[YZF]

I feel like we had a discussion of this crash in the past. Would be nice to find those threads.

Feels like we're missing a piece of the puzzle in this story. Maybe something else happened over that year? Politics? The story starts as you'd expect. Accidents happen. Support. Returning to duty. What went wrong?

[avidiax]

My feeling is that the F-35 is "too big to fail". They needed to blame the pilot, and certainly didn't need anyone familiar with the defects of the plane in a prominent command or as a general.

So they fire the guy, and promote someone else that can be relied on to say that the F-35 has no more defects than any other plane had at this point in the program, and we can trust the US military industrial complex to deliver the F-47 in a similar fashion.

At the same time, you send a message: eject when your plane is misbehaving and you'll end your career. Sure, there's a risk that someone won't eject when they should, but there's also a chance that you'll be able to cover up another malfunction when the pilot nurses the plane back to base.

Did Pizzo say anything disparaging about the F-35? I doubt it. But when you've got billions of dollars of revenue/potential embarrassment on the line, you don't take chances.

[JumpCrisscross]

> My feeling is that the F-35 is "too big to fail"

Allies cancelling orders may force Washington’s hand: the cost of additional jets, parts, et cerera skyrocket if spread over fewer planes.

[pjmlp]

That is only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed, and the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets.

US has killed the allies trust.

Had these two events not happened, and most likely sales would not have been cancelled regardless of the F-35 issues.

[maxglute]

My tinfoil hat theory is perversely US probably wants LESS foreign F35 orders. US accounts for 80% of long term F35 procurement (~2500/3100). Capitalization / replacement of airframes across US forces is at attrocious levels. If anything US better off absorbing 100% of next 20 years of LH production, and get full F35 buy years earlier, i.e. by late 2030 instead of projected 2045s sharing with partners. Especially now LH seems to have finally sorted out Tech Refresh 3. US probably wants LH to focus on upgrading/delivering US airframes and get as much US airframes to TR3 and then block4 standards. IIRC airforce general said he would not want take pre TR3 F35s to Pacific fight. If US is serious about countering PRC in decade of concern, they need all the airframes.

[pyrale]

If we follow your logic, they would still want the orders ; they would simply look for ways to avoid fulfilling them.

[maxglute]

For a 1-2 years, maybe, as seen with JP, but for 10+ years? That's ~200+ airframes. LH already have TR3 backlogs, and TBH if you follow the LH TR / F35 SaaS drama (LH contract essentially held DoD hostage), I'm would not be surprised if DoD doesn't want to slap LH with less global orders so they can solely focus on US program.

[daemoens]

No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.

[wongarsu]

They also refuse to update the electronic countermeasures systems installed in Ukraine's F16. Not a kill switch, but it is impacting the usefulness of the planes.

Whether actual kill switches exist is unknown. But if you were a European country, would you take the chance of buying fighters from a country threatening to invade multiple of your allies based on their assurance that the rumors about kill switches are nothing but unsubstantiated rumors?

[guappa]

Well denmark is going ahead to buy F-35 from their enemy that wants to invade them.

[XorNot]

Yeah this is both bad but also being heavily misreported: the US can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software effectively disables critical functionality which can effectively render a platform useless.

Up till now, there was no demonstrated risk of this happening - but that's a broken trust which won't be repaired for generations, if ever.

[georgemcbay]

> the US can't shutdown hardware remotely

I agree with the assertion that there's no proof of a full killswitch based on known past events, but the above quoted statement is also a lot more definitive than I'm willing to be.

With a fighter jet as dependent upon electronic support systems as the F35 and which is sold around the world why wouldn't you put a highly classified backdoor killswitch into it just in case?

The idea that such a killswitch might exist is one that could have always reasonably been pondered, what's new is any/all non-US "Western" governments having to seriously entertain the idea that they would end up in a situation where the US would have a reason to use it against them.

[fc417fc802]

> can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software

By what mechanism is this mediated? Because that sounds awfully similar to a kill switch in terms of the end result. Analogy by way of enterprise software: "We didn't remotely disable the software you purchased from us. Rather our server simply refuses to service your requests which happen to be required for the software to function." (Evil laugh from man with goatee immediately follows this statement obviously.)

[guappa]

> the US can't shutdown hardware remotely

And you know this because you've personally audited those planes?

[libertine]

The kill switch first reported wasn't for jets, but was for HIMARS[0], which stopped receiving data for strikes.

But everyone viewed this kill switch as a way broader than HIMARS, and rightfully so.

It will be foolish to assume that the USA has the capacity to turn HIMARS targeting capacity off, literally incapacitating the system which was built in the 90s, but somehow won't be able to kill switch a F35... This is disingenuous.

No country should trust their national security on the whims of one guy sitting in the White House, that can decide to side with the enemy and make your jets stop working because of disabled services.

[0]https://x.com/olliecarroll/status/1897340316942000271

[jajko]

I find it curious that Israel managed to convince US that they can run their own firmware, (most probably) bypassing all this. I mean do get that region politics, oil and Iran and all, plus who sits in US power places but still.

Or why Europeans didn't insist to get same version (probably no leverage). Well any next armament purchase by Europe thats smarter than a lead bullet should have full code delivery with all build processes. Still not 100% perfect scenario but least minimum acceptable.

[pjmlp]

Tomato tomato, they disabled features the allies relied on, so in practice it is a kind of kill switch.

[exe34]

A system that has to call home to work and is no longer being replied to is by any functional definition under a kill switch. The orange buffoon pushed a switch in Amerikka Oblast and the weapon can no longer defend itself.

[BartjeD]

The USA commander in chief said otherwise; You're spreading disinformation ;)

[JumpCrisscross]

> only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed

Sure. My point is it does become small enough to fail if its effective price to taxpayers doubles due to allies cancelling orders.

> remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets

Source?

[pjmlp]

https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor...

One of many.

[kelnos]

> the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets.

Could you provide some references to this? A quick search only turned up denials that such a kill switch exists.

[pjmlp]

https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor...

[benterix]

The name is imprecise and causes endless semantic discussions, what happened is lack of updates that render the aircraft vulnerable. Some will argue it's the same, some will disagree.

[atmosx]

A common misconception - often echoed on this site - is that NATO allies and the U.S. operate on equal terms. They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen.

Even today, with all this talk around NATO, there’s a massive U.S. military presence at NATO bases across Europe.

These forces are, in effect, under U.S. control, stationed in countries like Germany and Italy. And if Germany suddenly decided it wanted them gone - well, it’s not their call.

TL;DR: Life on the empire’s periphery might be comfortable, but you don’t get to choose your enemies - and you still have to pay your dues, or else.

[Propelloni]

That's a fantasy, unless you think Germany is occupied by the USA. But that's not the case. Occupation ended in 1954, since then the USA military is stationed in Germany (and Italy) due to contracts. This so called deployment contracts have been confirmed in 1990, when Germany became a sovereign nation again. I know, the current USA is not big on "rule of law" anymore, but even a bad deal maker should understand that there is not much to win in a war over bases they get for free now. (I'm not saying that maintaining those bases is cheap, but that's more on how the USA runs military bases than anything else.)

I find it refreshing, however, that the "we are the evil empire now" idea is getting out of the closet. Call a spade a spade.

[atmosx]

> I find it refreshing, however, that the "we are the evil empire now" idea is getting out of the closet. Call a spade a spade.

“Good” and “evil” are moral constructs that haven’t played a meaningful role in documented geopolitics since at least the 4th century BC.

There’s a well-known quote often attributed to Hastings Ismay that captures NATO’s original purpose. I won’t paste it here as it might come off as a bit harsh, and I’m not trying to drag this discussion out further.

> That's a fantasy, unless you think Germany is occupied by the USA. But that's not the case.

Circling back to Germany—I honestly can't think of a more humiliating moment for any NATO member than this[^1]. Sure, Mr. Biden was more aesthetically pleasing than Mr. Trump but take a moment to consider the symbolism and the signals sent to ally nations. Regardless of media narratives, the events of September 26, 2022, marked a turning point that fundamentally altered Germany’s economic path and future. It was a hostile act on a massive scale, and its consequences are undeniably real for the country.

[^1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8

[Propelloni]

> “Good” and “evil” are moral constructs that haven’t played a meaningful role in documented geopolitics since at least the 4th century BC.

I'm showing my age here, sorry. It is a play on something Ronald Reagan said about another empire.

[amenhotep]

Evidently you don't know much about humiliating moments for NATO members.

[rat87]

I think what altered Germany and the EU path was the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. It humiliated German politicians and their decades long policy of trying to appease and cooperate with Russia. Biden and Obama were right to warn them about over reliance on Russia

[mcv]

> They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen.

How do you imagine that will work? The US may have to lower the price more than they can afford to. Some countries have already cancelled their F-35 orders. You can't force someone to buy what they don't want.

[Cthulhu_]

The F-35 was sold to us as an important multi billion business deal, with lots of European companies being promised to be subcontractors or technology partners; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... has a good overview of how much was involved. Basically, you scratch my back, we'll scratch yours kind of deal.

In hindsight, the project was (as expected) over budget etc. I wish our government(s) had given that money to European fighter jets instead. There's a chance the US will remote disable the jets that have been put into service now, or withold service / spare parts.

[mcv]

If the US withholds parts or services to European countries, that would certainly be an interesting twist, considering the Dutch government used this arrangement as a reason why they couldn't withhold parts to Israel despite the ongoing genocide. Had Netherland decided otherwise, the US might use that as a precendent. Or maybe they'll just set the precedent regardless.

[chgs]

> You can't force someone to buy what they don't want.

The opium wars would disagree

[JumpCrisscross]

The United States using military force against the home territory of a NATO member basically guarantees Chinese troops and weapons in Canada and Mexico. We would (deservedly) force the world to ally against us as we’d have proven ourselves to be an expansionist menace.

[computerfriend]

The people wanted the opium.

[ggm]

The implications are that non financial or indirect financial leverage would be used to make you "want" to complete purchase.

[benterix]

Well that period seems to be ending right in front of our eyes.

[Sabinus]

It's only been months of the Trump admin and already the imperial attitudes are coming out. It's 2025, not 1900. Converting the US into an empire isn't going to go as well as you think it will.

[neor]

Saying that military action is not off the table to take Greenland is literally insane.

Greenland has always been an ally, if for safety reasons the US needs more military presence on the island they could have just asked for it and it would most likely have been approved.

There is zero reason to use force, but if the US would take such steps I wouldn't be surprised if Europe starts replacing the dollar as reserve currency. This could trigger other nations like China to follow. This move would hurt the US economy way worse than the current trade war does.

[rat87]

Those massively military bases exist to protect Europe. The countries can of course choose to tell soldiers to fuck off but now is not a particularly good time for that. The real danger is that Trump abandons our allies because a dictator flattered him

[stevage]

I'm always surprised about this line of thinking. Surely an active duty pilot is going to keep his mouth shut, whereas as we see, as a retired one he's happy to talk to the papers.

[dcow]

On top of that, the person I want flying more of the same plane is one who’s experienced piloting it during major failure conditions. Instead they retire the experienced guy and put some other fresh hotshot in the seat.

[NikkiA]

But he made the gold turkey look bad.

[pjmlp]

Ironically every time someone proudly assert the existence of F-35 C++ coding standard [0], I am not sure if they actually understand the impact.

The software mess from F-35 would it be even worse without the standard, or has the existence of the standard hardly improved the coding practices as usually gets told.

Not that the answer to this philosophical question solves the issues for everyone affected by the F-35 software problems.

[0] - http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf

[jiggawatts]

One fun thing about “too big” projects like the F-35 is that the project management overheads cause a kind of recursive overhead, like the rocket equation, but applied to technical outcomes instead of orbital velocity. Any change isn’t “just” the change, it now has to got through review boards, subcontractors, liaisons, integration reviews, etc…

The result is that the F-35 computers are being “upgraded” (lol) to the same compute power as a first-gen Apple Watch… starting this year and finishing who-knows-when.

Meanwhile the F-16 which is “not as important” has already been upgraded with the same kind of chips as modern GPUs and has orders of magnitude more performance than the “flying computer” the the F-35 was supposed to be.

Weep for the poor C++ developers forced to shoehorn modern software into a computer that isn’t yet as powerful as a battery-powered consumer device most people have upgraded three times already.

[FpUser]

>"Weep for the poor C++ developers forced to shoehorn modern software into a computer that isn’t yet as powerful as a battery-powered consumer device most people have upgraded three times already."

You might be surprised by what kind of functionality can be squeezed out of "weak" CPU when programmers know how to work on hardware with limited resources.

[jiggawatts]

Having written 4KB assembly demos for BBS sites back in the 80s and 90s, I would not be surprised at all.

What does surprise me is a $110M plane that is being upgraded at the low-low-cost of a mere $300K each to this: https://www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/high-performance-i...

Yes, that "High-Performance Integrated Core Processor" is pulling 4.5 kW to produce as much computer power as a typical PC in the late 1990s!

[echoangle]

Is it possible that there is a mistake on the page and they mean 450 Watts?

The "1 ATR SHORT" version lists 2 modules and takes 300 Watts, so 450 Watts would line up perfectly for the "1 ATR LONG" which takes 3 modules. 4.5 kW doesn't make a lot of sense here.

[jandrewrogers]

The F-35 was designed for export. The F-22 wasn’t and I suspect the F-47 is not either. There are different objectives at work here.

The F-35 is technically capable but even that is subject to export controls despite being purpose-built for export. A lot of European companies have a large stake in the success of the F-35 in its various versions because they are building it for European customers.

[guappa]

I think at large european industry has more stake in F-35 not being bought, and local planes be used instead.

[jandrewrogers]

The internal conflict is that the European planes that exist are nowhere as capable as the F-35.

While the European defense contractors may promise a comparable plane, they have a poor track record of delivering such a thing anywhere close to the near future.

[jajko]

Well unless we in Europe want to do in direct conflict with US (ie for Greenland), this is mostly irrelevant extra capability. As Ukraine shows, peer conflicts are won by other means, not stealth air superiority over sheep herders with AKs.

Some general's wet dream of dogfights in Maverick's style are modern day fantasies. What those planes are used for are just lobbing glide bombs or shooting missiles. Their biggest enemy is on ground. Sure, small radar signature helps massively but that's not enough. Otherwise US would send 500 F-35 into North korean airspace and wipe out most of its military... not going to happen.

[dgroshev]

> As Ukraine shows, peer conflicts are won by other means, not stealth air superiority

I don't think you can conclude that when neither of the belligerents has the capability. As Gulf War shows, training and capabilities (including stealth) do enable SEAD/DEAD to an extent that unlocks air superiority.

[guappa]

I have my doubts that the F-35 is anywhere as capable as advertised.

[blobbers]

This is a really interesting 'first thought'. "Designed for export"

Not the typical mindset of someone wanting true superiority through military power. Makes you think twice.

The F35 is expensive, keeps the defense apparatus going, and ultimately gets paid for by other countries. F22 barely reached production, so F47 will be interesting.

[jandrewrogers]

The F-35 is cheap for what it is capable of. F-22 and F-47 are immaterial. And the export F-35 is nerfed to some extent.

The unfortunate reality, which the US is exploiting, is that Europe would struggle to produce an equivalent of the nerfed F-35, never mind one that hadn’t been nerfed. As a consequence, the US can sell nerfed F-35s all day. There aren’t many alternatives currently. 4.5 gen aircraft aren’t competitive in a serious conflict and everyone knows it. Even the US has to contend with that reality.

[ashoeafoot]

What european companies built the F35? Especially what part of the software is from Europe ?

[blobbers]

BAE systems is responsible for about 15% of production, things from rear fuselage etc.

Rolls-Royce builds the LiftSystem for the F-35B variant.

Martin-Baker builds the ejection seats for all F-35s.

Leonardo builds the wing sets.

Rheinmetall is planning to build fuselage for a large number.

Kongsberg developed the Joint Strike Missile meant to be carried inside the fuselage to maintain stealth profile while engaging targets at long ranges.

[Aeolun]

It’s bizzare to think that high command in the US is that shortsighted.

[atmosx]

True. However, did you notice the emojis used in relation to the leaked Huthi attack? It’s difficult to place confidence in individuals wielding significant power when they conduct themselves like adolescents.

[gorgoiler]

This doesn’t feel fair. The standards we have for how elected officials conduct themselves is very different from what we expect from non-political career civil servants, General Officers, and the like.

At our most charitable, we ought to recognize that in a democracy elected officials are plucked from the ranks of the general public. The qualifications for office are that you are the most popular person in the room, not the smartest, or the most professional.

[Vegenoid]

The trouble comes when the elected officials also want to replace non-political career officials with political allies who behave similarly to themselves, which seems to be what we are currently seeing.

[Propelloni]

I agree on everything you wrote! However, I hope citizens vote for the persons they think are going to do the best job.

Obviously, it is a gamble, to wit the current administration, but I'm sure, on election day, most voters of the USA thought that the current president would do the best job. Many learn now they were mistaken, but this happens. That's the beauty of democracy, we can vote the incompetents out.

[atmosx]

That’s a fair assessment :-)

[Aeolun]

I can hardly blame them for that when my own communication is full of emojis. I mean, I blame them for literally everything else, but not that.

[ARandomerDude]

Defense companies with workers in congressional districts and bribe politicians – I mean, make campaign contributions in exchange for huge contracts. Congress oversees the military. The officers who don't help politicians get what they want don't get promoted. The officers who do, get rank, status, book deals, and lucrative jobs at defense companies after they retire.

It's disgusting but it's not that hard to figure out how it happens.

[jyunwai]

Past discussion from November 2024: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42098475

[makeitdouble]

Going through the past threads, a lot of comments are about how the backup instruments were still on and functioning, while in this article he's said to have 0 visibility and no idea what is still accurately working and what is not, with no possible communication and the HUD rebooting 3 times before going dark..

Did more information come up during the time period ?

Either way, asking a pilot to not bail out in these circumstances sounds crazy.

[decimalenough]

The article mentions that "A small backup display was partially functional, but Del Pizzo had to look down to see it".

[kelnos]

He was a test pilot; he's supposed to put his life at risk. Not just that -- and this is something the (current) article touched on -- he is also supposed to consider that ejecting could mean his plane crashing somewhere where it's going to kill one or more people; it seems he only considered that after he was on the ground.

He didn't know what was working because he didn't try to figure it out. All he did was tell the plane to switch modes from STOL to regular forward flight. He didn't see if pitch, yaw, and roll flight controls were being respected, and it doesn't seem he tried to use the backup radio, or the backup instruments, other then glancing at them.

But I don't think he made a terrible decision! Ultimately he's still alive, he healed from his injuries, and no one else was hurt, and that's a good outcome in my opinion. But maybe his judgment in a crisis situation isn't good enough for the command position he was given. He did lose a $165M piece of equipment, one that he very well may have been able land safely, and while I would never place that above the lives of actual humans, it does matter. And that's really what the three reports said: many other pilots probably would have done what he did in that situation, but he should have taken more time to ascertain whether his plane was flyable or not, even if that would have put him at further risk.

Maybe he would have been fine continuing to be a test pilot under the command of someone else's test group, but maybe his superiors decided that his actions showed he wasn't the kind of person they wanted in command. I dunno; I've never been a Marine (or any kind of military officer), so I don't know either way. But I suspect most of us here haven't, and don't really have expert knowledge on how these sorts of things are supposed to work.

[travisgriggs]

> He was a test pilot; he's supposed to put his life at risk.

Are you sure about this?

It takes a lot of time and hours to get a pilot to the point they can probe the edges that test pilots do. The whole goal is to actually keep them alive so their experience and observations can be used. And that just compounds. So while they fly maneuvers and situations that would absolutely overwhelm me as a 300 hour private pilot in my Tecnam, my feeling is that even at that point they fly at less relative risk than I do. They are experts in mitigating, and preparing for risk.

There are old pilots and bold pilots. I do not believe that being a test pilot is a mandate that forces one to transfer to the bold club.

[decimalenough]

He was not a test pilot! The F-35B entered service in 2015, the incident happened in 2023. He was a squadron commander, in charge of training other pilots to fly the plane.

[shawabawa3]

He was 700 feet off the ground and descending

That gives him a window of what? 1-3 seconds maybe? To "test" if controls were working