F-35 ‘Kill Switch’ potrebbe consentire a Trump di disabilitare l’aeronautica europea

There’s no kill-switch to anyone’s knowledge.

But like we’re seeing with Ukraine, US can just refuse to update the jamming (and the F35 stealth) software, and any enemy’s counter-jamming will be ahead in a matter of weeks.

Edit: And without jamming & stealth capabilities, it’s not even as useful as a significantly cheaper gen4 fighter would be.

It’s not quite a kill switch.

They’d still work, we could still fly missions and strike targets with them. It’s not like they’d stop turning on or fall out the air. But we would lose capabilities if cut off of US systems.

From what I’ve read it’s mainly maintenance, as well as stealth and jamming capabilities, which to be fair are all a huge part of the F35’s advantage over current gen aircraft.

We would be able to replace these ourselves eventually, but it would take a lot of time and effort.

So while this title is clickbait – it’s not completely without merit.

All of you people that call bullshit, you do realize 5th gen fighters are more akin to flying computers, than manual/physical jets right?

Hell, even the 4th Gen Eurofighters rely on up-to-date software to function.

Things like friend-or-foe decryption keys are things that have to be constantly updated.

Sure the F-35 can take off. But the US *can* make them effectively useless, by refusing to do maintenance of systems that purposefully require constant maintenance.

Same with cloud services, Starlink, and other American stuff. Trump could order to shut it all off, and then we’re royally fucked.

We’ve become extremely lazy and spoiled in Europe. We’ve become completely dependent on American services for our own protection. It’s sad that it took maniacs like Putin, Trump and Musk to finally wake us up. We should never have let this happen, but we did. The question now is not *if* we want our own systems, but *how long* it will take to get it. It needs to happen fast. We can’t rely on America and American services anymore.

We need our own F-35s, our own cloud services, preferably even our own operating systems, our own military satellite system, etc. etc.

But I’m still missing a sense of urgency with a lot of our political leaders. Eight hundred billion euros is a start. But it’s not enough. It’s not even that much, when you consider it’s spread over 4 years.

We need to fully switch to European aircraft even if they’re technologically behind because that’s the logical choice. The risks of trusting Americans are too great, and on top of that money needs to stay in Europe.

BUY EU 🇪🇺

How does this affect the future sales of Lockheed / General Dynamics / Raytheon worldwide?

Everyone knows that war planes (and other modern warcraft) have a connection to the manufacturer, and are at least partially under its control. But up to this week the assumption was that if a country (be it India, Finland or any other) gets the planes the manufacturer won’t intentionally use this function to cripple the planes.

Now we *KNOW* that US politics trump this rule. The result of US elections can disable or hurt weapons bought from US.

Everyone assumed and whined that the government of China has this level of control over their companies, but not US. Free enterprise and all that.

But who would want to buy weapons from US now, or ever after?

There is no kill-switch per-se, but there are launch codes. You have to enter them each time you want to start up an F-35. From what i’ve been able to find out since the last time an article like this was posted, it seems to me as if every F-35 customer gets a batch of these codes as allowance every now and then, and they have to request more when they start running out.

The US is fully capable of witholding these codes from its F-35 customers. I doubt the US MIC would be too fond of that happening because overnight it would destroy their market share on the global arms market. Countries would look towards alternatives like Dassault Rafale or even Sukhoi like Algeria has recently done. But with Trump in charge, who knows what could happen.

Stellantis bricked a lot of cars (mine included) with an over the air update. Had to force a flash with a USB drive or get it to the dealer.

I have no doubts the USA have the same capability, if not more.

Edit: not bricking my Peugeot… The F35s.

Europe needs to start making its own defense stuff, even if it’s not as efficient as buying from the U.S. Right now, the U.S. is acting more like a shady acquaintance than a real friend. I’d rather spend a bit more and keep our independence than rely on a partner who’ll ditch us whenever it suits them. This is what Trump wants so lets give it to him and isolate their dumbass country.

Cancel all f-35s

But the F-35 is a joint project. A lot of parts are made in NATO countries in Europe, and shipped to the US for assembly. Hypothetically, how much of a problem would the US have if we stopped supplying those parts?

Existing this kill switch or not. By know Europe has to use Typhoon, Mirage, Rafale, Super Gripen and other trustworthy allied countries made fighter jets, I don’t remember what nordic country is developing a 5, 5.5 or 6 generation one. And in the meantime develope it’s own.

And here we are.

The worst possible ending.

Nazi usa

That cannot possibly be a new concern. Are they really that dense? You either have full control over the machine or you don’t own it at all.

“I just want the killing to stop, so I disabled the f-35s. Where is my Nobel peace prize? The best Nobel peace prize ever given, some say.”

Are F35s made by John Deere too?

Seems a classic American trait to hold the ability to lock you out of a product after you pay for it.