Canada joins Portugal in weighing alternatives to the US-made F-35 fighter jet | Hacker News Reader

Canada joins Portugal in weighing alternatives to the US-made F-35 fighter jet

businessinsider.com

51 pointsgeox10 comments

Probably shouldn't be buying weaponry and defense equiptment from the country toying with idea of invading us, especially considering the reliance if an aggressor in keeping thos same weapons functional.

Credible threat or not, "joking" about invading other nations should not be met with anything positive or kind; for an aggressor the size of the US, the size and scale of the military should be weighed against how likely the threat is. Even a small chance should be taken incredibly seriously due to the time and money America spends on her armed forces.

Already went through this stupid exercise 10 years ago with Trudeau's fiasco that wasted a decade and billions just to fly Australia's junkyard

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

I'm not sure why this has been flagged. To me, a discussion on control of your technology stack, and the risks associated with a potential adversary being able to disrupt your technology stack, is well within the remit of HN.

Every country purchasing US weapons systems will need to evaluate if those systems can be considered trustworthy and reliable, especially given that the US is now a Russian ally.

If the weapons cannot be maintained without US involvement, if the purchaser doesn't have control of the software stack, or if the weapons are severely degraded without access to US infrastructure then they are not reliable.

As they should - drop the deal and buy something else somewhere else - the US are not allies anymore.

I honestly wonder what will happen now that the stock market AND the military industrial complex are both tanking.

The F35 has a kill switch that makes it possible for the US to shut down the aircraft.

Wasn’t an issue until we started threatening the sovereignty of the people we are selling them to, or at the very least of leaving NATO.

Every move is reactive, without a consideration of the greater picture.

The "kill switch" story is probably false: https://theaviationist.com/2025/03/10/f-35-kill-switch-myth/

If it existed there it would mean remote connection in some way. These planes aren't connected to the internet. For this to work you would need hardware.

The kill switch seems to stem from the lack of updates to radar-jamming for the F-16 [0]. Lack of software support also, to me, suggests dropping hardware support (and the spare parts required) sooner rather than later. Even if it remains "only software", itself a hell of a phrase for this site, that software needs updates as Russia updates it's radar frequencies. The plane is potentially a hell of a lot less useful without the jamming capabilities they were sold with

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/03/07/france-to-t...

Yes. That is probably true and probably just as bad.

Because F35 parts are manufactured all over the world a single country could theoretically ground your planes if they don't like your policies.

Not a new thing. In the 1980s, Australia cracked NCTR on the AN/APG-65 radar on the classic Hornet so that they could extend it to identify hostile aircraft in the region. They did this because Uncle Sam refused to assist.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/beazley-tells-of-us-code-cra...

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