As for the F-14s, they weren’t stealing the parts…they were legally purchasing them because lazy coding of the technical data more than 30 years ago allowed them to be sold on the open market without first being demilitarized.

We need not worry that China will have a fighter parity just because we sell a few F-35s to Turkey…Whatever the Turks get would be classified as open-source, so to speak.

jihadwatcher on July 2, 2007 at 11:01 PM

I not only admitted that China would not achieve fighter parity if they obtained copies of the F-35, I emphasized it. If you re-read what I actually wrote, my predominant concern was that China and/or Russia would likely be able to develop tactics and SAM systems that would exploit F-35 vulnerabilities they would otherwise be incapable of knowing about. That they could also learn things to improve their own aircraft (though not achieve parity) is a less troubling issue.

As for what Turkey is going to get out of the program, I fear it’ll be a more sophisticated aircraft than you seem to believe. The plane isn’t being built by us then sold after the fact to Turkey; rather, Turkey is an invested co-developer of the aircraft as of 2002, as well as a NATO ally. I don’t expect the Turkish planes will necessarily be identical to, say, the USAF version, but I’ve seen nothing to suggest they will be hamstrung in their capabilities. The airframe, engine, radar, datalinks, countermeasures, etc. will be representative of those in all F-35A’s.

The cost of new aircraft development has become so enormous that the Pentagon is now in the unenviable position of not being able to play as close-to-the-chest with emerging technology as it once did. International funding has become a virtual necessity, and international partners are not particularly eager to invest in “castrated” weapon systems.

Hopefully, however, this is all moot, and no Islamist movement will seize power in Turkey (and if they should, it would certainly be interesting to see how NATO as a whole would respond).

The really sensitive technology is far beyond anything the military even admits it has. It usually admits to technology about 20-25 years after developing it.

There is no secret technology in those planes that is not known to the Chinese or the Russians. It is long-understood technology that nonetheless requires specialized skills and machines to make work and to keep them working. China can reverse engineer a Cadillac, but they still can’t make one.

jihadwatcher on July 2, 2007 at 8:26 PM

I’m not sure what plane you’re thinking about, but it isn’t the F-35. The data-linking and other avionics advances present in those airplanes will be well beyond the technological prowess of either Russia or China.

It’s true that China and Russia would not be able to duplicate the planes. But they could still learn a great deal that would nevertheless allow them to a) improve their own planes to varying degrees (as the Soviets did with F-14 tech), b) possibly glean new information about techniques for mass-production of advanced aircraft, and, most importantly, c) develop countermeasures focused very specifically at the idiosyncratic weaknesses of the planes.

Most importantly, having planes on hand to test for radar returns could enable either Russia or China to locate “weak” spots or other obscure artifacts of the plane’s emissions and/or radar-reduction properties that could allow them to develop operational tactics with enhanced effectiveness at countering the planes. Worse, they could customize SAM systems to also exploit similar discoveries. And those SAM systems could (and would) then be exported virtually anywhere and everywhere.

Needless to say, while it’s unlikely Russian or Chinese-built F-35 clones would ever appear in the skies, nothing but bad could come of it anyway.

I believe Iraq attacked Iran. Still, does the stomring of our embassy and taking of 140 or so hostages not register as an attack?

head, meet sand.

Don’t worry Tony, it will come down to the pilot in a fight between equal planes….
jihadwatcher on July 2, 2007 at 7:11 PM

True, but that’s not the real concern. The real concern would be brand new F-35’s being disassembled for reverse-engineering in China and Russia (the fate that supposedly befell several Iranian F-14’s, and their at-the-time world-beating radar, in the USSR).

Turkey could turn on us at any moment, just like when they didn’t let go through there to invade Iraq…
Tony737 on July 2, 2007 at 5:40 PM

I’m a little uneasy about Turkey’s involvement in the F-35 program, too. As for Saudi Arabia’s F-15’s, and for that matter Eurofighters (which are on order) I don’t think the F-22 is at a disadvantage. (The “Super”hornet, on the other hand, would have to take considerable care when dealing with several of the more modern European exports.)

But face it, if Saudi Arabia goes so far down the hole that we’re engaging its air force, the world will be screwed on so many levels it’s hard to fixate especially much on air superiority. Finding fuel for the fighters in the first place would present challenges aplenty (not to mention $20 a gallon pump prices back home).

Ejection seat button pressed instead.

“halalalalalalalal!!!!”

This is why we should NEVER sell our top of the line fighters to muslim countries. We sell F-15s to the Saudis and now we’re gonna sell F-35s to Turkey. “But they’re our friends” Yeah, so were the Iranians, and their Tomcats are NOT stealth like the F-35! Turkey could turn on us at any moment, just like when they didn’t let go through there to invade Iraq. I don’t trust ‘em. And God forbid the Saudis turn on us and our F-22s hafta shoot down their Eagles!

Also he must not be a fan of Jimmy Carter since it was his admin that installed the bad men, and I some how doubt it was for oil.

jp on July 2, 2007 at 4:51 PM

Thank you very much so. I just wish he said how much money he wanted, instead of just asking for money.

/I gather he’s not referring to the foreplanes on the old Curtiss XP-55 Ascender.

He “doesn’t want to go back to the past”

/Except in how we handle terrorism (which failed miserably, in case he hadn’t noticed), and in whining about all the evil we did in the ’50s, and of course how “they” stole the elections in 2000 and 2004

We “can’t criticize” the Iranian election

/When Ahmedinejad was the only one on the ballot

And of course

Those never-to-be-sufficiently d**ned Neo-Cons were plotting in 1997 to invade Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria to grab all the world’s oil supply

/Is he talking about the Neo-Cons in the Clinton Administration?

Oh, please, Senator Gravel-Head, run for President.

You are a perfect example of what’s wrong with your party.

There’s nothing that can turn a moderately-good composer into a towering musical genius like encroaching deafness, and there is nothing that can turn a political hack into a great social or political leader faster than irreversible brain damage.

-Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

cheers

eon

Don’t take the brown acid.’

Thanks for the “shred the jets” link.

Couldn’t they just remove the F-14’s “spare parts” innerds and give the classic shells to VFW posts to park on their front lawns?

This sounds like our standard stupid government doing its usual best to be purblind morons, by destroying part of our military history and costing us beaucoup tax dollars for the honor of being royally reamed.

Who approved this lamebrained project?

Tony737 on July 2, 2007 at 3:56 PM

…or maybe they’ll sneak in there and just steal the parts they need rather than the whole jet?

Keljeck on July 2, 2007 at 4:21 PM

Ron Paul’s hypocrisy uncovered:

Ron Paul: 65 pages of Pork request for last budget

which he went on to vote against, being the ‘fiscal hawk’ and all that he ‘is’….of course we all know he knew full well the budget would pass with his no vote and he would get his Pork.

also see Ace on this…