A widespread concern is what would happen to Dutch weapon systems if the Americans were to withdraw completely as an ally. For example, Dutch F-35 aircraft are dependent on American software updates. Yet, Tuinman isn’t particularly worried about this.
“The F-35 is truly a shared product. The British make the Rolls-Royce engines, and the Americans simply need them too.” And even if this mutual dependency doesn’t result in software updates, the F-35, in its current state, is still a better aircraft than other types of fighters.
If you still want to upgrade despite everything, I’m going to say something I should never say, but I will anyway: you can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone. (Crack it with your own software, ed.)
Constant software updates is like one of the main features SAAB boasts on it lol
These mainly aren’t actually “engineer changes two lines of code” updates. These are actually more like internal database updates. Every time an F-35 or Gripen is flown, it generates data about itself and I believe also about the other planes it’s up against. This gets synced to other F-35s (or Gripens) for their future missions.