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European countries deny claims Trump could cripple air force with F-35 ‘kill switch’
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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Whether or not a “kill switch” exists is frankly rather immaterial. The fact remains that we control a LOT of the essential tech that goes into those things, and considering we’re basically turning into an adversary towards most of our former allies, it’s not a super great idea to have us be a core part of your logistics pipeline - especially when it comes to one of your most advanced strike fighter.
Sure, it’s great tech… but what happens when Trump decides in 6 months to stop shipping engines and engine parts and software updates and encryption keys and the myriad of little doodads that go into the thing? That’s right: it’ll stop working quite as well as it’s designed to, and ultimately will need to be grounded until operators can find a side-channel to get the things it needs (or replacement/aftermarket parts + software, though frankly I don’t think the second part is feasible, knowing the ludicrous size of the codebase that is absolutely for sure NOT something that can be easily or quickly replicated).
F35 is a major maintenance time sink. Something on the order of 10 mechanic-hours of maintenance for every flight hour. I've heard it costs something like 12k USD in maintenance just to start the engine and bring it to low idle.
I suspect it would take a lot less than six months to ground a fleet when the spare parts get cut off.
Spare parts are being manufactured in Europe too though. There's a big maintenance hub in The Netherlands and Italy is producing complete F35s. I'm sure Europe can figure it out ~~if~~ when the US goes completely off the rails.