@toxomat I think more interesting is the part of getting all the little secrets. The airframe itself is pretty boring, likely we can build something better, but reverse ingeneering the software will help Europe and it's partners to save a lot of time developing our own 5th gen fighter or even 6th gen.

@littlealex
Sounds interesting, yes. I can't say whether that would work out but in any case we'd just need to buy one of them to do that .

@littlealex if one knows that your billion dollar air defense system **can** be hacked you **need** to do it yourself – if only before your enemy succeeds!

Imagine Russian air force approaching and your planes are disabled – because Putins hackers were at it before yours were.

@littlealex Truth

@drwho I'd contest that. but maybe not all humans. If you leave regular people alone, without propaganda and lies, they will come together.just fine. That's my experience.

@littlealex @toxomat

I dont know that we could do the basics tough? The last European jet fighter development projects were in the 1980s. Eurofighter, Rafale, Grippen.

Basically, if you worked on the development of those planes as a first job out of school, you're now pushing retirement age.

@Zamfr @toxomat Not quite true. Some of the develepment as well as production of the F-35 took place in the EU. Some parts are build in Europe.

Additionally, airplanes, especially military airplanes, are constantly upgraded and a lot of development goes into this. There is a lot of experience in aircrafts, avionics and other related stuff in the EU.

@littlealex
@ocrbot

@LeelaTorres
Clash Report @​ @​clashreport: 1h X
BIG: Dutch Defence Minister Gijs Tuinman
hints that software independence is
possible for F-35 jets.

He literally said you can “jailbreak” an
F-35.

When asked if Europe can modify it
without US approval:

“That’s not the point... we’ll see whether
the Americans will show their true colors.’

by

And then he dropped this:

“I'm going to say something I should never
say, but I'll do it anyway. Just like your
iPhone, you can jailbreak an F-35. I won't
say more about it.”

Source: BNR Nieuwsradio Podcast

@littlealex @toxomat
Yes, I know. But there is no more experience, neither personal or institutional, in running an entire project. That comes with a great risk that a project spins out of control, unable to meet the exlected capabilities, costs and timelines
until it gets cancelled.

Imagine the F35 project with its setbacks, but now run by people who never did that before, and the costs divided among multiple distrusting governments, who also have no experience managing such a project...

@Zamfr @toxomat

I think there are organizastion capable of handling such a project in Europe, like Airbus. The biggest but are the politicians and their interests. I am sure they will be able to slow down or even completely break the most capable actor.

@toxomat After a jailbreak they'd obviously need to replace some of the software , or at least data for mapping/targeting/EW. Not easy, so they better have already started preparing. @littlealex

@littlealex

@ryan @littlealex
Bravo

@ryan @littlealex I would. If I had the skillset and access to an F-35. Given the regime in power where the F-35 comes from, it would be idiotic not to. Or they could continue to pretend Trump is their friend until he pulls something and they find their planes bricked. That’s a choice too.

@littlealex @toxomat
That's far from obvious! The FCAS project is collapsing, which seems driven by the belief of Dassault and the French government that working with Airbus is only delaying the project. The German government is buying additional F35s (and rumours about joining gcap) suggesting that they are not convinced either.

Note that Airbus-the-aircraft-manufacturer is not involved much. They got burned on the a400m and dont want more. Its their missile subsidiary mostly

@drwho @schnedan @littlealex A human that is not able to live in peace shall not own a fighter jet.

@littlealex
FJaaS, Fighter Jet as a Service..
going on as it started..

@Zamfr It's hard to do arms projects with Germany, not so much because of production delays but because export control is so fierce - you'll have a much harder time recouping your costs by selling to random backwater dictatorships when that needs to go through parliamentary approval.

As such, it's in Dassault's interest to get more of the project on their side, both immediately (more project money spent on them rather than German partners) and long-term (all those additional deals), and the French government would like to keep the current investment split while getting a larger piece of the pie, too.

Of course that changes the economics for Germany, which agreed to some workload / investment split under the assumption that the German public money going into the project will prop up its own industry to a given degree.

I guess the weird thing is that other countries still try to co-develop weapons with Germany

@littlealex That guy should be shot for saying what he did. Cancelled a big advantage that we might have had.