F-35 ACURL Mission data reprogramming Oz, UK & Canada?

Management of Australia’s Air Combat Capability—F-35A Joint Strike Fighter Acquisition 24 Sep 2012 Australian National Audit Office

http://www.anao.gov.au/~/media/Files/Au ... 0OCRed.pdf (4.7Mb)

"...2.63 Mission data reprogramming for Australian, Canadian and United Kingdom F-35 aircraft is to be conducted at a yet-be-developed Australia–Canada–United Kingdom Reprogramming Laboratory (ACURL). The ACURL is currently planned to be located at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, USA, and operated collaboratively by approximately 20 personnel from each of the ACURL partner nations, with the support of approximately 50 US personnel. The ACURL’s acquisition and sustainment costs are to be split equally between the ACURL partner nations.99

99 The United States will operate its own reprogramming laboratory for its own significantly larger F-35 fleets.

2.64 At the time of the audit, the NACC IPT was collaborating with Canada and the UK to develop a Statement of Requirements for the JSF Program Office to design and construct the ACURL. The NACC IPT was also developing a Statement of Requirements for Australian in-country reprogramming for unique capabilities not provided by the ACURL. The remaining elements of the situational-awareness system, such as F-35 sensor suite integration, displayed data fusion, and development of the Helmet Mounted Display system, remained under close managerial scrutiny by the JSF Program Office...."
&
“...4.8 As of 2008, the Partner Reprogramming Laboratory was estimated to cost some US$500 million (then-year dollars), and was scheduled for development between 2009 and 2017. Each partner nation committed US$610,000 as its share of costs for the first two years, with cost shares for remaining years yet to be determined. By June 2012, AIR 6000 spend under the Partner Reprogramming Laboratory Annex was US$620,000.

4.9 The Partner Reprogramming Laboratory for the Commonwealth partner nations (namely the UK, Canada and Australia) is to be known as the Australia–Canada–United Kingdom Reprogramming Laboratory (ACURL). A recent Non Advocate Review by the JSF Program Office has reaffirmed the requirement for reprogramming laboratories, and the JSF Program Office has initiated a design review process that will lead to a refined cost basis. The outcome of this activity, and therefore the final ACURL costs, will not be known until mid-2013. As at August 2012, the latest estimated cost of the ACURL was US$600 million....”

Hidden F-35 Kill/Disable Switch?

Exclusive: U.S. to withhold F-35 fighter software codes
Tue Nov 24, 2009

(Reuters) - The United States will keep to itself sensitive software code that controls Lockheed Martin Corp's new radar-evading F-35 fighter jet despite requests from co-development partners, a senior Pentagon program official said.

Access to the technology had been publicly sought by Britain, which had threatened to scrub plans to buy as many as 138 F-35s if it were unable to maintain and upgrade its fleet without U.S. involvement.

No U.S. partner is getting the so-called source code, the key to the plane's electronic brains, Jon Schreiber, who heads the program's international affairs, told Reuters in an interview Monday.

[...]

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/ ... JX20091124

Could this not be a concern for someone buying them. Anyone know exactly why it's so secretive, even between allied nations?

spazsinbad wrote:I can see you have not read the information nor acknowledged the 'kill/disable switch' BS. What is it with you?

The linked pdf has not loaded yet.

Perhaps you could paste the relevant points and confirm that no such switch exists.

Does the software secrecy apply to the F-35I too?

Shirley the excerpts at the forum URL explain aspects of the matter? How about you go to about the time frame on this forum of the initial 3 YEARS OLD news report and rummage around there for probably responses to the BS 'kill/disable switch'. Where did you get this notion? Respond.

cerberus wrote:Could this not be a concern for someone buying them. Anyone know exactly why it's so secretive, even between allied nations?

There are all sorts of things you don't need out there if you are the US/LM. That programing is worth billions of dollars. You don't want someone ripping off the hard parts (sensor fusion ect) and then pasting it onto their flight control laws for a Eurofighter.

Or in the case of Israel selling it to China.

bigjku wrote:There are all sorts of things you don't need out there if you are the US/LM. That programing is worth billions of dollars. You don't want someone ripping off the hard parts (sensor fusion ect) and then pasting it onto their flight control laws for a Eurofighter.

Or in the case of Israel selling it to China.

Despite what some people claim, 4.5++ or 5th Gen solutions are not really plug-play and do not run Windows 8 Avionics Edition

We could translate this into a more narrow example;
If an F/A-18F was fitted with EODAS and Panoramic display, sensor fusion etc. How close do you think it would be to F-35 level combat effectiveness in a high-threat environment? It would be an improvement, then again a F-16 has been known to successfully dodge 6 simultaneous SAMs, but that is not the preferred strategy.

bigjku wrote:

cerberus wrote:Hey I'm just saying that it could be a concern for someone buying them. Anyone know exactly why it's so secretive, even between allied nations?

There are all sorts of things you don't need out there if you are the US/LM. That programing is worth billions of dollars. You don't want someone ripping off the hard parts (sensor fusion ect) and then pasting it onto their flight control laws for a Eurofighter.

Or in the case of Israel selling it to China.

At least Israel sell it. ITT give China money when they hand it over.

My personal view is that something associated with stealth is located in that software. Perhaps there's more of an electronic element to it than first meets the eye. Sensor fusion is cool but it's not really 'difficult' in broad terms.

neurotech wrote:

bigjku wrote:There are all sorts of things you don't need out there if you are the US/LM. That programing is worth billions of dollars. You don't want someone ripping off the hard parts (sensor fusion ect) and then pasting it onto their flight control laws for a Eurofighter.

Or in the case of Israel selling it to China.

Despite what some people claim, 4.5++ or 5th Gen solutions are not really plug-play and do not run Windows 8 Avionics Edition

We could translate this into a more narrow example;
If an F/A-18F was fitted with EODAS and Panoramic display, sensor fusion etc. How close do you think it would be to F-35 level combat effectiveness in a high-threat environment? It would be an improvement, then again a F-16 has been known to successfully dodge 6 simultaneous SAMs, but that is not the preferred strategy.

I agree it is not plug and play. Was talking much more from a commercial point of view. The US would not want to just hand that over to people and neither would the major contractors.

So where did this 'kill/disable switch' BS come from 'cerberus'? Out of Africa?

Curiosity. I don't think 'sensor fusion' has much to do with the secrecy.

I've looked at sensor fusion and it contains some moderately complex mathematical algorithms and control theory processing methodologies but it's more a case of a good application of common knowledge, as opposed to secret knowledge. It may have escaped your unquestionable grasp of science but sensor fusion has been widely used in the commercial sector internationally for years. It isn't classified military technology.

cerberus wrote:Hey I'm just saying that it could be a concern for someone buying them. Anyone know exactly why it's so secretive, even between allied nations?

Why source code is so secret? Because it's extremely hard to get such complex software working well, but very, very easy to copy if you have the source code..

And I think you're underestimating how difficult it is to deal with combining all the sensor information and processing it in a way the pilot can understand and work with under stress. It'd also be extremely easy to find the holes in all the F-35's sensors since if you have the code, you would then know exactly how it determines what is a threat and therefore would know what would have to do to avoid being detected.

And I think people are being overly sensitive... we get a lot of people coming and asking the same idiotic questions and trolling when their assumptions about the F-35 are systematically discredited, but I don't think this is quite a case of that.

The thing is it's smart not to release source code, that's giving away intel to anybody who can get their hands on it.

Granted we're selling it to our allies, but as long as you give them open API's to integrate weapons / etc.

That's all you really need, it's no different from developing for windows on a fundamental concept level.

We don't know how every aspect of windows OS works, we don't know the source code, we don't need to know either other then known behavior, exceptions, etc.

That's more than good enough to work against accurately without creating another potential security leak.

So what civilian systems use real time sensor fusion? I'd be interested in knowing.

Have yet to get subject code for the auto's, and televisions I have purchased.

Prinz_Eugn wrote:Why source code is so secret? Because it's extremely hard to get such complex software working well, but very, very easy to copy if you have the source code..

And I think you're underestimating how difficult it is to deal with combining all the sensor information and processing it in a way the pilot can understand and work with under stress. It'd also be extremely easy to find the holes in all the F-35's sensors since if you have the code, you would then know exactly how it determines what is a threat and therefore would know what would have to do to avoid being detected.

And I think people are being overly sensitive... we get a lot of people coming and asking the same idiotic questions and trolling when their assumptions about the F-35 are systematically discredited, but I don't think this is quite a case of that.

Appreciated. Copy and paste, or 're-usable modules' as they're called, are a programmer's dream.