This is from
Reuters, via Alert5.com. One of my biggest headaches with the F-35 program is that certain aspects of it, which we gladly share with our allies, might make us vulnerable. None are more important than the source code found on this airplane. Unfortunately one of our best allies has been making a stink about access to this code....the UK. The problem is that the UK is a fickle ally...it has allegiances to us and to the European Union. The French or the Germans would certainly luv to get their hands on the code if for no other reason than to know how the F-35 does what it does. I guess that's the dirty little secret here. The F-22 is credited with being a super fighter. But the enemy and our allies already know how to make an airplane fly higher and faster. That's really no big secret. If speed and ht were the holy grail of fighters then you would see the Typhoon being fitted with huge engines...going faster is easy. But integrating all of the myriad systems together to function flawlessly is the real secret to a 5th generation fighter. But read more for yourself....
Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:29pm EST
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will keep to itself sensitive software code that controls Lockheed Martin Corp's new radar-evading F-35 fighter jet despite requests from partner countries, a senior Pentagon program official said.
Access to the technology had been publicly sought by Britain, which had threatened to scrub plans to buy as many as 138 F-35s if it were unable to maintain and upgrade its fleet without U.S. involvement.
No other country is getting the so-called source code, the key to the plane's electronic brains, Jon Schreiber, who heads the program's international affairs, told Reuters in an interview Monday.
"That includes everybody," he said, acknowledging this was not overly popular among the eight that have co-financed F-35 development -- Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway.
