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.)
Well, let me be the one to surprise you and tell you that this is exactly how software and encryption keys are loaded onto the aircraft.
At no time would any combat aircraft have an operating system which even has the capability to receive software updates wirelessly, that would be an incredible vulnerability during wartime.
It requires a specific device that looks like it was made in the 1980s and deletes itself if it is bumped too hard and this device has to be directly connected to NSA controlled infrastructure in order to be loaded with any updates. The resulting material is loaded onto the device and physically carried by an Airman in the wing’s comm squadron and they are escorted by at least one other service member from the secure terminal where it was loaded directly to the aircraft.
It’s uploaded via internal connections (which may or may not look to be from the 80s) which are accessed by a maintenance hatch on the belly of the plane. Once the hatch is closed, if it is opened again at any point the aircraft will dump all of the key material and the resulting party will have a lot of paperwork and counseling to deal with and some other set of airmen will have to repeat the entire process all over again.
This has to be done for pretty much every flight, the aircraft cannot even start without this package of key materials and software. This process is fairly standard and used on a lot of equipment, as most equipment needs keying materials to function due to all of the datalink and/or telemetry systems.
It is likely that the Secretary of Defense was referring to their understanding of how this system operates and how they have scientists and engineers and the resources to reverse engineer any components. They have intact and working copies that they can tear apart and none of these systems are magic, they’re just secret and obtaining an intact war plane to reverse engineer is incredibly difficult in normal times. The Dutch have plenty of intact war planes to study.