480
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
480 points (100.0% liked)
Canada
8928 readers
1389 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Related Communities
🍁 Meta
🗺️ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
🏙️ Cities / Local Communities
- Calgary (AB)
- Edmonton (AB)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Guelph (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Windsor (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
Sorted alphabetically by city name.
🏒 Sports
Hockey
- Main: c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Montréal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Football (NFL): incomplete
Football (CFL): incomplete
Baseball
Basketball
Soccer
- Main: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
💻 Schools / Universities
- BC | UBC (U of British Columbia)
- BC | SFU (Simon Fraser U)
- BC | VIU (Vancouver Island U)
- BC | TWU (Trinity Western U)
- ON | UofT (U of Toronto)
- ON | UWO (U of Western Ontario)
- ON | UWaterloo (U of Waterloo)
- ON | UofG (U of Guelph)
- ON | OTU (Ontario Tech U)
- QC | McGill (McGill U)
Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.
💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales
- Personal Finance Canada
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Buy Canadian
- Quebec Finance
- Churning Canada
🗣️ Politics
- General:
- Federal Parties (alphabetical):
- By Province (alphabetical):
🍁 Social / Culture
Rules
- Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
F-35 is the most advanced aircraft currently available. We've also already sunk enough money into the program to pay for the first 16 IIRC. This puts us in an awkward position, considering the possibility of degraded functionality of the F-35 without US assistance^1^.
One of the worst ways to balloon military spending without getting anything in return is to keep changing your mind and hanging procurement up in endless indecision. Combined with the money already spent, I think we have to stick with F-35 for at least a bit.
I like the Gripen, and I'd suggest a switching some of our 88 fighters to Gripen's, but apparently Gripen's aren't that much cheaper.
Long term though, I think Canada should get in on GCAP, the Global Combat Air Program. It's not expected to deliver until 2035 if everything sticks to plan, so we'd still need the F-35 or Gripens I was mentioning in the interim.
^1^ My understanding is that the "kill-switch" myth is pretty much that, a myth. There are software systems that depend on the US, apparently ALIS/ODIN, plus the MDF file updates. The possibility of a kill-switch can't be totally excluded IMO though, there is a lot of software in the F-35, and the US writes and patches it all. Even if there isn't a kill-switch, the US knows what vulnerabilities they are patching, and if any of them where exploitable, I'd imagine they'd know.
As long as you can service and maintain them. Without a reliable supply chain for parts and servicing, they’re just expensive decorations.
Absolutely. This is the true "kill switch". Turning off support for most US made weapons means killing them.
As I've said elsewhere the ECM pod updates can only be done by US staff. Without this week's pod frequencies to hit the latest radar frequencies, the plane is a liability in the air because of it's cost.
There is no way the US is going to code "enemy" planes' ECM.
The F-35 program may well flatline from this upset.
Uncle Sam keeps his ECM frequencies under a pretty tight lock and key, speaking as someone who's had to service ALQ-99 pods.
The key thing you're missing here is that the programming of the ECM pod, the thing that makes the F-35 able to do what it does, the thing it's just an average 6th gen fighter without, is only done by US personnel.
Even if you could make the entire plane locally, parts wise, the US will not ever give out the pod code. Ever.
Because without it, the plane is worth less than nothing, it's a liability.
in west, but it may also be too advanced as root cause of its reliability and maintenance cost problems.
should demand refund for those 16.
$85m vs $109m is a fair bit cheaper. Again, the maintenance costs and flight readiness metrics matter significantly.
We don't need to focus on whether there is a "mid air kill switch or not", when we know there is a "make this a paper weight switch". Naive or disingenuous of you to say "if Lockheed finds a kill switch, they would surely patch it out"
Also, even without any malicious back doors it is still likely far easier to attack the software and electronic vulnerabilities of the aircraft as you said.