Arms Sales

[kevinkins]

When the US sells A/C (e.g. F-16s) to an ally (e.g. Taiwan) do they retain any ability to disable the A/C in the future if they are used against US interests or fall into an adversaries hands intact?

I was discussing this yesterday with a buddy and could not come up with an answer one way or the other.

Kevin

[DWReese]

Kevin,

It's funny, but I was thinking along those same lines just the other day. It could be like an engine "kill switch" on a car which completely disables the aircraft. It would be a neat idea, but I doubt that it could be done.

Doug

[ARCNA442]

No. Just look at all the F-14's, F-5's, F-4's, and P-3's currently being flown by Iran. Or the F-5's that used to be flown by Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam.

That said, when aircraft fall into the wrong hands the subsequent lack of spare parts and contractor support usually means their readiness and reliability quickly goes down hill.

[Schr75]

I think a "kill switch" would be a REALLY bad idea.
Imagine the "switch" getting compromised.
That way any opposition would be able to disable an entire air force at once.
I don´t think it would be worth the risk, and as ARCNA442 said.
Lack of spares and support, would seriously decrease their readiness.

Søren

[AKar]

There is some issues with the 'kill switch' theory that pops up every now and then. Technically, what would such kill switch exactly do? Let's take those F-16s as an example. What would be the one-point-solution that would render the airplane unusable without causing undue danger when activated, while being not easily bypassable? Recall, that technically aircraft are usually much less integrated that one may imagine, made up of boxes with specific functions, and having quite much of primarily mechanical things running the airframe itself. Also, export customers tend to have a level of technical expertise on these airplanes they operate (at least in "civilized world"), so disabling features themselves can very well be disabled if deemed necessary. Short of detonating a small explosive charge behind the cockpit, there are not too many sure ways to render these airplanes useless.

Primary mean of export control in western world is simply not including all the capabilities. At least the Russians have noticeably done that as well with their exports. Most countries don't need all the capabilities for the specific roles they fit their airplanes into, so they don't end up purchasing every possible capability anyway. And if they end up needing them later on, they can negotiate a deal and pay for what they want to have. So, it makes a sort of win-win in that sense as well, while maintaining some levels of control over which capabilities are exported and where.

[Gunner98]

Not exactly the best line in a sales pitch - here are these fantastic $30million aircraft for you,,, errr except that we retain a switch to shut them down if we don't like you anymore... like maybe after an election and we have a different government...

[burningphoneix]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

Not exactly the best line in a sales pitch - here are these fantastic $30million aircraft for you,,, errr except that we retain a switch to shut them down if we don't like you anymore... like maybe after an election and we have a different government...

Exactly. Russia/China already make killings on "no-questions-asked" weapons sales. A kill switch would basically just drive money to their state owned military industrial conglomerates.

[kevinkins]

But what if the existence of a "kill switch" was undisclosed to the buyer? My friend and I came to the conclusion that the buyer would be able to figure out and bypass any system(s) rendering the switch relevant given time. However, we did think that the US would have advantage over sold a/c simply by knowing the entire inner workings of the a/c. We also discussed spare parts etc.. We were talking about this subject re: this article:

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/ne ... ation.html

Is it the "most technologically-advanced" if there is a kill switch? Semantics I guess. I thought the claim was true within the current geopolitical context i.e. Taiwan would not turn on the US. But he thought it was only common sense that the US would not sell such an advanced system without the ability to disable it.

Kevin

[guanotwozero]

The most obvious role of such a switch would be in fly-by-wire aircraft, where the dynamics could be seriously compromised. However it would still need to be triggered by some sort of external signal, which means the switch must be connected to an existing receiver. That's high risk as such an unusual connection may well be discovered; this would not just affect future sales of such aircraft, but of all military hardware from the same country as well as the trust needed for cooperation.

I reckon most governments would regard that as much too big a risk. In any case, having the full technical knowledge of an ememy aircraft would likely be sufficient to develop effective counter-strategies.

[Primarchx]

Modern combat aircraft depend as much on software as air frame. It wouldn't be hard to establish degraded capability if periodic software updates aren't provided. At least, that's how I'd do it.

[BradOrbital]

Yup, nothing like making that radar signature of multiple bombers disappear with a few lines of code. Sounds pretty plausible.

[AKar]

It's not quite how airplanes work. If speaking of 4th generation and earlier ones anyway. The systems are not made of software ran by centralized operating system that is online to the outer world, waiting for a kill signal. Instead, they are fairly old-school electronics running their own, often application-specific routines and communicate via data buses using standards that are well-defined and well understood by any organized military force who's got beyond of swarming on the streets and shooting in the air from pickup trucks.

Further, different militaries go via different mid-life update paths that suit their specific needs. The parts of the software containing the "few lines" that make up the kill switch can be swapped with something entirely different, or become otherwise irrelevant, for instance, via a hardware upgrade utilizing stuff made up by avionics manufacturer that didn't even exist when the plane first flew.

Even more, I'd expect most of the western customers at least to include sizable agreements of relevant technology transfer when making multi-billion dollar procurement deals that last over several decades. They know their airplanes, and the risk of getting caught of having implemented such a kill switch is very high. This would result in absolutely huge damage to diplomatic and military relations, not to speak of the harm caused to the technology transfer that goes to the seller party. Even military technology sales are seldom one-way deals.