The UK government has reaffirmed its ability to operate its fleet of F-35B Lightning II jets without external restrictions.
In response to a parliamentary question from Liberal Democrat MP David Chadwick, Defence Minister Luke Pollard stated that “the UK maintains the freedom of action to operate the F-35 Lightning at a time and place of our choosing.”
The assurance addresses long-standing concerns over the operational independence of the aircraft, which is developed by Lockheed Martin and integrates various US-made components and software. The UK remains one of the key international partners in the F-35 programme and is currently operating the aircraft from both land bases and the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.
With 37 of the first 48 jets already delivered, the UK continues to strengthen its carrier strike capability while maintaining strategic autonomy over its advanced fighter fleet.
A bit of context
Amid growing tensions between Europe and the United States over NATO commitments and the war in Ukraine, speculation about a so-called F-35 “kill switch” has resurfaced. The claim suggests that the U.S. could remotely disable or restrict the operation of allied F-35 aircraft, raising concerns about military sovereignty among operators such as Germany and Canada.
While no evidence supports the existence of such a function, discussions have been fuelled by the aircraft’s reliance on networked systems like the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) and its successor, the Operational Data Integrated Network (ODIN). These systems manage logistics and maintenance rather than operational controls.
Policy restrictions on international F-35 operators add to these concerns. U.S. regulations prevent foreign users from conducting independent testing outside of American-controlled environments, reinforcing Washington’s influence over the aircraft’s advanced capabilities. While this does not equate to a “kill switch,” it highlights the degree of reliance on the U.S. for operational control and sustainment.
No one in their right mind would build a back door into a defence asset, just asking for exploitation by an opponent.
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I agree building a kill switch into the aircraft systems is strategically nuts especially when an export embargo on spares and support will ground the jet in weeks.
However I do not believe given the expertise of U.K. and European defence contractors British Aerospace , Rolls Royce and Leanardo , they cannot reverse any part on Jet. Given time and money.
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shame about the American producer’s being slow to deliver the U.K ORDER. they clearly have a bias for the orders from elsewhere even though the u.k is the only tier one nation left in the project
Mmmmm… Spares? Logistic support? Software updates? EW updates?
Nonsense. I’m sure there isn’t a literal kill switch, but all manner of vital parts could simply stopped being shipped over by the US and that would mean all our F-35s bricked
And that is the real issue.
As spares are all centrally owned to cut costs….they is no sovereign reserve of parts.
Which means if ALIS is cut off and the parts don’t appear you have a very expensive runway ornaments quite quickly.
ALIS is almost long gone, say hello to ODIN.
You understand that F-35 parts are manufactured here and shipped to the US as well? The rear fuselage section is built in Lancashire. It’s a collaborative programme, we’re not just buying US kit.
exactly. the UK has NOTHING to worry about in this regard. the US uses british components as well which could be shut off as retaliation. the US isn’t gonna screw over the UK. US aid is already flowing back to ukraine. if trump were an actual russian asset he wouldn’t have restarted aid- he didn’t HAVE to do that.
As well as 15% of F-35 made in the UK, there’s also parts made in Italy and NL.
👍Exactly!
I do very well understand that.
I’m also pretty clear that Trump isn’t acting totally rationally.
Musk hates F35 anyway.
That’s Shadow-President Musk SB!
I still think the second F35B tranche will happen, and no more orders will follow.
You’ll see Trump even more pissed if it doesn’t, given the % we have in the program and the money it makes the UK.
I agree we are so far in to F35B and QEC that we have to order enough to bring up to 72.
But I see, as you do, an order for Typhoon coming up to keep sovereign capabilities alive.
The 25 will keep The Tangerine Toddler happy. Bear in mind he has often referenced the value for money of the QECs and he will love that plus ‘Merican jets.
Agreed. So many, but then no more. We’d not be able to operate 138 anyway, neither were we meant to.
Yes, a Typhoon order is very much needed. The F35 order for me is a given. I’ll be very happy with the Typhoon order. Very happy.
Elephant in the room is the 12 billion coming out of our budget for GCAP development over a decade.
I hope the 2.5% can cover it?
The 2.5% is about 6 billion a year. That could cover an order of 24 Typhoons in 2027, assuming there’s still a hot line. It could even recruit and train some new pilots. However, nuclear will take away about £2bn a year assuming we don’t ramp up to cover the lack of US cover. Then there’s the increase in munitions production GBAD, service accommodation, and any left field capabilities the SDR brings up. Then there’s the black hole.
It could cover it, but it will be vying with a lot of other projects for budget. My guess is that extra expenditure in this area, if any, will go towards tranche 2 upgrades.
Ummm…obviously The Donald has a mercurial temperament and has demonstrated a transactional governing philosophy, however, he does not exercise unconstrained decision authority in all areas, particularly in defense procurement. The US MIC is an entity of enormous proportions, influence and inertia. Always wager w/ and on the arms merchants. Confidently predict minimal changes in the structure of major programs including AUKUS and F-35. Commerce/bottom line trumps (🙄) virtually every other consideration.
“Mercurial temperament” is a bit over-polite.
“Deranged self-obsessed psychopath” would be closer.
That might be true but the reason we are the only tier one partner is because we committed billions of £ into the aircraft’s development.
The workshare is based upon that developmental investment.
I’d like to see the next tranche of F35Bs being slightly increased- say another 48 and then stop. Enough to replace the harrier fleet numerically and provide some spare airframes for attrition and to equip both QEC battlegroups with a theoretical surge of upto 36 F35Bs each and some spares for other RAF and army air support missions. The ideal total number should be around 96 airframes.
The requirement for another tranche of Typhoons 48 aircraft is pressing- especially in order to bridge the gap from tranche 1 retirement (virtually already a done deal) to GCAP/Tempest. UK combat airpower must be rapidly increased, especially as peace in Ukraine looks unlikely, Putin is holding out until his forces have retaken all of Kursk and much more Ukrainian territory or in fact completed their conquest of the entirety of Ukraine.
The great Orange Messiah seems to have unbelievably failed to calm the snake charmer that is Putin. Putin has run rings around Trump consistently and is making the the Pres look dumb.
Any Russian victory in Ukraine will be a deeply foreboding episode and inevitably lead to Mad Vlad thinking he is invincible and can go on to take the Baltics, eastern Poland and Moldova as a minimum.
When exactly are we going to be undertaking a rearmament programme? because right about now would be sensible if we are not going to be known as Ethelred the unready.
I think we will probably see a further 12 ordered taking the number to 60..as essentially this is the exact number needed for 3 full squadrons of 12, an OCU of 12, the test and evaluation squadron of 3 and a 20% sustainment fleet ( 9 ).
That’s essentially the lowest possible realistic number of aircraft for the present aspiration of 3 squadrons and the minimum requirements for generating a full Air wing. I suspect further orders will very much depend on a couple of factors
1) how much airframe hours are stacked onto the fleet ( potentially requiring a full set of replacement aircraft if your talking a 50-60 year fleet life)
2) if the UK decide to go for 4 squadrons ( this would require another 14 aircraft)
3) if the 6th generation programme runs into trouble.
Never thought it would for me. We simply could not afford it. This just put the final nail in the coffin.
looks like Portugal is seriously thinking twice about ordering F35
Canada too
problem is Canada already passed the order and made some first payments, so they are stuck with it
whereas Portugal still hasn’t chosen a replacement for their F16
I understand that Canada has only signed for 16 of the proposed 88. So they could stop at 16 & top up with Typhoon, Gripen, Rafale or KF21.
Canada would then operate two aircraft with different training, support, and maintenance requirements. Not likely to happen.
Politics may over ride.
UK operating Typhoon and F35 shows that a complementary approach is not just viable but cost effective given the different costs..
Why am I not surprised…..there may well be no ‘kill switch’ in an F35B but Trump has found the ‘kill switch’ for US arms exports….
He may have single handedly saved the A400M. Which was as good as dead with order cancellations in the wind. Poland I think would have gone C130. Not anymore I think.
The guy is a Messiah at least for Airbus military.
Portugal’s buy of 28 aircraft won’t be missed.
Are the US media worrying that they can’t operate their F-35s independently because the latter integrates various UK-made components and software (such as the electronic warfare suite)? Somehow I doubt it.
Great point – two can play that game.
It is a sign of the times the question has been asked, only a year ago it would have been unthinkable.
Unfortunately the Europeans do not manufacture all the parts for the F35 to my knowledge, so that gives the UK a real problem as we need the F35B for the RN carriers considering just how unreliable the US is at the moment
So the next question is could we get the Typhoon to land and take off on one of our QE carriers ?
Ouch!!
The US doesn’t manufacture all the parts for the F35 either. If BAE stopped shipping them parts then they’d have a real problem. But none of this is at all plausible. There is no ‘navalised’ Typhoon, even if there was we’d need to fit cats and traps to operate it and the aircraft is in any case much less advanced and capable than the F-35.
India was offered a STOBAR Typhoon in 2011.
Our European partners have been relatively unreliable for decades. Even since the invasion of Ukraine 3 years ago the Germans have been blocking increased aid to Ukraine, in a much more problematic way than USA.
Nothing other than political rhetoric from Trump (mainly aimed at his taxpaying voter base), who is actively trying to do a good thing in getting Europe to up defence spending, would suggest the US is an unreliable partner. They have a very fair point in that Americans have for decades subsidised Europe’s defence.
A sad state of affairs it is. The 500m people of Europe are asking the 330m people of USA to defend them from the 140m people in Russia who are struggling to defeat the 35m people in Ukraine.
I’m still not sure what we actually get for being a “Tier One” partner in F35 other than 15% of value by parts manufacture. Other countries have final assembly lines, maintenance lines. Israel is allowed it’s own test aircraft in Israel and access to the source code to modify the F35I.
Whereas we, the only country to participate and contribute to the R&D seem to just be another operator.
Or am I missing something? (BTW I’m actually a fan of F35 and I think the B is the right choice for us.)
You kinda answered your own question. We take part in and have access to the R&D plus, 5th gen know how abd industrial expertise. All that is more valuable than a final assembly line. The know-how for us to be even able to contemplate producing our own 6th gen fighter comes largely off the bak of the experience gained from being a tier 1 F35 partner.
Access to source code
I read a very good article on War Zone recently about this Kill Switch issue. Pretty much agreed with the consensus on here, it doesn’t exist. However, the article did point out the ALIS /ODIN are more than just logistical databases / maintenance tools. They also collect operational data from end users (except Israel apparently). The data is then used to update operational practices especially with regards to mission planning for best stealth performance against any encountered threats.
So If the article was correct, then turning off ALIS / ODIN would make the aircraft far less effective operationally, so not a kill switch but a potential dumbing down switch with real operational impacts even if we could reverse engineer spare parts. Building a replace of ALIS / ODIN would complicated and expensive. Makes you wonder what we are doing to stealth mission planning for Tempest..?
Cheers CR
ALIS/ODIN also works out and controls the aircraft’s maintenance schedule. You could revert back to a paper manually entered version to control the maintenance lifecycle. But it is not as robust as the computerised system and mistakes may go unnoticed for days/weeks.
F-35 sales are likely to tank unless customers get Israeli levels of digital autonomy. Whether there is or isn’t a kill switch is not important. The fact that Trump has them worried means they will believe there could be a kill switch. ALIS/ODIN being the obvious route for it. No country is going to pay $140m for an F-35A or $160m for an F-35B, if they think Trump could ground it on a whim.
How did the Israel version, “I”, be so independent when we aren’t?
The Jewish lobby in USA has far more leverage than any supply partner or former Ally. It’s been like that for decades.
Shame he was lied to
The f35 is hamstring by its supply chain.
Has anymore information came to light about the explosion/ fire at Barrow in light of the fire at the sub station in London??
The GPS capability can be disabled. Not a kill switch but certainly not helpful either.