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Comment by tetrisgm | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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