The aircraft has significant security risks for sure and makes sense to cancel. But canceling the order won’t be on Trump’s radar unless it affects his inner circle of evil billionaires who have funneled dark money to him.
Canada should cancel the F-35 contract and their are better fighter jets from reliable NATO allies. The F-35 is a $2 trillion USD turd that is still not 100%. If Canada continues to purchase US weapons, this would be like Poland buying weapons from Nazi Germany. I am hoping the US MIC becomes pissed off.
2 trillion is a fuckload of drones!
Goddamn right we should. Take the French up on the offer to build the Rafale here. Or the Swedes. And get a few demo units for short term.
Fuck 'em on any cancellation fees too. Consider it partial compensation for the ridiculous trade war.
None of those airplanes even have similar capabilities. Why do you think the entirety of Europe has ordered so many F-35.
The only alternative is to wait 15+(realistically 20+) years for a 6gen plane from Europe. And with the alliance dying, who knows how much longer it will take now
Rafale and Gripen are more expensive and in many ways, less good. There is a reason why noone is buying them, or even if they did, they still want to buy more F-35.
Why do you think the entirety of Europe has ordered so many F-35.
The reason for Germany is that other aircraft, by choice, have not been certified for use with US nuclear weapons.
Nuke capability is irrelevant for most countries(rafale has a nuke capable variant, though only for French nukes). Take a look at its operators
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II_operators
Everyone who can get it(allied to the US), has already ordered it or will soon. The only exceptions are Sweden and France, who wanted to maintain some degree of strategic independence and not lose their jet fighter building capability. And Spain, though Spain was also kinda thinking of getting F-35 too(before Trump).
Canada was like Sweden and France, they could manufacture capable planes. But this is immensely expensive. Thats why Canada(and most countries) stopped doing it. This is why the F-35 is cheap, economies of scale, and why countries are willing to wait 5+ years to get it(while rafale and Gripen are basically readily available).
Europe wanted to coast through 5gen planes by using the F-35 while skipping ahead and developing, 2 completely different apparently, 6gen planes by 2040ish.
The PM agrees with The Globe and Mail once and now they think they’ll get two in a row?
The US can remotely disable them whenever they damn well please anyway, and can not be trusted not to.
Everyone should be canceling their orders immediately, and disable the remote access capabilities to the ones they have.
Nobody should have ever purchased military equipment with that feature.
Has it actually been confirmed they can do this? I would assume they backdoor them, but usually backdoors are secret.
They require software updates for every mission, that are distributed from the US.
You can probably fly / use it without those, but you lose all the advanced command & control features
Let me guess… microsoft designed it.
“It’s military-grade”
« You need to take off RIGHT NOW! » « I can’t . Upgrade in progress ! »
Post on TechHelp:
"I keep hearing the missile connecting and disconnecting.
Has anyone got the latest driver for a Sidewinder AIM-9L?"
They don’t function without phoning home to a US-controlled server every 24 hours.
Give is to Empress, she’ll knock out a crack in no time.
Razor 1911
Well shit that’s an easy fix. Redirect it to your server.
You have the private keys?
I’m willing to bet a country, especially ones involved in the production, aren’t going to have too much trouble.
Some high ranking US intelligence dude said something along the lines of that yeah. I dont think anyone has hacked into one of them to check or reverse engineer the code tho.
100% TODAY! Do not pay a fucking dime of any amount owing for these. (good job on Globe and Mail for a change)
FYI, the Israeli version of F35 does not have this “US permission for every flight required”
F35 is a POS plane, with low uptime, in addition to “broken ownership”. Even US military does not get manuals on how to repair/maintain them and must hire Lockheed consultants to do the job. The whole program was a boondoggle to pay Lockheed the most money possible instead of getting good military equipment, and any corrupt POS that was involved in approving this purchase for Canada should be jailed for treason.
There’s nothing stopping Canada from getting the manuals and patching the software. Most of the FUD about it’s performance abilities is propaganda. So getting them and just locking out Lockheed and the US would be a pretty good middle finger too.
The performance metrics are criticisize by US military journals.
There’s nothing stopping Canada from getting the manuals and patching the software.
If US military can’t get them or patch the software, Canada can’t either. Israel is special for not putting up with US BS.
I haven’t seen that. I’ve only seen blogs saying stuff. And if you have the literal hardware in your hands then changing the software isn’t going to be hard as a country.
This is the one that starved pilots of oxygen, right?
That was the F-22 and it was over a decade ago. The problem has since been fixed.
American here. Who cares if it provokes Trump? Actions have consequences. Canada helped out a lot during 911. What did we do? Prove to be an unreliable partner
I don’t think Canada should be basing their defense decisions on the opinion and thin skin of the American government. Trying to force Canada, in any way, to purchase F35’s is fishy - not that that’s happening, of course.
Canada’s interests are for Canada. Not them. Also, maybe Canada should reboot their ventures into the Avro Arrow program again. That’ll ruffle some feathers. Canadian engineered military = quite formidable, I think.
Canadian engineered military = quite formidable, I think.
Here’s the bad news. It’s not. Sure, we’re good at peacekeeping, and we deploy to support (militarily) our allies. But we’re using US gear and we’re woefully underfunded because war budget has been declared a waste by even the parties who strut and posture about a strong military. We only needed to fulfill our NATO obligations, for decades, and even that has been a struggle we haven’t won consistently with the low budget.
And while we’re skilled enough and gung-ho, and our 1st Pioneers are about the most scary bunch of lumberjack commandos you’ll ever see, there’s just so few of them, and again their gear has been called old and out of repair by every administration campaigning because the last one never did a thing about it.
We’re gonna need a lot of funding and training and gear to make up the shortfall in people and powpow toys, and that’s a slice of gov pork that Milhouse is gonna latch onto knowing that he doesn’t need an army once he gives the country over. Justin doesn’t want to spend that, but he - and please God let it be Mark next - is really gonna have to.
But how do we sell it to the “hair guy bad” flatlanders steeped in 12 years of hating Justin for not being a pseudo-aristocratic milquetoast conservative?
Any NATO member increasing their military spending would be idiotic to spend their money with US-based companies.
With tariffs hammering F-35 sales, I expect the next Eurofighter project will have a lot more resources. I wonder if Canada will get involved.
Sweden also offered to get us building our own Gripens totally locally. The page for the bid is even still up
I assume we already have pilots trained in flying the F-35 at this point, which sucks if we’re never getting them, though.
This would be amazing for us to bring back military building here in Canada!!
Especially since the Americans are the ones who convinced us they had enough fighter jets to take care of us so we could/should cancel the Arrow. :/
Absolute bozo move to not go for this in retrospect. They need to give this a look again asap
If I had hair, I definitely would have been pulling it out at the time. It’s not like this situation came out of nowhere, but normalcy bias won the day.
Nah, y’all should accept delivery then refuse to pay. Give him a taste of his own medicine.
So take the planes, send Trump the bill, when he acts confused you tell him he should really be more grateful about this
“have you said thank you even once”
Maybe he should get Mexico to pay for it.
I mean, without American replacement parts I don’t know how flyable they are. Stiffing the US on something is an option for next play, though.
Edit: So, correction. Interestingly it looks like the US is actually dependent on others for parts itself, and Japan has a good helping of all the parts in the whole plane being built domestically, so maybe not all is lost there. (This link looks legit, but disclaimer that I’m unfamiliar with it and you can’t always tell at a glance post-AI)
That being said, the software is definitely closed-source, and all their design.
A Trump never pays his debts
ooh no, it might provoke the person who is back stabbing us at every conceivable opportunity
Hell yeah they should. We need to be able to defend ourselves against southern aggression, and the F35 is compromised based on what Trump himself threatened.
With a potential for an american invasion on the table, I wouldn’t want to cancel that deal without another similar plane deal lined up
While I do not believe the US will actually invade Canada, I don’t imagine the F35 would be much help in that situation. I am sure there are remote access capabilities to cease their operation, at the very least.
While I do not believe the US will actually invade Canada
Until a few weeks ago I did not believe the US would impose tariffs on Canada or call it the “51st state,” so…
The tariff go around happened last time, which is how we ended up with the NAFTA replacement. The “51st state” nonsense was projected previously, which is more about his ego and his belief that he has a lot of support in Canada.
Edit: I suppose I should expect reality to be offensive to people at this point, yet I’m still surprised. That’s my fault. Continue living in fantasy land, ya’ll, and I won’t interfere with the truth again.
You have to enter a password to start up the F35. That password changes every day and USA needs to give these passwords. Locking a country out of the plane is as simple as stop sending the new passwords.
Hmm, opinions on the internet on if that’s true are mixed at best. It’s a level of control I’d be shocked anyone would accept. Someone on Quora is saying most countries weren’t even happy Lockheed Martin manages the supply chain and maintenance software.
the potential for an invasion is precisely the reason you don’t want the f-35 around. that warbird is the most technologically dependent device ever crafted for warfare. it is deeply vulnerable to an adversary with the knowledge simply bricking it remotely and you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the us military wouldn’t brick all of them. the better plan is to train with prior gen jets and asymmetric combat using drones.
Don’t forget the Gripen. There’s a great offer for domestic production still on the table, and it’s the asymmetric stall-an-invasion fighter.
Put the funds from that cancellation toward a contract with Ukraine for advanced drone technology and the capacity to manufacture it domestically.
Russian drones are better. Fiber optics overcome all radio jamming. Destroys all the things. Ukraine does not have excess production. Canada peace with Russia means that NORAD is us protecting the US, instead of allowing their BS that they are protecting us. US should pay a lot for NORAD.
that doesn’t really make sense given that the situation is that the US and Russia are aligned and Canada is not aligned with them. if Canada were aligned, the F-35s wouldn’t be a concern at all
If they were serious about invasions they wouldn’t deliver. We’re better off with Gripens IMO but she’s an even more expensive option.
Immediate cancel. After attitude readjustment, accept bids from Lockheed and others.
I don’t think an invasion could realistically happen. 1. Need congress to authorize a war that would impact U.S. soil and 2. need the military which isn’t under trumps thumb
But making sure they have another deal is smart, probably delay the f-35, and get maybe the euro fighter or so. Solid planes and itd be horrible for U.S. to lose a military contract in NA to an EU. Get the military industrial conplex pissed at trump.
There’s a hell of a lot of “Congress has to authorize” that’s being blatantly ignored right now.
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the President has a 30 day authority to use the military anywhere in the world. After 30 days he needs congressional authority. He can get a second 30 days while that’s going on and if Congress says no then he has to remove all troops within a final 30 day period.
If Congress never says anything then he effectively has a blank check.
Your best bet would actually be to run TV Ads trying to get the military to refuse the order. I think a large percentage actually would. I also think he’s going to invade Mexico first and if he does invade Canada he’ll do it like the Russians did Ukraine. (They told their troops it was a training mission and then only told them at the border that it was real)
Let’s do it and replace them with MiGs 🤨
