[thinkingkong]

The part I thought was interesting was how Israel “secured rights to modify” their F35 deliveries. Like… what kind of airplane that costs 100s of millions requires additional contracts for “replace component” rights? How insane is this contract? Its so unreasonable to assume that the value of the fighter to the manifacturers is only in the maintenance. Its like the BMW heater subscription, only for national defence.

[ir77]

in past life i worked on the engine...

during development and going into first flight, it was fairly open discussion that israel 'was' an original partner whom was funded by usa, and thus why israeli flag was not on the a/c during promo but israel and their tech companies had input into development.

many times it was also discussed that israeli pilots would ask to have their engines deliver above spec thrust, sort of like tunning your turbo car... it created a whole logistical black hole but it certainly was technically possible. perhaps 15 years later someone finally figure out how to cater to that market.

[nradov]

When you have the only working 5th-generation multirole fighter on the export market then you can drive a pretty hard bargain. That's how monopolies work.

[Teever]

Wasn't the F-35 a collaborative project between many different countries?

So why don't those countries get equal access to the thing that they all went in on creating?

[nradov]

Some partners are more equal than others. There are 3+ program levels depending on how much funding they put into the initial development and how many units they committed to order. This impacts the level of access they get. The UK is the only Level 1 partner. Italy and Netherlands are at Level 2. Others are down at Level 3 (except Israel, which had sufficient political influence to negotiate a special deal despite a relatively small investment).

I sympathize with the F-35 customers who are now feeling uneasy about their choice due to recent changes in US foreign policy. But that's the risk you take when you fail to adequately fund your military and try to get by on the cheap. Most of them had the option of joining at Level 1 at the time, and had they done so they would have much more leverage today.

[motorest]

> I sympathize with the F-35 customers who are now feeling uneasy about their choice due to recent changes in US foreign policy. But that's the risk you take when you fail to adequately fund your military and try to get by on the cheap. Most of them had the option of joining at Level 1 at the time, and had they done so they would have much more leverage today.

Your personal opinion is proven to be absurd and baseless for the single fact that the UK, a level 1 partner, was very vocal in its frustration for the "lack of U.S. commitment to grant access to the technology that would allow the UK to maintain and upgrade its F-35s without U.S. involvement."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...

You need to face the fact that as of now the US is an unreliable and untrustable partner, and depending on them for defense, even when it's to meet their end of the treaties, is extremely risky.

[ashoeafoot]

Are we still pretending that any contract with the USA is binding ? Lets assume , trump kicks the bucket and vance succeeds him. Do you think a contract with Israel is still save, when a raging anti semite (who jumped selensky partlly because of that) is in power ? There are no laws, contracts and recourse in amedieval world. Sorry to all the unemployed lawyers

[Xmd5a]

>as of now the US is an unreliable and untrustable partner

always has been. Trump is just an excuse, a façade, to make that insincerity bearable. "There are two americas". Bullshit.

[fastasucan]

>But that's the risk you take when you fail to adequately fund your military and try to get by on the cheap. Most of them had the option of joining at Level 1 at the time, and had they done so they would have much more leverage today.

Weird logic. US is equally unrealiable no matter what level you bought yourself in to.

[SR2Z]

> But that's the risk you take when you fail to adequately fund your military and try to get by on the cheap.

Except it's nuts to pretend like this system hasn't been working out great for the US. Competent leaders have expanded it for a reason.

> Most of them had the option of joining at Level 1 at the time, and had they done so they would have much more leverage today.

I think that Trump/Vance have run their mouth about the UK in roughly the same ways that they have about Canada and Ukraine and your claim is far from obvious. We have leaders who are stupid and will trash a good thing without a second thought.

[refulgentis]

Well, no, unless they're also insisting on annexing the UK, and crippled UK military hardware while they're in an existential war. I haven't seen such reported.

[jhanschoo]

I don't see how your point is relevant to the current topic which is narrowly about how investment (or not) into the F-35 program relates to input into the direction of the program.

[SR2Z]

The UK is a Tier 1 partner. The administration seems like it's one Xanax-fueled dream away from saying the UK should be the 52nd state and suspending technical support in the exact same way the US has done to Ukraine.

That's the relationship between the two. The problem is not that these nations weren't Tier 1 partners. The problem is that the current administration cannot be negotiated with in the most damning sense of "these people can't even be trusted to work for their own self-interest."

[Teever]

I assume that the USA also a Level 1 Partner?

As the UK is also a Level 1 partner if they were so inclined they could provide the resources necessary to allow lower level partners to operate and maintain their F-35s?

[nradov]

No, neither the USA or UK are really independent on this program. They are mutually dependent on each other.

The USA does have all of the technical data packages so in theory we could probably get domestic suppliers to make the components we currently get from the UK but it would take several years. The reverse isn't true, though. The UK simply no longer has the capacity to support such a complex program on their own. They sacrificed their defense industry years ago and accepted dependence on the USA so that they could fund social programs.

[cherryteastain]

UK, Italy and Japan are building a 6th gen fighter right now [1], with UK acting as the de facto most senior partner.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Combat_Air_Programme

[Teever]

I'm not suggesting that the UK attempts to make all the parts that are made in partner countries, merely that they have access to the information required to do so.

If that's the case they maybe they would be able to help the other partner countries develop the parts that they would otherwise require America to make.

[wrs]

I have read that the base price of a Boeing/Airbus jet is typically negotiated below zero, based on the decades of maintenance contracts and spare parts that will have to be purchased over its lifetime.

[ir77]

the above is absolutely true on the commercial engine side, especially for government subsidized companies such as RR... there is a big contention against RR's practices but most mfgs still give the engines at a very large discount, not negative. i don't think it's true for the actual airframe, the numbers would be completely off and airframe does not have the same going back to the factory for refurb requirements.

[Jtsummers]

Probably not negative, but component maintenance is a huge longtail revenue stream for avionics. Pretty much every electronic and mechanical component has to be pulled periodically and tested, which costs, and replaced or refurbished. My first proper job, that's how they made the majority of their revenue. They lost money on the development effort, maybe broke even after initial sales, and profited off the fact that aircraft are kept around for decades and every 5 years their part had to be pulled and sent back to them for testing and replacement.

The more Airbus or Boeing own inside the aircraft, the more they can play into this model. 787 is a great example of Boeing hurting themselves through their outsourcing, but greatly assisting their suppliers.

[ir77]

yes, what you're talking about is true for the supplier side, but it's still not accurate for A/C mfg. operators own the a/c and all the associated bits that would end up getting sent out for service, and they're the ones that are paying service fees to those OEM suppliers that supplied the A/C in the first place.

these day's there's not many "parts" outside of fuselage and flight IP that someone like Boeing/EMB, etc. owns that wasn't outsourced:engines, air data system, actuations, cabin, flight controls, landing gear, etc.. THere's nothing really that the A/C mfg could "service" to ever make back a 300mil airframe. the A/C sell for the fixed cost, sometimes the operator gets to select their own engine, but othewise they buy it for cash, not for future services. boeing and other A/Cs would not survive on maintenance plans because there's very little they actually maintain.

[wrs]

Yes, now you say that, I think what I read was actually about the engines.

[parsimo2010]

Maintenance is extraordinarily important for the long term usefulness of a fighter jet. There is even an official metric tracked called "maintenance man-hours per flight hour." The F-35, which was even designed to try to minimize this (while still being stealthy and lethal), requires ~5 hours of maintenance for every hour the jet is in the air. If you get cut off from parts your Air Force will be almost unable to fly in a few months.

Pretty much all modern fighters require replacement parts from the original manufacturer. There are not enough fighter jets to support an aftermarket parts manufacturer, especially one that could exist without getting sued by Lockheed, Northrop, and the like.

The main technical issue is that you have to reverse engineer the parts if you don't have original drawings and didn't get a legal license to make your own. All the technical bits on an F-35 have anti-tamper features designed to make reverse engineering almost impossible (in case a jet gets shot down over enemy territory the USA doesn't want the enemies to have an easy time figuring out the weak points or finding bugs to exploit).

If you want to see what fighter jets without legal repairability license turns into, look at Iran. The sanctions placed on Iran have meant that they've been stringing their inventory of jets along for decades without official parts. They cannibalize other jets, buy black market parts, and cobble together their own solutions to keep their Air Force going. Check out the Sedjil, which is a modified SAM, that they created to put on their F-14s because the USA stopped providing Phoenix missiles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedjil_(air-to-air_missile). Trying to keep an Air Force going without official permission is really challenging.

But Israel's case is a little different from the above discussion- negotiating for the rights to modify isn't really about replacement parts. They aren't that concerned that the USA will cut them off. Their negotiation is more because they want to put some of their own systems on the jet. In older 4th generation jets, integration of new systems could be straightforward; you can put it in an external pod with a standardized mounting pylon and standardized data bus. On the F-35 you obviously want to avoid hanging a bunch of extra pods off the jet, so you need to get engineering drawings and software details to figure out how to internally integrate your stuff. Because reverse engineering is hard, they pushed to get this technical information legally. The only time this effort is worth it is when you think your country's equipment outperforms what the original F-35 can do. You need a decent tech to beat the stock F-35 systems, but Israel probably has a few areas where they can do that. But even with the right to modify the F-35, Israel will be heavily reliant on original parts for maintenance. They do not have a big enough industrial base to make all the parts needed for the jet.

[wuschel]

There are not enough fighter jets to support an aftermarket parts manufacturer, especially one that could exist without getting sued by Lockheed, Northrop, and the like.

This certainly applies to the aftermarket activities in the Westl, but entities doing that in Iran, Russia or Ukraine would not be liable to such measures. The question is more about technical capability.

> If you want to see what fighter jets without legal repairability license turns into, look at Iran. The sanctions placed on Iran have meant that they've been stringing their inventory of jets along for decades without official parts. [...]

True. Then again I see the ability for Iran to do this as a consequence of the effect of the sanctions and determination to make the best of domestic engineering potential. Quite a feat, I would say. The country has chemicals, electronics, mechanical engineering - and it trying to use it to create their own competing version of military platforms, starting with tanks, airplanes, drones, etc.

> The main technical issue is that you have to reverse engineer [...] All the technical bits on an F-35 have anti-tamper features designed to make reverse engineering almost impossible [...]

Very interesting! Almost impossible is a strong combination of words. Could you perhaps point me forward to some examples of such anti-tamper features?

[high_na_euv]

>requires ~5 hours of maintenance for every hour the jet is in the air.

What??

[idontwantthis]

Israel heavily modifies all of their jets I think. Supposedly stuff like allowing the engines to run at a dangerous thrust level because of situations like “Get there now or you won’t have a home to land in”.

[jonpurdy]

For reference, this is called 'battleshort'. Overriding normal/safe operating limits in order to escape a situation that would destroy the vehicle anyway.

[ashoeafoot]

And all military vehiclrs have that!

[throw310822]

> Get there now or you won’t have a home to land in

Really? A country that engages with neighbours that are barely able to send primitive missiles, while its last generation (US) jets drop bombs straight on their capital cities any time they want, with total impunity? And you still repeat this "poor existentially threatened country" propaganda?

[addicted]

Even to the extent this is true (which it isn’t entirely), it’s basically only been true overnight.

Israel has only recently become as strong as it is. Until very recently it could very well lose, and has lost, wars with its neighbors.

[vunderba]

Define "recently". They absolutely wrecked their next-door neighbors in the Six-Day War and that was over half a century ago.

[adwn]

They came very close to a defeat in the first Yom Kippur war.

[throw310822]

False. You can see this from the number of losses they suffered in their military campaigns: a tiny number of casualties compared to those inflicted to their enemies. Besides, it has been clear for many decades that the US would do absolutely anything to protect Israel, which means that the forces Israel can count on to defend itself in case of a real existential threat are basically those of the entire USA.

[kulahan]

He is referring to highly specific types of situations, not speaking in a generic sense. It’s not about propaganda, it’s just a simple consequence of the region they’re in.

As a side note, terrorists successfully attack highly developed economies all the time. Having good jets doesn’t magically negate that possibility.

[pyuser583]

Even the US government has to buy these sorts of rights.

Technically, they don’t need permission, but if they want access to the documentation, that costs extra. And sometimes it’s not available at any cost.