will but who do you call when you need help.... The british army. Unfortunately for you guys our plan B won't be substandard technology. Why would you buy a technology that a present friend can turn off at will and leave you in danger. You have to look after your own men's lives first. I think they will give the codes anyway.
Posted by: Adam Murphy 16 Mar 2006
Screw the American control freaks!
The idea that the British military should purchase planes with off switches controlled by a foreign power is rediculous; the consequesnces are a little higher than microsoft recieving anonymous user data from within Windows. As for plan B, if it involves the eurofighter then I'm all for it. From what I've heard the eurofighter is leagues ahead of the JSF; not least because it is a far more open and fair project.
Posted by: Anonymous 16 Mar 2006
Sensible
Its is ridiculous for any major state to have a weapons system they do not have complete control over. Plan B is a fly-by-wire variant of the Harrier called the VAAC Harrier. Its not ideal, obviously, as its only evolutionary, but presumably still cheaper than the JSF.
Posted by: Werdna 16 Mar 2006
dear flashback
HMG does have access to the source-code for Windows.
Posted by: anthonyberet 16 Mar 2006
Yeesh
To the idiot that says we use our operating systems without demanding the source code: My computer isn't a billion dollar jet. Nor will it help me defend my self in an air battle. Nor is it key to my military defense. Think before you post.
Posted by: Keeton 16 Mar 2006
codes
Good idea, maybe someone in dc does have a brain. If we don't approve of how a US manufactured weapon is being used, we simply turn it off.
Posted by: Rocky Racocoa 16 Mar 2006
Importance
If Microsoft locks me out of my computer then well, i'll read a book. If I was a British pilot and the US locks me out of my plane I crash and die. See the difference. Have the source code would allow the British to fix problems in the code that are there in the first place, which the americans would probably sell to them for a cost, it also allows them to customize their aircraft to their weapons systems and to improvments they may make to the radar or guidance systems. So if the British drop the sale the US is out 12 billion pounds, prolly close to 14 billion dollars, this would also endanger the sale of the aircraft to the other nations. Meaning the US would be out of alot of money and the British would have, whats most likely a better plane. Either that or try and rebuild the Avro Arrow, test data showed that it performed better than current american aircraft, missing the electronics yes, but a better airframe and motor
Posted by: Quakefire 16 Mar 2006
This isn't unique.
FYI, Australia is currently considering canceling its order, since the stealth capability got downgraded again. The US needs to urgently fix this program or they'll post a huge loss.
Posted by: Yirimyah 16 Mar 2006
Keeping it simple
Who says that there is an "off switch" anayway? Would you realy want there to be a possibility of someone who hack s the code to be able to turn off your jet? This is just some parinoid politician, or a politician with an agenda that's just making things up.
Posted by: The truth 16 Mar 2006