[jfernandezr]

The article doesn't mention it, but there is an increasing worry that the USA could remotely disable some jet functionalities at will, or that any basic operation should be monitored and approved by them. So, this is not a reliable weapon that any country would like, unless the politicians agree to be vassals for life.

[7jjjjjjj]

Even if there isn't a literal kill switch, there might as well be. Without a constant stream of maintenence and operations support from the USA there things are no good.

[cpursley]

And the F-35 is very very high maintenance. Requires much more ground maintenance time that it's predecessors or competitors. That's a real problem in an active combat situation because it means less plans in the sky.

[fooblaster]

It actually requires substantially less maintenance time if you look at the equivalent force it replaces, for example the associated awacs capability needed for a sortie for previous gen fighters.

Honestly, it's just absurd to think that any jet fighter is somehow low maintenance. The issue here isn't the f35, it's the host country becoming a unreliable/hostile partner.

[bigyabai]

> if you look at the equivalent force it replaces

And what if you look at the equivalent force it's competing with on the market? It's a bit pricey once you factor in CAS and supersonic interceptors to fill the gaps.

> The issue here isn't the f35, it's the host country becoming a unreliable/hostile partner.

Here? The issue is the F-35. What happened to Pakistan's F-16s when America became an unreliable/hostile partner to them? They kept flying them for decades, that's what happened. Same with Ukraine's Su-27s, Iran's F-14s, North Korea's MiG-29s... plenty of countries keep other nation's keepsakes in the air. The jet abides.

The F-35 has to be bought as a subscription package, you can't "own" features like sensor fusion without the US' consent. All but one nation has been denied the right to modify the airframe, everyone else is basically just renting the jet with permission to go eat an R-77T when the time comes.

[fooblaster]

The us provides has provided upkeep for pakistans f16s under strict supervision and according to some AI summary maintenance has been a huge issue for them that limited their effectiveness. So not sure the story you are painting is quite as rosy as the reality. Fighter jets are not easy to maintain, without a large domestic fighter jet industry.

Consider for example when one of the radar elements in the f35 burns out, among the thousands that are there. Where in Pakistan does on obtain custom GaN radar ASICs that integrate with the f35?

[spwa4]

Apparently one aspect has to do with the inevitable result of a what a stealth fighter is: it can deploy weapons far further than it can see. So without comlinks with intelligence from a specific satellite system, it loses half its features.

Second for the on-board radars to evade detection they need to be reprogrammed with the latest updates regularly. Not so much because the programming has a kill switch but because otherwise "adversaries" could still turn out to have rockets that can home in on an F-35.

And even in the case of the US, you don't have to shoot down that many F-35s to get them all.

[wuschel]

It is. Germany had to invest heavily in airport infrastructure and security.

One strong reason why Germany got a batch of F-35 instead of the very capable and EU manufactured Typhoon is the fact that the F-35 is certified to carry nuclear bombs, and the Typhoon need certification for this particular mission capability. (The ordonance in this case is US tech).

Source: Luftwaffe

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Exactly. I doubt there are literal kill switches but if the US stops supporting you there doesn't need to be.

[scott_w]

Yep, I think people arguing “there is no kill switch” miss this point. There doesn’t need to be if the lack of updates makes an F-35 an expensive, inferior version of a jet they could buy elsewhere!

[ElectronCharge]

The F-35 isn't inferior to many other aircraft as far as raw capability goes. Really only the F-22. Nor is it expensive, at least the F-35A (I'm speaking of the initial cost, not sustainment which may or may not be a bargain).

The F-35 is the only genuinely stealthy aircraft any country outside the USA has access to (other than China, and the efficacy of its stealth technology isn't known). F-35 stealth is a game changer, as seen in every exercise in which they're involved.

[scott_w]

At full capability, yes, it is. However if you don’t have the updated targeting data then my understanding is that it loses a lot of those advantages. And even if it didn’t, it may still be a case that it’s more cost effective to buy higher quantities of slightly inferior aircraft.

It’s hard to know for sure, though. The only true information we’ll get is when it’s used in a hot war and hints if or when countries reduce orders.

[antonymoose]

Sure, but in any case the nations buying the F-35 are so tied at the hip to the United States it would be fantasy to expect them to break off in any meaningful timeframe relative to the lifespan of the plane.

Beyond that, is there a viable competitor available for an US allied nation to purchase?

[cm2187]

I don't think the concern is that they would turn hostile to the US, but rather that they would need to strike a country that for one reason or another, the US doesn't want them to strike (though of course you also have to weight the risk of a coup and of a hostile regime coming to power into a formerly friendly country).

Fictitious scenarios: let's say the US sells F35 to Taiwan. China tries to invade Taiwan. Taiwan wants to use the F35 to fight Chinese forces. China makes a deal with the US to limit the economic impact on the US of the invasion of Taiwan, and the US president of the time thinks maintaining a good trade relationship with China is more important than Taiwan remaining an independent democracy, and will therefore curb Taiwan's ability to use those F35. Not completely far fetched. Doesn't mean Taiwan has gone rogue.

The US tries to keep good relationship with Pakistan, while at the same time considering selling some weapons to India. You can imagine why India would prefer the older French Rafale (the French are much less demanding about what you do with their weapons, though there is the precedent of helping the UK with the Exocet it sold to Argentina during the Falklands war). The middle east is also full of those complex relationships.

[mongol]

> Beyond that, is there a viable competitor available for an US allied nation to purchase?

US allied is a concept that is quickly losing its meaning. As the current administration no longer treats allies as allies, most European fighters are more viable

[maksimur]

> Beyond that, is there a viable competitor available for an US allied nation to purchase?

Not available yet, but Korean KF-21 and Turkish Kaan/TF-X (which Spain is thinking about buying/co-producing IIRC), though they're both considered 4.5th gen fighter jets rather than 5th like the F-35.

[xdennis]

> Beyond that, is there a viable competitor available for an US allied nation to purchase?

Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen. None are as good as the F35, but all are better alternatives to a bricked airplane.

Trump already demonstrated how even older models (F16 given by Europeans) can be bricked in Ukraine simply by not providing support.

[actionfromafar]

There is also the metric "sorties per day", which is severly underlooked and very useful in any prolonged conflict. The F35 is not a clear winner there and might not be the best fit if you are a smaller nation.

[spwa4]

Military procurement is not about what is the best system, it is about who gets the money.

Plus every other party has far inferior fighters to "the West" anyway. And then you calculate ... you are not going to successfully defend against the F-35 in a war with the US. Not going to happen. Against Russia/China or anyone else ... every fighter jet will do fine, so take the cheapest.

The US got guaranteed this business because of international treaties ... which Trump has abandoned. But no worries, I'm sure he'll just make a "deal" and fix things again, right? Meanwhile I suggest you invest in EU weapons manufacturers, who are a lot cheaper than the US ones.

[qwytw]

> Against Russia/China or anyone else ... every fighter jet will do fine

Will it though? Underestimating your (potential) enemies might not be the smartest idea. Of course as the war in Ukraine has shown jet fighters might not even be that relevant anymore if you can't take our your opponents air defenses.

[scott_w]

That’s because Russia and Ukraine don’t have the capabilities of NATO. Russia is completely incompetent. Ukraine was incompetent and has spent most of the war trying to remedy that.

NATO doctrine is to start by controlling the skies. I can see a world where a lot of the strategies we see start to crumble when a jet or bomber can pick off key targets at will on and off the battlefield.

[Tadpole9181]

> jet fighters might not even be that relevant anymore if you can't take our your opponents air defenses

One of the design variants of the F-35 is designed to penetrate air support, no?

[cm2187]

Well, technically Pakistan shot a Indian Rafale with a Chinese made missile a few months ago, which created some consternation in France. I heard the French explaining it away, as India trying to bomb some Pakistani territory without hitting the Pakistani military, hence putting their jet fighters in unecessary harm's way. I am not qualified to draw my own conclusions on the quality of Chinese weapons but it seems to imply they can certainly do significant damage.

[slaw]

Rafale was shot down by J-10 plane using PL-15 missile. Rafale, Eurofighter and J-10 are old 20+ years designs. Europe has nothing equivalent to Chinese J-35 or even previous generation J-20.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-35

[slaw]

None of European jet fighters can stand against Chinese, but China is far away.

[scott_w]

> Beyond that, is there a viable competitor available for an US allied nation to purchase?

As I and others point out: the problem is if you do something Trump doesn’t like and he cuts off the extra features that make the F-35 better than anything else you can get. At that point you just paid millions for an expensive paperweight.

[_DeadFred_]

Mission Data Files (MDFs), sometimes also referred to under the broader term Mission Data Packages (MDPs) or Mission Data Loads (MDLs) are required for every mission, and they have to come from facilities within the United States. Currently from the U.S. Reprogramming Laboratory (USRL) at Eglin.

https://www.aviationtoday.com/2023/01/20/bae-systems-receive...

[randunel]

The US also stated that they "tone them down 10%" when selling them to other countries.

[wuschel]

This is very common for export variants of a high end military products.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Cite a source please.

[potatolicious]

You can literally just Google this, there are many sources. Literally the top of the Google results:

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/21/trump-boeing-stealt...

[2] https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2025-03-2...

The exact transcript is here:

[3] https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-...

All of these are in the top-10 first results when you search for this.

[dunham]

All of those links appear to be discussing the F-47 and this thread is discussing the F-35.

[Delk]

To be fair, the exact sentence is "we like to tone them down about 10%", which suggests a more common practice rather than only a plan specifically for the F-47.

Of course it's also a quote from Trump, so who knows how much of it is from his random sentence generator. Although I'd guess he's quoting another official or someone from the defence industry.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

10% of what? Are they 10% smaller?

[burnt-resistor]

This is an oft repeated conspiracy theory. The "kill switch" is repair parts and manufacturer support.

[msgodel]

This kind of software is really unacceptable in consumer electronics but with weapons it entirely defeats the point of the thing.

It's surprising any were sold outside the US at all.