Why does the U.S. share?
- Thread starter Mr tech
- Start date
I think that the USA is actually being fairly cautious at the present time re the sharing of technology as demonstrated by its refusal to sell the Raptor to any other country, including its closest allies.
Re the F-35, the US is only making this available to close allies and even then it may well be that other countries will not get full access to all of its features.
Tas
Re the F-35, the US is only making this available to close allies and even then it may well be that other countries will not get full access to all of its features.
Tas
No they are giving away signature reduction technology, the stealth as used on the F35 JSF is only similar in that the materials used to coat the outside of the aircraft is similar but not the same as thge B-2 or F117.
They are sharing the aircraft because of the huge cost associated with any new system, by sharing the cost the US pays less, that means your taxes dont go up.
Most of the "Special Electronics" either come from the Raptor or were developed by the other countries.
They are sharing the aircraft because of the huge cost associated with any new system, by sharing the cost the US pays less, that means your taxes dont go up.
Most of the "Special Electronics" either come from the Raptor or were developed by the other countries.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #4
Thanks, sounds reasonable.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #5
So is it visible but not as much? Thanks.
Edit: No delete posts? Sry for double post...
Grand Danois
Entertainer
Because otherwise the Euros would build their own stealth jet.
So the technology is not "given away." That would be a misconception.
Becouse in other case EU might produce own stealth aircraft... and even if not, they will just buy EF-2000. You should understand what any USA weapon abroad is kind of political "force projection" in USA advantage.
If we speak about developed countries like EU - the trick here is not to BUY weapon, the trick here is to SELL one...
1) For money. You don't give them away (except to a few states you're trying to buy the co-operation of, such as Pakistan), you sell them, at a profit. If you ban Boeing & Lockheed Martin from exporting combat aircraft, their shareholders will be very upset, & the Pentagon will have to pay more for what it buys from them.
2) To pre-empt potential rival projects. If the USA sells the UK, Italy, etc. stealthy fighters with AESA radars, those countries don't spend the money to develop their own. This keeps their abilities in both stealth & AESA under-financed relative to the USA.
In the case of the F-35, the stealth technology is part-financed (though only a small part) by the foreign partners, some of which have their own stealth technology. The UK, for example, is the only Tier 1 partner because in the 1990s it built - and showed to the USA - a stealthy engineering mock-up, which US engineers agreed proved that the UK had the technical ability to build its own stealthy fighter.
They're not giving anything away. Other countries have RAM, & the maths of shaping aircraft for radar LO were in the public domain long before anyone actually tried putting them into practice. Don't forget that Germany secretly built a fighter technology demonstrator in the 1980s, using F-117 style signature reduction (but aerodynamically superior to F-117), without even knowing the F-117 existed. The Germans independently invented the same techniques.
Which was?
A spinoff of MBB TKF-90 (ECA, EFP, whatever they were called over the times)?
Because other than that, i can't think of any fighter demonstrators in the 80s. And TKF-90 involved discussion on pretty much anything available technologywise in the late 70s / early 90s at some point, including V/STOL, TVC, traversable gun turrets (!), digital avionics (remember, mid-70s still came analogue), glass cockpit and so on - so i'd definitely believe it there
The MBB Lampyridae. Didn't fly - except an unpowered 3/4 size aerodynamic model tethered in a wind tunnel, but with a pilot. An RCS test model was built full-size. Hardware didn't get beyond the RCS & aerodynamic demonstrators.
Revealed to the USA in 1987, cancelled soon afterwards. Some of the research team got very bitter about it, & when the secrecy was lifted in 1995, claimed the project was cancelled due to US pressure.
The aerodynamic testbed is here - http://www.f-104.de/
Bundestag meeting minutes from when it was revealed -
http://dip.bundestag.de/btd/13/021/1302113.asc
Clearly, a slight misunderstanding here. You read what I wrote as meaning a flying demonstrator, which isn't what I meant. Sorry to have given that impression.
Super Nimrod
New Member
Wasn't there some story that the Germans thought they had invented something unique and quietly raised it with the Brits who suggested that they should speak to the USA as they were working on the same stuff ? No doubt the full story will out at some point in the future.
Technology exchange is renowned for being a two way street anyway. Its been said that the UK is pretty good at inventing new weapons technology, but due to budget restrictions they rarely have the money to put it into practice so it gets given to the USA to develop in exchange for something else that they want access on. I suspect that its not just the UK that does this, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan they may well all do the same thing and even just occasionally Francenfloorl: :unknown
Technology exchange is renowned for being a two way street anyway. Its been said that the UK is pretty good at inventing new weapons technology, but due to budget restrictions they rarely have the money to put it into practice so it gets given to the USA to develop in exchange for something else that they want access on. I suspect that its not just the UK that does this, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan they may well all do the same thing and even just occasionally France
nfloorl: :unknown